73rd Anniversary of D-Day

Today marks the 73^rd anniversary of D-Day. On this day—73 years ago—“4,000 ships, 11,000 planes, and nearly three million soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors assembled in England for the assault.”  The invasion succeeded, but success was not a foregone conclusion. Failure was as likely an outcome. Eisenhower wrote a note on June 5, 1944, accepting responsibility for the failure. (He mistakenly dated it July 5.)   It is doubtful in our era that we have leaders who would willingly accept such blame.

The first quote mentions the marines; students of history will question this as there are no stories of heroism by the U.S. Marines on D-Day. And if the Marines were involved, such stories would abound. By 1944, the Marines were masters of the amphibious assault. The Marines trained the Army in how to conduct amphibious landings in North Africa, Italy, and, yes, Normandy. But the Marines did not play a large role in the European Theatre. The Marines had their hands full in the Pacific, and they were much smaller than the Army; the Marines had six divisions in WWII compared to the 89 divisions of the Army. Some, however, attribute the Marines not playing a large role in Europe to the Army’s jealousy from WWI where the Marines received a lot of press for the success of the Battle of Belleau Wood. Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley were WWI veterans. I don’t know if there are any facts to back this up. I’ve always thought the Marines played a larger role in the Pacific Theatre because they are part of the Dept. of the Navy and the Navy, by virtue of the nature of the Pacific Theatre, played such a large role in the Pacific.

But today we ignore the pettiness that rules man, and remember those who did the unthinkable and broke the Nazi stranglehold on Europe.