If D-Day Had Been Reported On Today
by William A.
Mayer
Tragic French Offensive Stalled on Beaches (Normandy, France - June
6,
1944) - Pandemonium, shock and sheer terror predominate today's
events
in Europe.
In an as yet unfolding apparent fiasco, Supreme
Allied Commander, Gen.
Dwight David Eisenhower's troops got a rude awakening
this morning at
Omaha Beach here in Normandy.
Due to insufficient
planning and lack of a workable entrance strategy,
soldiers of the 1st and
29th Infantry as well as Army Rangers are now
bogged down and sustaining
heavy casualties inflicted on them by dug-in
insurgent positions located 170
feet above them on cliffs overlooking
the beaches which now resemble blood
soaked killing fields at the time
of this mid-morning filing.
Bodies,
parts of bodies, and blood are the order of the day here, the
screams of the
dying and the stillness of the dead mingle in testament
to this terrible
event.
Morale can only be described as extremely poor--in some companies
all
the officers have been either killed or incapacitated, leaving
only
poorly trained privates to fend for themselves.
Things appear to
be going so poorly that Lt. General Omar Bradley has
been rumored to be
considering breaking off the attack entirely. As we
go to press embattled
U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
spokesman has not made himself
available for comment at all, fueling
fires that something has gone
disastrously awry.
The government at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is in a
distinct lock-down
mode and the Vice President's location is presently and
officially
undisclosed.
Whether the second in command should have gone
into hiding during such a
crisis will have to be answered at some future
time, but many agree it
does not send a good signal.
Miles behind the
beaches and adding to the chaos, U.S. Naval gunships
have inflicted many
friendly fire casualties, as huge high explosive
projectiles rain death and
destruction on unsuspecting Allied positions.
The lack of training of Naval
gunners has been called into question
numerous times before and today's
demonstration seems to underlie those
concerns.
At Utah Beach the
situation is also grim, elements of the 82nd and 101st
Airborne seemed to be
in disarray as they missed their primary drop
zones behind the area believed
to comprise the militant's front lines.
Errant paratroopers have been hung up
in trees, breaking arms and legs,
rendering themselves easy targets for those
defending this territory.
On the beach front itself the landing area was
missed, catapulting U.S.
forces nearly 2,000 yards South of the intended
coordinates, thus
placing them that much farther away from the German
insurgents and
unable to direct covering fire or materially add to the
operation.
Casualties at day's end are nothing short of horrific; at
least 8,000
and possibly as many as 9,000 were wounded in the
haphazardly
coordinated attack, which seems to have no unifying purpose or
intent.
Of this number at least 3,000 have been estimated as having been
killed,
making June 6th by far, the worst single day of the war which
has
dragged on now--with no exit strategy in sight--as the American
economy
still struggles to recover from Herbert Hoover's depression and its
25%
unemployment.
Military spending has skyrocketed the national debt
into uncharted
regions, lending another cause for concern. When and if the
current
hostilities finally end it may take generations for the huge debt to
be
repaid.
On the planning end of things, experts wonder privately if
enough troops
were committed to the initial offensive and whether at least
another
100,000 troops should have been added to the force structure before
such
an audacious undertaking. Communication problems also have made
their
presence felt making that an area for further investigation by
the
appropriate governmental committees.
On the home front, questions
and concern have been voiced. A telephone
poll has shown dwindling support
for the wheel-chair bound Commander In
Chief, which might indicate a further
erosion of support for his now
three year-old global war.
Of course,
the President's precarious health has always been a question.
He has just
recently recovered from pneumonia and speculation persists
whether or not he
has sufficient stamina to properly sustain the war
effort. This remains a
topic of furious discussion among those
questioning his
competency.
Today's costly and chaotic landing compounds the President's
already
large credibility problem.
More darkly, this phase of the war,
commencing less than six months
before the next general election, gives some
the impression that
Roosevelt may be using this offensive simply as a means
to secure
re-election in the fall.
Underlining the less than effective
Allied attack, German
casualties--most of them innocent and hapless
conscripts--seem not to be
as severe as would be imagined. A German minister
who requested
anonymity stated categorically that "the aggressors were being
driven
back into the sea amidst heavy casualties, the German people seek
no
wider war."
"The news couldn't be better," Adolph Hitler said when
he was first
informed of the D-Day assault earlier this afternoon.
"As
long as they were in Britain we couldn't get at them. Now we have
them where
we can destroy them."
German minister Goebbels had been told of the
Allied airborne landings
at 0400 hours.
"Thank God, at last," he said.
"This is the final round.
Cotton Nelson
Ben: can you tell Barrett I really would be interested in the
Fort
Benning record accounts of Soy/Hotton Dec. 22-24 1st Battalion
action
there * was where my father, Gerald Nelson, was
wounded.
Also, I have come across a wide angle b/w photo of the HQ
1st
Battalion group that my father had kept. I will try to get it
scanned
and put in electronic image form and send to you for posting on
the
517PRCT website. are there any graphic specifications (jpeg, tif,
etc.)
that work best for you/help you for posting? Cotton
Nelson
T. Cotton Nelson
Manager, Public Relations
National Cotton
Council of America
Karl Locker
Dear Mr. Barrett,
I am the son of the late Walter A. Locker, Jr. who served with the
517th PRCT. I would like to be added to your email list.
On behalf of my family, thank you very much, especially for your service to
our country,
Karl A. Locker
Rob Browning
Gentlemen,
I am inquiring as to the story behind how Cleo
Browning was killed. I am a distant relative of Cleo's, and am doing some family
history tracing. Several of my relatives remember Cleo, but don't remember, or
were never told of his demise. From a message I read on your sight dedicated to
the 517th, from Fred Beyer, he said he was in a foxhole with Cleo, and believe
he was killed. I looking at our Browning family plot out at the cemetery, his
headstone says:
Cleo N. Browning
Nebraska
PFC 517 PRCHT INF 17 ABN DIV
WORLD WAR II
Born--OCT 18 1921
Died--FEB 7 1945
Any help or information you could send my way would
be greatly appreciated. If there are any photos of him around those would be
appreciated also. Again thanks in advance for reading this. If you would
also send any info to my yahoo account instead of the e-mail address attached to
this it would be great!
Rob D. Browning
230 East 9th Street
Imperial, Nebraska 69033
Shelia Goodman
Hello Ben
I have not written for awhile but it just seems like I need too do
so now. My father was in Service Co. of the 517th. His name was
Pvt. Howard B. Goodman when he served. I finally got all his medals for my
Mother after all these years. He had five bronze stars. He died on
May 1, 1974 in Tracy, CA. He was from Lenora, Norton Co.,
Kansas.
I too am a veteran. I am 100% service connected. I am
proud to be part of this list and of the history that is only possible because
all of you gave so much so that we could be free. Thank you all so
much. Bless every one of you.
I have never heard from anyone who knew my dad but if any of you
did know him please write.
Sheila Goodman Shultz Reno, Nevada
Bob Barrett
I think that the disk that you sent me to copy is already a
copy that I made before. You might have the original
somewhere.
Anyway, I made you that copy, and kept another for
myself. I also created a "streaming" version, which I posted on the web
site, that anyone should be able to listen to right off the web page. Try
it. Go to the Archives page and see the new section of "Oral
histories". Let me know if that is OK.
I think I got all the names
of the interviewees except for the last one after you. It sounds like "Bob
Thornton" a private in I company, but I could not hear the name well. And
I don't see that name on the roster.