The Men of World War II

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  The order to postpone went out to the Allied convoys, which were under strict radio silence, in a variety of ways. Lt. Benjamin Frans, USN, was gunnery officer on the destroyer Baldwin. The Baldwin was still in Portland when the word came down. She set sail at flank speed to catch up with the leading convoys. When she did, the executive officer called over a bullhorn to the skippers of the transports and landing craft, “The operation has been postponed. Return to base.” Baldwin caught up to the minesweeper in the van when it was within fifty kilometers of the French coast.19

  Lieutenant Rockwell was headed toward his rendezvous point when a picket boat came alongside LCT 535 and handed him a message: “Post Mike One.” That meant turn around and go back to harbor. “So we all turn around. Hundreds and hundreds of ships of various sizes.” About midday, he got back to Weymouth.

  For Rockwell, the postponement “was a blessing in disguise. There had been some collisions during the night. Delicate landing and launching gear was damaged, engines needed replacing or servicing.”20 Rockwell’s own LCT 535 needed a new engine. He managed to get it in place before nightfall.

  Ens. Sam Grundfast commanded LCT 607. He got the order to abort by flag signal. “Imagine the confusion, those hundreds of landing craft trying to get into Portsmouth harbor. We were jammed in. You could walk across that vast harbor going from boat to boat.”21 Making the sight even more vivid, every craft and ship had a barrage balloon waving in the wind overhead. The balloons were connected to the vessels by steel cables. Their purpose was to keep the Luftwaffe from making low-level passes at the fleet.

  • •

  For the troops, June 4 was a terrible day. The men of the 4th Infantry Division spent it at sea—there was not time to go all the way back to Devonshire if Eisenhower decided on a June 6 landing. The transports and landing craft circled off the Isle of Wight. Waves broke over the sides, rain came down. The men were combat dressed with nowhere to go. No one wanted to play craps or poker or read a book or listen to another briefing. It was just misery.

  In the harbors, or up the rivers, where the ships and craft could drop anchor or tie up to one another, the men were not allowed off their vessels. They sat, cursed, waited. “We bitched up a storm,” Private Branham of the 116th Regiment recalled, “because we wanted to go. We wanted to go. This sounds crazy, but we had come this far, we’d been sitting in England so long, we wanted to get this thing over with and get the hell home.”22

  “The waiting for history to be made was most difficult,” Pvt. Clair Galdonik recalled. “I spent much time in prayer. Being cooped up made it worse. Like everyone else, I was seasick and the stench of vomit permeated our craft.”23

  The airborne troops had their feet on solid ground and were under cover from the rain, but they too were unhappy. They had got ready, made their last weapons check, packed their equipment, when word came down that the mission was off. Major Howard wrote in his diary: “The weather’s broken—what cruel luck. I’m more downhearted than I dare show. Wind and rain, how long will it last? The longer it goes on, the more prepared the Huns will be, the greater the chance of obstacles on the L[anding]Z[one]. Please God it’ll clear up tomorrow.”24

  Some of the enlisted men in Howard’s company went to the movies. They saw Stormy Weather with Lena Horne and Fats Waller. The officers gathered in Lt. David Wood’s room and polished off two bottles of whiskey. Twice Lt. Den Brotheridge, commanding the first platoon of D Company, fell into a depressed mood. Wood could hear him reciting a poem that began “If I should die. . . .”25

  Pvt. Edward Jeziorski of the 507th PIR, 82nd Airborne, checked and rechecked his equipment. “Then, I remember vividly, I took my girlfriend’s picture out of my wallet and taped it inside of my helmet, thinking it would be much safer there.” When word of the cancellation came down, “some guys were relieved a little bit, but for most of us it was just a true misery to be held over. We were all anxious to make a move.”26

  Sgt. Jerry Eades of the 62nd Armored Field Artillery Battalion, on an LCT, got back to Weymouth late on June 4. “Of course we didn’t know what was going on, but everybody was just cussing and raising Cain about another dry run. Here they had wasted another day.” Sergeant Eades was Regular Army. He knew the Army had its ways, that “hurry up and wait” was the lot of the soldier, so he told one of his privates, “What the hell, we have a lot of days to waste.”27

  Lt. James Edward of the 115th Regiment got back to port in Plymouth that afternoon. “This presented a sight not to be forgotten, just wall-to-wall ships, tied up together for lack of space. What a target, if only the Germans had known.”28

  Actually, there was one German raid that night. A squadron of four German bombers braved the storm and flew over Poole, also jammed with ships and craft. Lt. Eugene Bernstein, commanding an LCT(R), recalled that these improbable strays “were greeted by a bombardment from the ships that must have amazed them. The sky was ablaze with antiaircraft fire.”29

  • •

  Rommel spent the day on the road. He arrived in Herrlingen in time to go for a walk in the twilight with Lucie. She was trying out her new shoes, her husband’s birthday present. General Salmuth of the Fifteenth Army was hunting in the Ardennes. General Dollmann of the Seventh Army was on the road to Rennes, to get ready for the map exercise scheduled for June 6. General Feuchtinger of 21st Panzer Division, accompanied by his operations officer, was on his way to Paris to visit his girlfriend. The Germans had penetrated some of the Resistance groups in France and were picking up a few of the coded phrases being broadcast to the Resistance telling the groups to prepare to go into action, but there had been so many false alarms in May, the tides in the Strait of Dover were not right, and the weather was closing in so fast that they gave the messages no great credence. As one of Rundstedt’s intelligence officers put it, it would be absurd for the Allies to announce their invasion in advance over the BBC.30 Before leaving for Rennes, General Dollmann canceled a planned alert for the night, feeling that the weather precluded an invasion. On many previous nights in May, his troops had been on full alert.

  • •

  A part of the 2nd Ranger Battalion was on board an old Channel steamer, the Prince Charles (the ship had carried rangers into the Anzio beachhead in Italy in January). It spent the day circling off the Isle of Wight. The British skipper told Lieutenant Kerchner, “They’re gonna have to run this thing shortly, or we’ll have to go back. We’re running out of food and fuel.” According to Kerchner, “The British food wasn’t all that good, so that didn’t worry us too much, but the fuel did.”31

  It worried Admiral Ramsay even more. When Eisenhower had decided to postpone, the admiral had warned the supreme commander that no second postponement could be made to the 7th because the fleet would have to refuel. That meant Overlord had to go on June 6 or Eisenhower would have to accept a fortnight’s postponement for the next favorable tide, on June 19.

  That evening, June 4, Eisenhower met in the mess room at Southwick House with Montgomery, Tedder, Smith, Ramsay, Leigh-Mallory, Bradley, Gen. Kenneth Strong (SHAEF G-2), and various other high- ranking staff officers. The wind and rain rattled the windowpanes in the French doors in staccato sounds. The mess room was large, with a heavy table at one end and easy chairs at the other. Coffee was served and there was desultory conversation.

  At 2130 Stagg came in with the latest weather report. He had good news; he said he anticipated a break in the storm. General Strong recalled that at Stagg’s prediction “A cheer went up. You never heard middle-aged men cheer like that!”32 The rain that was then pouring down, Stagg continued, would stop before daybreak. There would be thirty-six hours of more or less clear weather. Winds would moderate. The bombers and fighters ought to be able to operate on Monday night, June 5–6, although they would be hampered by scattered clouds.

  When he heard that, Leigh-Mallory lost his enthusiasm. He urged postponement to June 19. Eisenhower began pacing the room, head down, chin on his chest, hands clasped behind
his back.

  Suddenly he shot his chin out at Smith. “What do you think?”

  “It’s a helluva gamble but it’s the best possible gamble,” Smith replied.

  Eisenhower nodded, paced some more, stopped, looked at Tedder and asked his opinion. Tedder thought it “chancy” and wanted to postpone. Again Eisenhower nodded, paced, stopped, turned to Montgomery and asked, “Do you see any reason for not going Tuesday?” Montgomery looked Eisenhower in the eye and replied, “I would say—Go!”

  The high command of the AEF was split. Only Eisenhower could decide. Smith was struck by the “loneliness and isolation of a commander at a time when such a momentous decision was to be taken by him, with full knowledge that failure or success rests on his individual decision.” Eisenhower paced, chin tucked on his chest. He stopped and remarked, “The question is just how long can you hang this operation on the end of a limb and let it hang there?”

  No one spoke up to answer that question. Eisenhower resumed pacing. The only sounds in the room were the rattling of the French doors and the rain. It hardly seemed possible that an amphibious attack could be launched in such weather. At 2145 hours, Eisenhower gave his decision: “I am quite positive that the order must be given.”33

  Ramsay rushed out to give the order to the fleet. Eisenhower drove back to his trailer to catch some sleep. By 2300 hours every vessel in the fleet had received its order to resume sailing. D-Day would be June 6, 1944. By midnight, June 4/5, the convoys began forming up. Admiral Ramsay issued an order of the day to every officer and man in his fleet: “It is our privilege to take part in the greatest amphibious operation in history. . . .

  “The hopes and prayers of the free world and of the enslaved people of Europe will be with us and we cannot fail them. . . .

  “I count on every man to do his utmost to ensure the success of this great enterprise. . . . Good luck to you all and Godspeed.”34

  • •

  Eisenhower woke at 0330 hours, June 5. The wind was shaking his trailer. The rain seemed to be traveling in horizontal streaks. According to Stagg, the rain should have been letting up. He dressed and gloomily drove through a mile of mud to Southwick House for the last weather meeting. It was still not too late to call off the operation, to have the fleet return to safe harbor and try again on June 19—and if the storm continued, that would have to be done.

  In the mess room, steaming hot coffee helped shake the gray mood and unsteady feeling, but as Eisenhower recalled, “The weather was terrible. Southwick House was shaking. Oh, it was really storming.”

  Stagg came in and to Eisenhower’s delight “He had a little grin on his face. He never laughed very much. He was a fine man. And he said, ‘Well, I’ll give you some good news.’ ”

  He was even more certain than he had been five hours earlier that the storm would break before dawn. But the bad news was that good weather was only likely through Tuesday; Wednesday could be rough again. That raised the danger that the first waves would get ashore but the follow-up units would not.

  Eisenhower asked for opinions, again pacing, shooting out his chin. Montgomery still wanted to go, as did Smith. Ramsay was concerned about proper spotting for naval gunfire but thought the risk worth taking. Tedder was reluctant. Leigh-Mallory still thought air conditions were below the acceptable minimum.

  The ships were sailing into the Channel. If they were to be called back, it had to be done now. The supreme commander was the only man who could do it.

  He resumed pacing. Some of those in the room thought he paced for as long as five minutes. Eisenhower thought it was about forty-five seconds: “I’m sure it wasn’t five minutes,” he later said. “Five minutes under such conditions would seem like a year.” He reviewed in his mind the alternatives. If Stagg was wrong, at best the AEF would be landing seasick men without air cover or an accurate naval bombardment. But to postpone again would be agonizing and dangerous. The men had been briefed; they could not be held on their transports and landing craft for two weeks; the risk that the Germans would penetrate the secret of Overlord would be very high.

  Typically, Eisenhower’s concern was with the men. “Don’t forget,” he said in an interview twenty years later, “some hundreds of thousands of men were down here around Portsmouth, and many of them had already been loaded for some time, particularly those who were going to make the initial assault. Those people in the ships and ready to go were in cages, you might say. You couldn’t call them anything else. They were fenced in. They were crowded up, and everybody was unhappy.”

  Eisenhower went on, “Goodness knows, those fellows meant a lot to me. But these are the decisions that have to be made when you’re in a war. You say to yourself, I’m going to do something that will be to my country’s advantage for the least cost. You can’t say without any cost. You know you’re going to lose some of them, and it’s very, very difficult.”

  He stopped pacing, faced his subordinates, then said quietly but clearly, “OK, let’s go.”35

  And again, cheers rang through Southwick House.36 Then the commanders rushed from their chairs and dashed outside to get to their command posts. Within thirty seconds the mess room was empty, except for Eisenhower. His isolation was symbolic, for, having given the order, he was now powerless. As he put it, “That’s the most terrible time for a senior commander. He has done all that he can do, all the planning and so on. There’s nothing more that he can do.”37

  Eisenhower fortified himself with coffee and breakfast, then went down to Portsmouth to watch the ships starting out and the loading process for the follow-up units. He walked up and down the wharves. Shortly after daylight, the rain stopped, the wind began to die down. At midday he returned to his trailer, where he played a game of checkers on a cracker box with his naval aide, Capt. Harry Butcher. Butcher was winning, two kings to one, when Eisenhower jumped one of his kings and got a draw. He thought that was a good omen.38

  After lunch, Eisenhower sat at his portable table and scrawled by hand a press release on a pad of paper, to be used if necessary. “Our landings . . . have failed,” he began, “and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”39

  • •

  Rommel spent a quiet June 5 with Lucie. He gathered wild-flowers for a birthday bouquet. His chief of staff, Gen. Hans Speidel, prepared for a party at the chateau in La Roche-Guyon that evening. He called various friends to invite them, saying in one case, “The Old Man’s gone away.”40 General Dollmann was in Rennes, ready for the map exercise to begin early on Tuesday morning. General Feuchtinger was in Paris, where he intended to spend the night with his girlfriend before driving to Rennes the next day. Other division and regiment commanders of Seventh Army had farther to travel and began setting out in the afternoon for Rennes.

  On June 5, General Marcks called Col. Frederick von der Heydte to his headquarters. He said he was too worried to leave his troops that night; he would set out for Rennes at first light and wanted Heydte to join him.41 Just outside Caen, Colonel Luck of 21st Panzer Division gave out orders for a night exercise for one of his companies, “in accordance with the plan of training every company in turn for night action.”42

  (Over in the Cotentin, other companies were also preparing for night exercises. The rifles would be loaded with wooden “bullets.” GIs who later picked up clips of this “ammunition” were furious with the Germans. The GIs believed that the wooden bullets were designed to inflict horrible wounds and were a monstrous violation of the laws of warfare. Actually, the wood was soft balsa that would not penetrate a body but would indicate where the bullet hit.)

  In Berchtesgaden, Hitler had a routine day. As Gen. Walter Warlimont, deputy chief of staff to General Jodl, later wrote, “On 5 June 1944 . . . German Supreme Headquarters had not the slightest idea that the decisive ev
ent of the war was upon them.”43

  • •

  On the afternoon of June 5, the Allied airborne troopers began dressing for battle. Each rifleman carried his M-l (either broken down in a padded case called a Griswold container or already assembled), 160 rounds of ammunition, two fragmentation hand grenades, a white phosphorus and an orange-colored smoke grenade, and a Gammon grenade (two pounds of plastic explosive, powerful enough to damage a tank). Most carried a pistol—the paratroopers’ greatest fear was getting shot out of the sky, next was being caught on the ground at the moment of landing, before they could put their rifles into operation—plus a knife and a bayonet. An unwelcome surprise was an order to carry a Mark IV antitank mine, weighing about ten pounds. The only place to fit it was in the musette bag, which led to considerable bitching and rearrangement of loads.

  Machine gunners carried their weapons broken down, and extra belts of ammunition. Mortars, bazookas, and radios were rolled into A-5 equipment bundles with cargo chutes attached. Every man carried three days’ worth of field rations and, of course, two or three cartons of cigarettes. One sergeant carried along a baseball. He wrote on it “To hell with you, Hitler,” and said he intended to drop it when his plane got over France (he did).44 There were gas masks, an ideal place to carry an extra carton of cigarettes (Capt. Sam Gibbons of the 501st PIR stuck two cans of Schlitz beer in his).45 The men had first-aid kits with bandages, sulfa tablets, and two morphine Syrettes, “one for pain and two for eternity.” They were also handed a child’s toy cricket with the instructions that it could be used in lieu of the normal challenge and password. One click-click was to be answered with two click-clicks.

  Pathfinders would go first to mark the drop zone with a gadget called the Eureka/Rebecca Radar Beacon System, which could send a signal up to the lead C-47 in each flight. Cpl. Frank Brumbaugh, a pathfinder with the 508th PIR, had not only the sixty-five-pound Eureka to carry, but two containers with carrier pigeons. After he set up his Eureka, he was supposed to make a note to that effect and put it in the capsule on the first pigeon’s leg, then turn it loose. He was told to release the second pigeon at 0630 with information on how things were going. But when he got to the marshaling area, he discovered he had no way to feed or water the pigeons, so he let them go. Stripped, Brumbaugh weighed 137 pounds. With all his equipment, including his main and reserve chutes, he weighed 315 pounds.46