June 6, 2024, marks the 80th anniversary of “D-Day,” the Allied landings on the Normandy coast of France. We tend to make a great deal of decennial anniversaries, and this one, in particular, deserves a special salute. Given that the youngest soldiers, sailors, and airmen who served on D-Day were, with rare exceptions, no younger than 18, those who are still with us today are only just shy of 100 years old. When the 90th anniversary rolls around, it’s unlikely that we’ll have any survivors left from the ranks of those who saw action on that day.
The ceremonies will be extensive. The D-Day landings involved U.S., British, and Canadian forces, so it’s fitting that these countries are prominently represented. President Biden will attend, as part of a state visit to France. King Charles will be there as well, as well as Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau. As a sign of how the world has moved on since World War II, Chancellor Scholz of Germany will take part in the ceremonies. These dignitaries and many others will participate as guests of President Macron of France. But current events have also intruded. (READ MORE: Reagan Remembered)
Although the Soviet Union was a World War II ally, Russia’s representatives have not been invited, while Ukrainian President Zelensky will attend. Invading your neighbor, we’re reminded, isn’t something to be celebrated on such an anniversary. As for recalling sacrifices made on the Eastern Front in World War II, a Ukrainian presence is certainly justified. After all, some of the biggest battles in the east were fought in what is now Ukraine, with some 14 million Ukrainians killed during the war. Seven million Ukrainians served in the Red Army, including the man who planted the flag atop the Reichstag building in Berlin in 1945.
So there’s much to remember, much to discuss, and much to reflect upon as we commemorate the D-Day landings. And this may well be the last such grand occasion before D-Day is relegated to the history books altogether. It’s not just the veterans themselves who are passing from the scene; the ranks of their children, the ones for whom soldierly recollections had immediacy and poignancy, are also starting to thin. At 80 years on, D-Day stands exactly equidistant between ourselves today and 1864, the climactic year of the Civil War. It’s a long time ago, a very different world.
Normandy Trenches
But as we celebrate one of the most decisive battles of modern history, perhaps we should also take a moment to recall the battle for Normandy in all its fullness. The events of D-Day itself have long captured our imaginations, replete as they are with high stakes and high drama. Movies such as The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan have embellished our appreciation of the invasion as a narrative, but there is absolutely no doubt that the fight to secure a beachhead was an event of massive importance. In retrospect, it’s almost impossible to imagine how the war might have turned out had the invasion failed. Would the Allies have won? Likely enough, given their preponderance of material resources, but would victory have been so decisive? That’s very hard to say, and anything less than a decisive victory might well have given us a very different world than the one we’ve enjoyed for the last 80 years.
Still, while the battle could have been lost had the landings failed, their success in no way guaranteed the victory that ensued. The U.S. Army counts the “Normandy campaign” as having lasted from June 6 until July 24. The latter date is hugely significant. From the morning after the landings onward, the invasion had devolved into a slow and brutal slugging match, the Germans trying to contain the Allied lodgment, the Allies grinding forward to expand it enough to enable a breakout. Just inland from the beaches was the bocage, a countryside of tiny fields bounded by hedgerows, sometimes only a football field apart, stippled by small villages and walled farms, each of them readily transformed into little fortresses, and, collectively, a mosaic of strongpoints that strongly favored the defenders. (READ MORE: The Hero Who Saved a Cathedral)
Soon, progress inland came to be measured in yards per day, rather than miles, an advance that recalled, painfully, the worst of the World War I trench fighting. The British and Canadians struggled for weeks, inching toward the strategic city of Caen, which planners had hoped to capture on the afternoon of D-Day. The Americans likewise bled steadily to make small gains, and even their great accomplishments, such as the capture of the critical port of Cherbourg and the crossroads of St. Lo, all came at horrendous cost.
To take one example, the 29th Infantry Division, which alongside the 2nd Ranger Battalion was the dramatic focus of Saving Private Ryan, suffered many more casualties before taking St. Lo. It was said after Normandy that the 29th, a Virginia and Maryland National Guard unit, actually consisted of three divisions: one in the field, one in the hospital, and one in the cemetery. Historian Carlo D’Este, one of the most respected chroniclers of the campaign, observed that after one month of hard fighting across the length and breadth of the beachhead, the battle had become a complete stalemate.
Hidden within that apparent stalemate, however, were the seeds of Allied victory. Command of the air and the sea meant that the Allied armies could be reinforced and expanded even more rapidly than those forces opposing them, crippled, despite their apparent logistical advantage, by relentless air strikes all along the roads leading to Normandy. Despite the tactical advantage of being on the defensive, the German divisions were being ground down just as viciously as their opponents, and with less in the way of reinforcement.
Those Who Died After D-Day Ensured Its Victory
As the British and Canadians pushed toward Caen, the Americans prepared for a massive offensive, known as “Operation Cobra.” Preceded by huge (and sometimes hideously misdirected aerial bombardment) Cobra began on July 25, turning the German flank, and breaking the German position wide open. The stalemate had been broken, and a new campaign had begun.
The costs had been immense. The Allies had lost some 4,400 men killed on D-Day; the Americans on Omaha Beach, but also the Canadians on Juno Beach had suffered grievously. The seven weeks that followed, however, dwarfed the suffering and the sacrifices of D-Day itself. With due allowance for the armies’ different end dates for the campaign, the battle for Normandy witnessed the deaths of some 20,000 Americans, 11,000 British, and 5,000 Canadians. (READ MORE: War: Where Men Win Glory)
So as we reflect upon the meaning of D-Day this week, and give due credit to those who stormed the beaches on the day itself, let’s also take a moment to remind ourselves that the battle for Normandy would require much more than that depicted in the opening half hour of Saving Private Ryan. The same grit and determination that carried men past the beach obstacles, across the minefields, and onto the heights above the beaches would be called upon again and again in the days to come. On this 80th anniversary then, let’s honor all those who won the battle of Normandy, those who gained the beachhead, but also those who saw the battle through to victory.
James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region, and a forthcoming sequel carries the Reprisal team from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.
