American History Hit - Eisenhower's Countdown to D-Day

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

On June 6, 1944, a combined Allied force carried out the largest amphibious invasion in history. They were led by an American.What was General Eisenhower's role in D-Day? How was American officer training key to the strategy used? And how did the British weather change everything?Don's guest is John C. McManus, professor of military history at Missouri University of Science and Technology and host of the podcasts 'Someone Talked!' and 'World War 2 Live'.Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. We're in southern England, the early days of June 1944. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force,

waits anxiously in his office for the latest meteorological report. The skies today are low and gray. It's been stormy. But this is England, where the weather can change by the hour. Nearby, in Portsmouth and all along England's southern coast, hundreds of thousands of allied troops stand ready to cross the English Channel into France. Ships crowd the harbors, paratroopers check their gear in silence. Air crews have memorized their routes and targets. When the invasion comes, these forces will face heavily fortified beaches and coastal defenses.

Hitler has spent years preparing for this moment, constructing the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of the inevitable Allied assault. And above it all, sits Eisenhower. with the success of the operation resting squarely on his shoulders. He has had to manage strong-willed generals, hold together a fragile international alliance, and withstand pressure from political brass on both sides of the Atlantic. But the greatest burden of all is knowing that should this invasion fail, the war would drag on for years with countless more lives lost.

I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hip. Thanks for listening. Our guest today is John C. McManus, professor of military history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, Go Miners. He is also the host of the excellent podcasts, Someone Talked, and World War II Live, which I really recommend. But without further ado, let's talk about the planning of D-Day. Hello, John, thanks for joining American History. I really appreciate your time. Hey, Don, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

I want to understand, first of all, what was going through, the Allied planners' heads pre-invasion. What was the state of the war in Europe mid-1944? Yeah, so mid-1944, obviously, the war is not going well for Germany at all. They've been basically kicked out of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. And I think it's important to remember that the Red Army has done, you know, really the bulk of the demolition of the German armed forces at that point. But at the same time, you know, they've absorbed massive losses. And it's a team effort, east and west, is one of the reasons why Germany is hard-pressed at this point. We've had the Mediterranean campaigns in which the Allies have invaded Sicily and then Italy,

North Africa before that. And so the idea is now the Western Allies are going to get a better foothold on the continent and liberate France and, of course, the rest of Western Europe. So planning for this has gone on for years by this point. But I guess the way we would put it nowadays is by the spring of 1944, it's all gotten real. You know, you've had this major buildup in England and enormous resources now devoted to this idea of carrying out what they felt was the most important amphibious invasion, really in human history. It is so important to understand what the Soviet Union went through in those years and this incredible turnaround that was going on. And for all those reasons, the Allies heavily doubted, you know, that there was going to be any leverage from that side at all, you know, given how it had gone in 41 and 42.

Yeah, and yet, you know, the Soviets who had, of course, been so hard-pressed in 40 and 42 were basically screaming for what they called a second front for the Western allies. And the way the Soviets thought of that was an invasion of France, you know, a bona fide cross-channel invasion of France, not the Mediterranean campaigns that we had, which were, you know, on a much smaller scale than what we're eventually going to have in Western Europe. So to them, they thought, okay, well, absolutely, you need to be doing your part. But of course, I think the other important thing to realize is that the Allies had absorbed, had a point of major resources to an aerial campaign, which is also one of the things that has led to Germany's decline at that stage. There's this enormous bombing of Germany and many parts of occupied Europe that's absorbed enormous resources and helped pave the way for this amphibious invasion. Now, that wasn't necessarily the intention for the air commanders. They wanted to win the war on their own, honestly, especially the Americans who wanted their own independent Air Force. But as it turns out, what really happens, too, is that the Lufwaffe, the German Air Force, gets ground down over time.

The Allies begin to gain control the air. And that obviously is imperative for any infamous invasion that you need to control the air because obviously that helps you control the sea. And that's where the Allies are by June 1944. For all of our incursions into Sicily and then Italy, as you mentioned, Nazi Germany can still put up a fight. They were deeply entrenched all those years, those good German engineers, you know, building those. fortifications and such, especially along the Atlantic. This is no pushover situation at this point. Absolutely.

I mean, that's the thing Germany was still really potent. And I've argued many times that Germany could still get, you know, something positive out of this war as of the spring in 1944. Meaning if the allies completely fail in their invasion of Europe, it kind of changes the dynamic in relation to how the Soviets are going to look at the war. And the amount of resources the Germans could, you know, send over. to the Eastern Front. And it's possible Hitler is able to salvage the better part of his empire at that stage

because he's dealing with a really kind of diminished Western Allied coalition. And so, of course, the Germans understand this, too, that there's a lot on the line. And as of the early months of 1944, they're going to get very serious about fortifying what they'll call, the German propaganda calls it the Atlantic Wall. It's basically a series of fortifications spanning from the larger southwest coast of France all the way to portions of Denmark and everywhere in between, in which, of course, the key parts, obviously, are the northwest coast of France, like Calais and Normandy and those areas that are the most likely places to invade. And so the Germans, you know, prior to that had been, you know,

spending most of their capital on the eastern front and also to deal with the Allies in Italy and North Africa. Now, they're really beginning to amp up those fortifications, the famous concrete pillboxes and bunkers that we associate with the Normandy of Asian. D-Day, but also beginning to send better quality formations West too and mobilize even more people. So, yeah, the German armed forces were a really dangerous beast as of the spring in 1944. Just as the success of the Russians sort of tips the balance towards the West, so did the failure of the Battle of Britain for Germany create this whole situation. I mean, that's what they were trying to avoid by taking over England.

This very situation is what they have dreaded, but new was coming. It was just a question of when and exactly where. Why was the U.S. so committed to this cross-channel invasion of Europe? And it goes back a year earlier, right? We've been eager to do this for a while. We have. I mean, actually, even since 1942, quite optimistically, over optimistically, the Americans felt we could launch an invasion of France, even though we really didn't control the sea,

we didn't control the air, we didn't have the landing craft, we didn't have the trained troops. You know, it would have been very difficult to do that. even in 43, we're not quite there yet. The Americans are thinking in terms of getting to the main resistance nest to Germany and destroying it. And they felt that the way to do that was straight through Western Europe and on into the industrial rour in Germany and on to Berlin. That the Mediterranean was kind of the margins, you know, a peripheral strategy.

And they also were very suspicious of British intentions there because of obviously British colonial involvement in North Africa and other parts of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and they didn't necessarily like the idea of fighting in those places for understandable reasons. The other thing, too, like from a hardcore military standpoint of American senior officers, this generation of American officers had really been trained, like in their strategic thinking, to get immediately to the nexus of enemy resistance. Like, in other words, you go straight to the, to the line of strength, and you destroy it right there. Not necessarily like frontal attacks, I'm not saying that, but you go to whatever is going to collapse enemy resistance the quickest possible way.

And that means for them an invasion of France and the destruction of German armed forces in that part of Europe. How does that differ from other strategy? I mean, what would be the other strategy than that? Kind of a flanking and peripheral strategy, almost like what the British were doing, to kind of gnaw at the margins and eventually use airpower in a way to collapse Germany, to have a kind of strategic war of maneuver to sort of spread out German resources and resistance at various places that you could invade in the Mediterranean and elsewhere,

they felt that the best way to collapse Germany was to destroy its armed forces and that this is the best way to do it. And also, so it kind of arkens back to the Civil War almost where the northern side kind of feels that Lee's Army in Northern Virginia is kind of the nexus of Confederate resistance and secessionism and not necessarily Richmond per se.

And I think in a World War II comparison, it is certainly the German industry and industrial capability, which is mainly in Western Germany, the industrial rurer, and obviously the German armed forces then become kind of the target for the destruction of Hitlerism. Yeah. Well, it's a complicated scenario here because we also have to make a choice between our fight in Europe versus our fight in the Pacific. And we had chosen a Germany first strategy in which. which we would end the war in Europe first, being the more immediate danger than the Japanese,

before we turned our intention to the Pacific. It's all about balance, isn't it? Just trying to work out this particular situation, and it's all going to land on one-man's shoulders, as we'll figure out. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's a great point, Don, because the United States is fighting a global war like no other country on World War II. Now, certainly Britain, Canada, Australia, yes.

But the United States is fighting at a scale that no one else could even approach. And so you've got major operations that are going on in the Pacific almost concurrently with the Norman evasions. For instance, the invasion of Saipan that happens nine days later in the Marianas campaign, which is an enormous campaign that for most countries, that would observe all their attention. And, oh, by the way, another thing that's happening in relation to what's going on to Europe. And of course, you know, yes, we've chosen the Europe or Germany first strategy, and that is the majority opinion. But there's still the Asia firsters, Douglas MacArthur and his advocates and are saying, you know, we need to be thinking about the Pacific and we need, you know, our futures in Asia and Japan is the country that attacked us. You know, there's all that. And so all that has been kind of sorted out by 1944 in favor, of course, of earmarking enormous amounts of of, of, of truth.

and material and weaponry and shipping aircraft to the stormy invasion. There's no question then among the alliance that with the American preponderance in this whole thing, that it must be an American commander. And that obviously, as you've alluded to, it's going to be Dwight Eisenhower, who had commanded the Mediterranean. It's such an incredible fact that we don't talk about that this enormous global war has nothing, we're not fighting this on our own turf at all. And that's an extraordinary factor.

That's sort of a separate conversation. But it's a gigantic global effort that we have to ship everything, men and supplies and everything from our homeland to these places to fight this war. And we do that by choice, of course. But it builds such an infrastructure to the American military that echoes forth to this day. Why were the Americans and British so divided over this invasion? Well, because the British had thought in terms of, you know, if you had this massive land campaign in Europe, it's a redo of World War I in their minds. And of course, that had really left a mark on the UK.

Britain suffers more casualties in the first day or so of the Somme campaign in 1916 that had had in most of its previous wars. Britain was generally a seafaring power fighting expeditionary land warfare, the exception being, you know, when they fight Napoleon in the early 19th century. But even that really doesn't compare to what comes 100 years. later during World War I. So you'd had a demographic catastrophe in Britain. And Winston Churchill, who, of course, had seen that right up front, you know, during

World War I, had no wish to repeat it. And so he's thinking in terms of we've got successful operations in North Africa. Why don't we enter Europe in an easier way through Italy? And maybe that'll be a kind of backdoor way to do something of the same kind of thing. And, you know, as it turns out, that's not quite a dead end, but not what he had hoped. and in the end it has to come down to this normally evasion. So that's the sort of difference between the British and the Americans. And also, as I mentioned earlier, you know, the Americans kind of thinking along this linear way,

this is the straight line to victory. And there's no way around it. And the Soviets, of course, agreed with them too. To them, a second front meant a real invasion of France. You mentioned the preservation of empire as being a motive behind their planning. Were they ever open about that or was that just an American suspicion? The British have to kind of be opaque about that because they know the Americans are really leery of their imperial outlook and preservation minded. Because of course Churchill, for all of his views of democracy and humanity, he's a frontline imperialist.

I mean, he is wanting to preserve the British Empire everywhere it exists. And so there is a level of kind of skepticism and suspicion there. But I would argue really more in Asia than in the European war, because, it's in places like India and Burma, China, of course, many British-controlled colonies throughout the Pacific, that the Americans are quite suspicious of British motives there. And that's where you see a real convergence and what they all want to do in relation to China, so on and so forth. In this case, it's the Mediterranean and the Middle East and the North Africa.

The Americans are very leery of losing our guys for the betterment of the British Empire long term because there was a sense, too, in World War I, that we had fought sort of to preserve the British Empire that we'd gotten involved in the war. And what had happened is it had kind of solidified and expanded the British Empire. And, of course, most Americans know, you know, that's where we originated, trying to get away from the British Empire, fighting a war, you know. So there was a natural, I think, reluctance there to get involved that way. And so there was no way you could ever argue if we're invading France.

And it has a thing to do with the expansion of the British Empire, of course. In a way, it's helping salvage the empire of one of our great allies, France. So that's the only imperial side of it, certainly not for Britain. But eventually the calls for strike across the channel become irresistible. And the game of chess focuses on the coast of France. High stakes bargain. The allies agree that this is going to bring their plan of action to bear. And after the short break, we'll come back to talk about how that goes.

Welcome back. we're speaking with John McManus of the Missouri University of Science and Technology about D-Day. 82 years ago this month, John, the Allies needed to appoint an overall leader, essentially to create this invasion. Enter Dwight D. Eisenhower. Why the man for the job? Yeah, this is the real interesting dynamic of the whole thing, because, of course, there are other aspirants for the job. Alan Brooke, who is the chief of the Imperial General Staff, a British officer, felt that Churchill had promised him command. Of course, he really hadn't. George Marshall, of course, is often thought it was a possibility.

He's the Army Chief of Staff, remarkable guy. But Dwight Eisenhower, of course, had been chosen by Marshall to command American and other Allied forces in the invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch, and, of course, subsequently, in the invasion of Sicily and the invasion of Salerno. So he already had that experience Eisenhower did

in the relationships he had forged. That was really his strength, the ability to forge relationships and create a kind of allied team because, you know, it could have been possible, that the British and the Americans, the Canadians, all these other folks would bicker and not be on the same team. Eisenhower was very good at pointing people in the right direction. So he already had that advantage of those relationships among the senior leaders and coming from many different countries and the kind of cachet of endorsement from Churchill, obviously Roosevelt.

He just seemed to be the obvious guy because he already had that kind of muscle memory of commanding a multinational force. And he had done very well. So Osnard was part diplomat, part strategist, part humanitarian. You know, he's really a kind of a big picture thinker. But I think, but I would say more than anything, he's a relationship guy. That is his very strength. He worked under or with Marshall and Douglas MacArthur. He'd been, you know, channeling through this whole miasma of the American military for

a generation, really, since World War I. Also very familiar with tank tactics, just like Patton. He was deeply engaged in the sort of redevelopment of the American military. military after World War I and what we had learned from that whole expedition. But as you say, very, very good was very skilled in organizational thinking, supply structure, all that stuff was his specialty. December 1943, so about six months before the invasion, he is appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. What was he doing prior to that? I'm curious. Yeah, so prior to that, he had been commanding Allied forces in the Mediterranean, and primarily,

the invasion of Salerno that had happened in September 1943 and the subsequent operations before that the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. Eisenar was overseeing all of that and you know I think reasonably well so he is in a way too it's quite interesting the whole dynamic of this thing in November 1943 Soviet British and American leaders

met at Tehran ironically enough in Iran for their first kind of joint conference in the war and one of the things that the Americans wanted to express to Stalin, Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader, is we're serious about this cross-channel invasion of France. And Stalin presses them and saying, okay, well, who's the commander? Because he knew if there's a commander, then it's kind of real. And he's like, who is he? What is his name?

And it's at that point that, you know, Roosevelt kind of has to commit to a person in charge. And he's like, well, it's going to be Eisenhower, you know. And so, you know, he even meets with Eisenhower subsequently. And he basically says, well, like, you're going to command overlord. and that's generally the code word for the invasion. So Eisenhower finds this out, you know, by December 1943, he goes home on a short leave. He hadn't seen his wife Mamie for the better part of about a year and a half or so. He had a son named John, who was a firstee, a senior at West Point, was about to graduate in the spring in 1944.

So that's his kind of last go. And then he's back in in England then by January 1944. Now, the interesting thing about this is, of course, Eisenhower isn't creating plans from whole cloth. All of this foundation had been set by a British officer named Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, who had been charged as of about mid-1943 with planning an invasion of France. And it's really Morgan and his crew who kind of come up with these original concepts and more or less select Normandy rather than Calais. So all of that is in place by the time Eisenhower comes to England to command this huge multinational force. But what he finds he's got to do is expand the

concept. Morgan and his people thought, well, we only have so much shipping, so maybe we can just get three divisions ashore and just a few landing beaches. Eisenhower and then his key land commander, Bernard Montgomery, who's also come from the Mediterranean, with whom he's worked there. They're going to expand that concept into what we know, the five landing beaches and the larger divisional concept because they have more shipping than we had thought possible in mid-43. And also, too, they're thinking, we need to have a kind of larger kind of beachhead. because otherwise the Germans are going to be able to focus on these kind of two or three small beach heads and maybe annihilate them in turn. The more you sped it out, the tougher it's going to be for them.

So it's going to be, you know, what's something of about a 60 mile front from the Cotentan Peninsula all the way to the Orange River and the eastern part of the British landing areas. It pops into my head the question that has come to mind since I was a child about this stuff. And my dad was in World War II. So these things were fascinating to me. how the heck would the Germans not know all this was coming when you were bringing all those resources to southern England for all that time? They must have known it up at all, right? I mean, they're right there. Well, they absolutely know it's coming by those early months of 1944. What they don't know is when and where.

And that's the whole game is to keep deceiving them as to when and where. They absolutely know the Allies are very serious about this invasion and are very likely to launch it, which is why Hitler and their high command was starting to earmark more reasonable. resources to France. You know, if we'd invaded the year before in 43, we would have found a fairly hollow, quote, Atlantic wall. This is a larger pattern you see in the war down. I think it's really interesting, not just in Europe, but in the Pacific, is that, you know, we're going to be about, like, there's usually like a six-month lag in, like, the enemy building up his forces for wherever place we're going to land. And the reason we can't get the jump on them a lot of times is we just

simply don't have the shipping and the people and the readiness. And it's just the reality. So here, that early months of 1944, now the Germans are feverishly beginning to earmark more troops, especially to northern France, to that coast there in Calais, in Normandy, building up the fortifications, Langney, the obstacles,

employing local people, basically to build a lot of the stuff for them and also force labors too. Like in Normandy, they're cutting down parts of a forest there called the Cherisi Forest. The famous log obstacles, most of them come from there. And so, yeah,

They absolutely know what the Allies are planning. What they can't sniff out is the when and where. And the reason for that is that they are losing in the Battle of the Atlantic, of course, that is a factor. They're losing on the Intel side. You know, the Allies are going to launch what's called Operation Fortitude designed to deceive them with a dummy army, the first U.S. Army group. And also the possibility of a British invasion of Norway. And, you know, there's all this. But also in terms of like the cloak and dagger spying, the Germans do have operations.

is in Britain, but most of them have been turned, whether they know it or not. And that's where the British have really come into this whole thing. Some have been apprehended. And also, this is another byproduct of the Germans losing the Air War because they can't launch quite as many and effective recon flights to really get a sense of that, that ally buildup. They know it's there, of course. But they don't necessarily have a lot of good concrete information as we get closer to D-Day. Eisenhower is dealing with strong personalities.

This is a huge part of his job, of course. He has to deal with Winston Churchill, of all people. He insists on being given exclusive command of all strategic air forces to facilitate this operation overlord. Churchill granted this after Eisenhower threatens to resign. He strongly opposed Churchill's wish to sail with the fleet to the battlefield. I mean, Churchill wants to be there, whether it's for glory or for, you know, patriotism, who knows. But Eisenhower has to deal with this guy. Yeah, it's so interesting.

an interesting relationship. You know, they know each other pretty well by now. And they've had a lot of intimate and frank talks by now. Churchill, by the way, has just recovered from what could have been a life-threatening illness that he had in North Africa in the latter part of 1943. So, you know, he's coming back from that. And, of course, so these are two guys who know each other well enough to really speak frankly. And yet it has to be more than that, too, because of who they are. So Heisenhower is fencing with Churchill on a lot of matters, including the Air War, like you said, and also, too, by the way, the Air Commanders, none of whom really want any part of this guy Eisenhower controlling their assets to have missions planned to help the invasion. They want to bomb Germany and bring it to its knees and make the invasion, you know, not necessary. In fact, they've been arguing that they ought to be able to do that, you know, Carl Spots and others like him, the Americans, especially as a lot.

I mentioned having their own agenda of an independent air force. So Eisenhower-E-S threatens to resign if he can't control these assets to help in the run-up to D-Day. So there's a compromise forge in which as of April 1944, he will gain control of the bombers, you know, and begin to, and obviously then begin to have some direction as to which missions they fly in support of the invasion. Now, there will still be bombing missions of Germany, and again, that's part of the compromise.

But, you know, I would say as a rough estimate, the majority, maybe two-thirds or so, or tending to be earmarked now towards whatever is going to help the invasion. And, I mean, you can totally understand Eisenhower's point of view. He's been tasked with this, you know, very important mission. He ought to be able to control all of the elements he's going to need to carry it out, not just the sea forces, but the air forces. It's interesting, though, in all the, you know, popular media about D-Day, you rarely hear any mention of contention between those leaders with Eisenhower himself.

He really gained people's trust, didn't he? Oh, absolutely, because they're seeing him even more so under stress than he had been in the Mediterranean. I mean, this is a much bigger animal now that he's running. So every day brings a new kind of crisis, whether it's a planning crisis, whether it's a training crisis, the intel side, the political side, dealing with Churchill, dealing with Bernard Montgomery. I mean, that would tax the patience of any one of us. I mean, and yet, you know, he's doing with that constantly. And, of course, then dealing with a guy he knows very well, Omar Bradley, who is the main American ground commander, commander first army. Now, here, they're West Point classmates.

And, of course, they get on well. But at the same time, too, you know, Bradley wants things from him that he can't always give. The air people do. The sea people have their requirements. And also, too, you know, he has to answer George Marshall. Basically, his boss is chief of staff of the army. And in a sense, the Roosevelt administration, too, because there's so much on the line here. everybody wants a finger in this pie.

And so Eisenhower, during those early months of 1944, is just constantly absorbed with kind of putting out these fires, whatever they may be. I think he does it extremely well. Men who are well aware of the pressures of that kind of level of leadership have to look at this position that this guy's in and think, oh, my God, you know, doesn't envy him at all. Exactly. He has to deal decisively with George Patton. That's that old, you know, the story of him slapping. the guy and Eisenhower's to put him in his place and post him to England. You mentioned how much was already in place in the preparations for this time, even before

Eisenhower moved into his position. What were the changes that Eisenhower made? How dramatic were his contributions to that strategy? So basically they expand on what Morgan and his people had created as a foundation. And Morgan and his people envisioned like a three beach landing. And so Eisenhower and Montgomery primarily are the two people who kind of expanded to the five beach. as we know. The two British beaches, sword and gold, and then in between the Canadian beach, Juno, the Canadians insisted on being part of this. They'd had the incredible division, the third Canadian division preparing for a long time in England, and they were going to play a leading role, some might argue the most important role on D-Day, and then you're going to

have two American beaches. There was always going to be Omaha Beach, which, of course, is the nexus of the whole thing. But what they add is Utah Beach on the Kotenten Peninsula in the extreme West and then the two U.S. Airborne divisions are going to be landed behind them. That also is kind of new once Eisenhower comes aboard. So for that, you've got the brand new 101st Airborne that has just currently been deployed to England shortly before this. And the 82nd Airborne, much of which, of course, had fought in the Mediterranean, was highly experienced, but some of it was still there.

The 5'4th Parish and Infantry is fighting at Anzio in Italy while this is going on. So basically you just have the 505th and then you got to add two new parachute regiments. And then you got the glider people. So, you know, Eisenhower is kind of now looking at a larger land force, which means now you've got to have larger seaborne capability as well. So he's got to fight for more shipping and, you know, sort of relevant to our conversation earlier about the global war. There is just demand for this shipping all over the globe, especially for the Americans. And especially the, you know, the famous LSTs that are sort of the key to the. whole thing. And so Eisenhower is constantly, you know, telling Marshall he needs X, Y, and Z,

and he's largely getting it. But there's pushback from those in the Pacific or in the Mediterranean or along those lines. The Holanzio thing is Churchill's idea. And it leads actually to the delay of the normal invasion by about a month. We were going to invade originally in May, 1944. But because of shipping, Eisenhower had to kind of delay that for about a month. So they really didn't want to invade in June 44. They wanted to invade in May, but Anzio cost us that, mainly because of LSTs. So imagine if you're Eisenhower having to constantly, you know, struggle with the whole thing. And they're already talking about, you know, the operation that's going to be the invasion of Japan, you know, and all that shipping that's going to be needed on the other side of the world,

just like that, you know, come that season, which my own father was part of. I mean, that was all really planned and ready and trained up. And those resources. would then be split. So this had to happen now. We talk about him bearing the responsibility of this thing on his shoulders. He writes a note about this in case of failure, a message before D-Day, which any of these messages, Nixon writing about the Apollo, it's just like it's so frightening to consider an individual sitting down and realizing this could really go wrong. And oh my God, he writes this note, the troops, the air and the Navy did all that bring and devotion to duty could do.

If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone. Amazing. Where was that note kept? Where did they find this? So he writes that note more or less on the eve and the Normandy evasion. And he folds it up and puts it in his pocket. And he finds it there after the evasion has succeeded. And obviously he's extremely busy, kind of forgets about it.

And he's like, oh my gosh, look at that. You know, looking at it a couple days later. Wasn't that quaint, you know. But let's think about this moment. like you said, he realizes this thing could go sideways, it could go wrong. And they're going to be looking for someone to blame, especially in an election year in 1944. Remember, it's an election year here in the U.S. And so this to me is a moment when you find out someone's true character, who they really are.

Because I think there's many, perhaps most, who would be looking for ways to deflect blame, who would be looking to kind of cover their own bums and somehow moving on. and this is almost unimaginable, I think, sort of in today's America, some of the leaders we have, that they would say, oh, yeah, blame me. It's me. Eisenhower did that, and he didn't know how it was going to turn out. He had no idea. The fact that he even wrote that note to me reveals who he truly is. Fortunately, he never read to use it. I mean, but he didn't know that at the time he wrote it. And I think that's crucially important to remember. The consequences are so wide and deep. You know, the political consequences, of course, back home for FDR and that for Churchill as well in England, they would be tremendously weakened, all kinds of electoral results as a result of that. The liberation of Western Europe would be delayed. It would probably have happened, but it would have taken a long time, which, of course, then plays its own role in the planning for the Pacific, you know, as we were talking about.

That's how pivotal this moment is. never mind the whole Soviets, you know, expanding further into their occupied territory. It really needs to happen now or never. And I should have asked this five or ten minutes ago, the amount of resources put on those beaches, was it more than necessary, given the way that the Germans were placed on those beaches on purpose so that we would, you know, were certain to win? I mean, probably so as things turn out because, I mean, a lot of the, fortunately, a lot of the, quote, German troops, you're going to face there are not actually German at all. They're basically a roster filler from Eastern Europe because the Germans are having manpower problems. So that's about roughly about a third of the German armed forces in Normandy.

So it just kind of depends where you are. You may be lucky enough to land where there's people don't want to fight you and it's kind of half defended beaches and there's not a lot in front of you in that respect. Or you could end up facing their frontline, you know, best forces. the 352nd division, most notably at Omaha Beach, and of course, as the Canadians and the British face, really the toughest of the German armor opposition, not always on D-Day, but thereafter.

So, yeah, I mean, it's always designed to not be a fair fight if you can help it, and you're landing 156,000 troops with that in mind, and everything that backs them up. I mean, all of it depends on shipping and the seaborne forces, how they can move you and how they can support you, the air over ahead to suppress the lufo office, And, of course, the Luftwaffe is really just a pitiful presence on D-Day, if at all.

But, of course, it's what's going to come after. I mean, D-Day is just the beginning. You're going to have this enormous campaign in which the Germans have some pretty potent strength. And the other thing I think it's important to remember is it's in modern war, and probably an old war, but in modern war, it's always easier to defend. And especially with the firepower that you've got at your fingertips in a modern military force as the Germans are, you can inflict a lot more losses on attackers than they can on you. quite often. And so that really kind of levels the playing field a little bit, not just on on D-Day where an amphibious invasion is always a tough exercise because it's by definition a frontal attack, really, and that's, you know, perilous. But also what comes after,

trying to gain ground in Normandy, especially with the hedgerows and other places in Europe, can be incredibly casually intensive. And that matters politically because these are countries that, you know, there's going to be pushback from the electorate if you're losing too many people, especially Britain, which is very manpower poor as time goes forward. And they had to make a very difficult choice to destroy the place that they're saving. You know, they had to, you know, kill civilians and do all sorts of horrible things in order to take that land and move across it to Germany. That was a big part of that decision process.

We'll take a break now. When we come back, John and I are going to stick with Eisenhower. We're going to talk about the first hours of D-Day and how they played out. Welcome back. Let's fast forward to the final days before the invasion. D-Day is almost upon us. What was Eisenhower doing in those final days, June 5th, 6th, 1944? He's just constantly getting situation reports, updates, you know, who's ready, where, how are we coordinating the shipping next? What's gone wrong now that we have to deal with? He's really worried about the operational security at this point of the invasion because now, you know, you're sort of telegraphing your punch somewhat that you've gathered these massive military forces in southern England.

The amphibious troops have been clustered into what are their marshalling areas that are called sausages because they look like that on a map. And that means they've been briefed on the evasion of what they're going to do, you know, like the great secret of where and when. And you don't want the Germans to know that. So they're worried about that. They're worried about the possibility of diplomats from neutral countries inadvertently tipping off the Germans.

The Germans, of course, on high readiness to figure that. this out. So he's dealing with a lot of that and these little leaks that are happening here and there. Like, for instance, in the British papers and the crossword puzzles, some of the key code words in relation to the invasion have showed up like Mulberry and Overlord. And they're like, wait a minute, what's going on with this? Is this tipping off the Germans? I mean, there's a million things to worry about. And on top of it all, now you've got to worry about the weather because weather matters now more than anything. And in those days leading up to the norman invasion, of course, now a storm comes in, and we know now exactly how it all plays out. And the moment they're trying to figure out,

is this going to affect us or not? What kind of decisions do we make? How much time do we have to order our forces to go and then also bring them back if we want to change our minds? I mean, how am I in touch with this headquarters or that headquarters spread out far and wide? I mean, it is such an enormous effort to try and coordinate all this and then dealing with the weather. And that, honestly, that's what caused him much stress as anything in those few days leading up to the invasion because of the storm and trying to figure away around that. Yeah, let's talk about that in more detail. So in that week prior to it, it had been quite stormy. And first of all, tell me how he gets these weather reports.

It's hard to transport ourselves back to this day. What was the technology of weather forecasting? How effective was it? So we don't, of course, have our satellites and Doppler and all this kind of stuff. We don't have our little apps on our phone where we look at our radar and all that kind of stuff. But for its time, it's incredibly cutting edge because, yes, meteorologists are using historical weather data, you know, to predict. But beyond that, we've got all these like weather balloons and sensors throughout the Atlantic and the North Atlantic and portions of Europe. and obviously Britain.

And that is a big advantage over the Germans. And it's an example of the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic, that the Germans don't control those places, and so they don't have as good a weather data. They're getting then the Shafe Meteorology section, in addition to studying the historical weather, they're getting the up-to-the-minute conditions, barometric pressure, winds, moisture,

all that kind of stuff from all these various weather stations that are coming in. And so they can kind of collate that and analyze it. And of course, then famously, group Captain James Stagg, who is now presiding over the meteorology section, is looking at that in addition to the historical data. And he's beginning to glean the fact that a storm is coming in. The Germans don't understand that quite as well. Once they do see the storm coming in, they tend to interpret it as things are just going to be stormy for several days. And so probably not going to be invasion. We understand, conversely, that there's going to be a hole in that system because of all that.

That weather data that Stagg and the others are analyzing that then, of course, is going to give them an opening to launch on June 6th. June 5th was the original date, of course. They have to postpone it. And that's a lot of stress going in that decision, you know, because this is a big coiled spring. You know, once you uncoil that thing, what are you going to do? You know, so, yeah, I mean, so the allies are better weather data. I had to look up the location that he, his headquarters are at Southwick House, which is near Portsmouth. He moves down there fairly close to the time, right?

And when does he arrive there? He's back and forth, but he arrives there more or less by the end of May. He's living in a trailer, which is right off the offside of the mansion there. It's called Sothak House, as you said. So the reason he's there is Admiral Bertram Ramsey, his seaborne commander, has his headquarters there. And so it makes the most sense to kind of coalesce with him and in terms of coordination. So Sothic House becomes kind of the center point for Eisenhower's headquarters during that week or so leading up to the Normandy invasion. So at any given time, he's either in his trailer, which is full of these like Western paperbacks.

He loves like Western novels. Fly fishing equipment. Yeah, he loves fishing, absolutely. So anything like that that's personal to Eisenhower, letters that he's written to Mamie, you know, and also then, then he goes back up to the mansion where there where the actual headquarters is. And most of the activity happens on the first floor. You know, there's the incredible map of the whole invasion. and it's really quite something. So that's so he's kind of going back and forth there trying to control events.

I'm sorry to say that I've not been to this place in person and was just looking at the images online, but it's really helpful when you do that and start poking around at those maps and seeing those different things that are still preserved there. It really takes you to the moment itself. Another aspect of this, I don't know if it's the real intention behind it, but he's close to the troops, right?

He's closer to those landing troops that are, that are based in that area. He visits the British 50th Infantry Division and then the U.S. 101 Airborne Division on June 5th before they make the jump into northern France. He returns to his headquarters in Portsmouth as those first planes are reaching their drop zones. He makes a message. He writes a message to those troops, those participating on D-Day. You are about to embark on the Great Crusade, towards which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you, the hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. And he ends with this. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill and

battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck. And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking. I'm kind of choking up as I read that. It's really moving. I mean, to imagine having that moment and all that led up to it, of course, and all the tension and fear that is, you know, imbued in its hoped for results. Oh, my gosh. You know, it's incredible that this man could ever sleep again. I know. And on top of it, he's smoking four packs of cigarettes a day and gulping all the coffee that he can.

I mean, it's, it is a wonder that you could sleep at all or exist. I mean, but he was so articulate in that message. And I think in that sense, he kind of captures. the embodiment would have brought out us all together. There's a dozen nations that contribute to the Normandy invasion. A dozen. And I think he's communicated with all of them. So like as a soldier, you would have heard that read like over the loudspeaker aboard ship when you're on the way, maybe something like that.

If you were airborne, you would get the, everybody got a leaflet. And you probably wouldn't have heard the message. You would have read it on the leaflet. And of course, that became a souvenir. Many of the guys hung on to those. And then some of them sign them. Like, you know, everybody in the squad would sign it. And so that was your little momentum, maybe folded up and carry it in your pocket.

I think he just really embodies what Schafe was and what this coalition in that moment. Eisenhower does not get enough credit. That's all there is to it when you think about all these factors. All right. So let's go to D-Day itself, June 6, 1944. I imagine Eisenhower's been up all night. I mean, this is all going to happen at dawn anyway. during the first few hours, Eisenhower lacks the proper information to know what's going on.

He's drinking endless cups of coffee as he waits for these invasion reports. In a time of low communication, telephones ringing, people coming into the room with reports instead of reading something in real time and streaming it on your computer, it must just drive you crazy. Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's just total nerves and it's just fragmented info coming in. And so I've often said that, you know, during the whole weather drama, you know, when I decide whether to launch the invasion or not, when he's deliberating, he is arguably the most powerful person in human history at that point in time.

When you think about all the military power he has had his disposal, once he gives the go-ahead for the invasion, though, he's kind of powerless. It's all in the hands of all these young guys who are going to be doing this. And so by June 6th, that's really where he is. He is sort of in a position of being a very interested observer and having to kind of sort through, what are we getting here? What's the information? Where is this leading?

Of course, there's a whole subplot, too, to his troop visits, you know, wanting to look these guys in the face who he may be sending to their deaths, especially the 101st Airborne, because his air commander, Lee Mallory had urged him to call off those drops. And it said they're going to be devastating, you know, they're going to be horrendous casualties and all that. And so he's worried about that on June 6. Like, is this coming to fruition what Lee Mallory had warned? You know, and I'm going to be responsible. So in those hours, there's little peace of mind. And there's also confusion, which is just fog of war because he's confused.

The guys who are actually doing the fighting are just confused too, even though they're, you know, sorting this thing out and getting the results. But I think it's fair to say that as we're into later in the day, by. probably afternoon and thereafter. I think there's a picture growing at Southick House and for Eisenhower that things are coming together well enough, you know, that this isn't a disaster. They know there's some serious losses, but that they know that it's pointing in the right direction. Maybe it would be the best way to say it. When would that have been during the day, do you think?

I think it's probably by later in the day, like the afternoon. probably by, you know, mid, probably late afternoon would be my sort of just guesstimate. I think by then you know that you haven't been repulsed in any of the landing beaches, even Omaha. You know, by then they know Omaha has been difficult, but they know that they've got the foothold. They know that the British airborne landings have gone reasonably well. They know that the American landings have been quite scattered, but that they are not necessarily an unmitigated disaster as Lee Mallory had worried about.

And even he, he contact I think it's that day and he apologizes. And he says, you know, it's hard to admit when you're wrong, but I was wrong and I apologize for giving you that stress. And I think that was big of him because he didn't necessarily have to do that. And so this was quite a comfort to Eisenhower that those airborne guys that he had sent in were not all going to disaster. And he knows that certainly by dinner time on June 6th. And all the stuff that we learned about later about the Germans, you know, lacking the resources because of whatever, not, you know, waking up Hitler because he wanted to sleep or whatever, those things are mostly apocryphal, I'm sure. When did the Allies learn that that counterattack isn't coming? You pretty much know that by, you know, the time you're getting to darkness on June 6th.

And that's very late, of course, because you've got long days in Normandy. So you're probably talking about 10 at night, something like that until you have real full darkness. By then, it's a bit of, it's a bit of indie climatic, depending where we are, you know, Utah Beach, you don't necessarily have to worry about a counterattack. Omaha Beach, you've had some, but nowhere near enough to imperil the beachhead. The Canadians, I think, really deal with the most difficult of the counterattacks, almost by design, because they have some of the most potent German combat power in their area of operations, and they fend them off quite well. So in that respect, I think, if we're looking at the bigger picture, like from Montgomery's viewpoint, yeah, I mean, you, you'd have, definitely haven't had the kind of immediate counterattack on a grand scale that you might have worried about. But you knew it's coming in the days thereafter. What you hope for is it's going

to be piecemeal. Now, the reason this happened the way it did is the Germans are kind of caught off guard by the fact the invasion happens in part because of the weather, in part because of their semi-preparedness. I think it's important to remember that in most cases of these beach side defenses are only from a German point of view, kind of about half completed. So fortunately, it wasn't full completed or would have been even more devastating some of the casualties. So the Germans are just like any, they're kind of reacting, and they're reacting the best they can. And that generally means confusion on their end and kind of piecemeal reactions with whatever forces they have at hand nearby to deal with the Allies wherever they could be.

I have a last question, which I've written in this way. Was there a single moment where Eisenhower knew the invasion had worked? And I'm going to stop you before you answer that because I know from this conversation, this man is already thinking ahead. That's his skill set. He's already onto the next thing. Of course, the strategy is built that way. But you do wonder if there was a moment where he closed the door and just shoved his hands in the air, you know, on June 6th or 7th and said, my God, we did it. Then again, I can't imagine Dwight Eisenhower doing that. Yeah, to my knowledge, there is no moment that he kind of allows himself that little victory lap. I think you're exactly right, Don. I think he's looking ahead because he's thinking, okay, we got these guys ashore. How do we're reinforce and resupply them? And what are the Germans going to do in response?

There's a hundred things to worry about. And also, too, like, when am I going to go over there and take a look at this? You know, I think they're, you know, they're thinking about that at his level. So I think it's more like a collection of moments. Like, you know, like as I said with these fragmentary reports, that as that adds up, it's creating a kind of cognizance in his mind, okay, this is working. It's working well enough. And then, of course, the next thing is to figure out what kind of casualties we had. And by the way, we're still trying to figure that out to this day. So imagine Eisenhower on June 6 and 7th trying to determine exactly what are my losses. How do I react to that? So yeah, there's, unfortunately for him, it's just the first day of a long kind of. stretch of days, right? And his connection with the troops, you know, he would have been feeling that very much so. Well, we have those Allied soldiers to thank for this day, you know, 82 years later,

and we'll be doing it for 82 years more, I'm sure. In so many ways, the reason that liberal democracy was able to flourish through the 20th century and perhaps behind was D-Day, you know, and what it was accomplished afterwards. It was first and foremost the brunt carried by the soldiers who took part, but their victory was the culmination of years of preparation, careful cooperation and management of alliances, and Eisenhower was there holding that coalition together at its most crucial phase. It's an extraordinary story that we will tell over and over again. And I encourage folks to look your YouTube's up because last night I spent a lot of time with

them and you do one series of lectures and you're explaining this to your audience so clearly and so interesting. It's really worth looking you up in that as well. But you also do two podcasts. Tell us about those Someone Talked and World War II Live. Yeah, right. So someone talked. I host that in tandem with the folks on the National D-Day Memorial,

which, by the way, if you're ever in bed for Virginia, a highly recommend a visit, amazing place. So in that one, our focus is mainly like we're doing here. We have authors on to talk about their latest work, World War II authors primarily, all aspects of World War II, not just D-Day. World War II Live, I co-host with my dear friend, fellow historian, Kevin He-Mell,

and we take on a lot of different topics, mainly in relation to the U.S. and World War II. But the other fun part of that podcast was what we call the stump the chump segment. So people just send us questions and we take them unscripted. We don't know the questions are coming. Our producer kind of curates them. And so we sometimes look smart because it happens to be something we know about. And other times probably more commonly, we don't look too smart because we don't know what's

coming and, you know, you just do the best you can. So if you want to send us questions, it's send them to World War II Live at gmail.com. It's the Arabic numeral too. There you go. John McManus is the professor of military history at the University of Science and Technology in Missouri and check them out all over the place. Thank you so much, John.

We'll speak again, I hope. Yeah, I hope so, Don. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements

to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Thanks so much.