“Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.”
Those are the words that began President Dwight Eisenhower’s order to American troops prior to the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944: D-Day.
What Eisenhower didn’t share was the letter he had written just in case the invasion effort failed.
World War II veterans from the United States, Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since those D-Day landings helped lead to Hitler’s defeat. Few witnesses remain who remember the Allied assault.
As historic accounts describe, Operation Overlord, the code name for the Battle of Normandy, involved a 1,200-plane airborne assault preceding an amphibious assault. Approximately 160,000 Allied troops were to land across five beaches: Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, and Utah, with British, French and American airborne forces landing inland.
“There was no assurance that it was going to work,” said Darryl Nelson, Grand Traverse County commissioner. “I think people really understood that they were fighting evil.”
Later this month, Nelson is planning to travel with a group of friends to visit war monuments in France, including Normandy, in remembrance of what happened there 80 years ago.
“When I wake up tomorrow, and think about how those guys woke up, it’s not going to be lost on me.”
What he is learning leading up to that trip has been overwhelming, Nelson said.
“How do you incorporate what they went through, standing there looking at the crosses in the cemetery?” he asked. “During that whole invasion, over 425,000 soldiers on both sides were injured, killed or went missing.”
Nelson said it’s important to remember what D-Day is about.
“You start to ask yourself, have I lived my life in a way that deserves their sacrifice?” he said. “... All of us can sit on the side and complain, but doing something, that’s what we need to do, using our God-given talents to help the world.”
Peter Schmitz of Traverse City said his father, Joseph Schmitz, was a pilot in the U.S. Navy during WWII.
His father, who died at the age of 78 in 2001, didn’t talk about his experiences in WWII when he got back home, except to say the planes he flew and the places he went.
“They were doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” Schmitz said. “It’s mostly about the fact that they went to defend our values: Freedom and the Constitution.
“We need that in 2024 more than we have in my lifetime.”
Cam Williams of Traverse City warned against repeating the mistakes of the past. She said her father served in the 10th Mountain Division, a group deployed to Italy in WWII.
“The important thing is to remember, because the minute we don’t remember, we’ll repeat the same mistakes,” Williams said. “If we don’t know the past, it’s just going to repeat itself.”
Historic accounts say the invasion of Normandy by the Allied troops dealt a psychological blow, one that prevented Axis forces from expanding on the Eastern front, turning the tide and helping to end the war.
“I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle,” Eisenhower’s order to the troops concluded. “We will accept nothing less than full victory!”
