The year was 1944, and World War II was raging. Hitler’s armies had torn through Europe, gaining control of most of the mainland. Allied forces from at least 13 different countries had been tirelessly working on a plan to invade France for months. They knew a successful invasion was paramount to winning the war.
After repeated postponements for bad weather, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, finally gave the go-ahead for D-Day to commence on June 6th, 1944. While you might have heard different interpretations over the years, in military terms, “D” literally stood for “day”—the term “D-Day” was the date an important military endeavor was set to begin. In this case, it was Operation Overlord (a.k.a., the Battle of Normandy). Military historians recognize this campaign as the most pivotal battle of World War II, and it is the “D-Day” most civilians are referring to when they use the term.
The first stage of Operation Overlord, in which troops landed on Normandy Beach, was itself code-named Operation Neptune. It was the largest amphibious operation in history, with more than 4,000 ships, 11,000 warplanes, and 156,000 Allied troops involved in the invasion.
Hitler, knowing Normandy was a critical target, intended to heavily defend the coast and had already begun to construct underwater obstacles and minefields around it. But bad weather had grounded much of the Luftwaffe (Nazi air force) on June 5th, making the German gun batteries littering the coast easy targets for the bombers of the Allied forces. At the same time, the Allies were heading to the Normandy beaches for Operation Neptune, in an attempt to capture the port of Cherbourg. More than 2,200 British, Canadian, and American bombers launched a massive air assault, dropping more than 5,000 tons of bombs meant to take out the coastal fortifications. Minesweepers cleared channels, dummy parachute drops were deployed, radar-jamming devices launched, fake operations were run, all in order to draw the Germans away from the real attack.
Makes me think of every spy movie I’ve ever watched. To think of the planning and precision it took to successfully pull everything off is absolutely mind-boggling. Risk (the board game) has nothing on the real thing!
“Soldiers, sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force:
You are about to embark on the great crusade toward which
we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.
The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you …
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle.
We will accept nothing less than full victory.”
—General Dwight D. Eisenhower
No doubt those words were still ringing in the ears of the brave men manning the Allied ships as they crossed the English Channel, preparing to give their all in the invasion of Normandy. The Allies had dropped 24,000 paratroopers behind enemy lines shortly after midnight, followed hours later by landing over 130,000 soldiers on the beaches. After their landing crafts had been blown off target by high winds, the Allied forces attacked with ferocious tenacity, like a swarm of locusts breaching the gates of hell itself. Braving five-foot waves, loaded down with packs weighing 60-80 lbs, often full of explosives, these courageous sea-sick men plunged—or due to the waves, toppled—into the icy waters of the English Channel. The troops who weren’t immediately swept away (many men drowned in those first minutes) faced heavy gunfire from the German emplacements, and a beach littered with mines, barbed wire, and even wooden stakes set in place in hopes the power of the waves would impale invading soldiers on them. 
The Allies sent 160,000 troops into that hellish scene; 4,900 of them are known to have perished, and thousands more were wounded or reported M.I.A.
I’d like to introduce you to Elton V., a WWII veteran. He passed away last year, but before he did, he shared some of his memories with his physical therapist, Rafael Pardeiro, who happens to be a friend of mine and who, in turn, shared them with me. Elton was one of the heroes on D-Day who lived to tell his story.
Born and raised on a farm in the small town of Tipton, Oklahoma, Elton enlisted in the military fresh out of high school. He was one of many on a troop boat on D-Day that landed in an area where the Germans were dug into fox holes or sheltered in pillboxes. Unlike some of the more western beaches with steep embankments, the soldiers who landed with Elton were fortunate to be on even terrain with the Germans.
Elton said there wasn’t time to think about anything, or aim at anyone in particular; you just ran, zigzagged, dropped, rolled, crawled, and shot in the Germans’ general direction. The battle was so intense he didn’t even have the time to process how frightened he was; he remembered thinking there was no way they could have ever trained or prepared for a battle like the one in which they found themselves. Wounded comrades and friends would drop to his left and right, but there was no way to stop and help them—anyone trying to do so was also shot. He would see pillboxes exploding ahead in the distance, as the Allied ships in the Atlantic continued to shell the German strongholds. When they finally approached the trenches where the Germans took cover and fired at the advancing Allied soldiers, Elton and his brothers in arms would throw in grenades and shoot at anything that moved.
It wasn’t until afterwards, when he turned around and saw what he had survived, that it even began to dawn on him he had been taking another human’s life. He described what it was like to walk back over the battle-torn beach and see body parts strewn about. How the bodies of the Germans being gathered into carts and stacked up seemed unreal.
The sacrifice—both of those who lived through the invasion and those who perished on the beaches of Normandy—was not in vain. Over the next few weeks, the Allied forces continued to gain territory into France, eventually liberating Paris on August 25, 1944, and successfully laying the groundwork for the liberation of German-occupied France, and then all of Europe, from Nazi control.
Elton went on to fight other battles in the war (including the well-known Battle of the Bulge) and when the Allies were finally victorious and it was all over, he returned to farming in Oklahoma. When my friend Rafael asked how he was able to cope with everything he endured, he replied, “Everyone was in the war, so our therapy was talking to each other about the war. Our wives soon got sick of hearing about it.”
From safely behind my computer screen, curled up in a dry, cozy house, I can hardly imagine the horrors of this moment in history. It’s devastating to stop and think about all the men and families that were literally torn apart in a matter of hours. Nothing I could pen could ever come close to describing the terror they faced … I can only be thankful they were willing to do and give whatever it took. Without their bravery and sacrifice, it’s very possible that life as we know it today would be unrecognizable. While war is never something we desire, it is sadly often necessary to protect the freedoms we all hold dear.
Today—June 6th, 2019—marks the 75th anniversary of the heroic accomplishment of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy in Operation Neptune. Considering some of these men were just 18–20 years old, they may well be among the nearly half-million WWII survivors (according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) estimated to still be living today. If you happen to know any of these brave men, please take time out of your day to acknowledge their participation in your freedom. Let them know their heroic deeds are not forgotten, and heartily thank them for being willing to sacrifice everything.
For more information about the historic 75th anniversary, visit the D-Day website. And if you happen to be heading that direction and would like to visit the National D-Day Memorial commemorating their sacrifice, it’s located at 3 Overlord Circle, in Bedford, Virginia, the small town that sustained the highest per capita D-Day losses of any in the nation.
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