The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys : The Men of World War II (8 page)

Writing to Mamie was practically the only time he was free to think about issues that went beyond Overlord. He took the opportunity to express some of his deepest feelings. He loathed war and hated having to send boys to their death.  “How I wish this cruel business of war could be completed quickly,” he told Mamie. He was the man who had to total up all the casualties, bad enough in the air war, with worse to come when Overlord began. Counting the human costs was “a terribly sad business.” It made him heartsick to think about “how many youngsters are gone forever,” and although he had developed “a veneer of callousness,” he could “never escape a recognition of the fact that back home the news brings anguish and suffering to families all over the country. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives and friends must have a difficult time preserving any comforting philosophy and retaining any belief in the eternal rightness of things. War demands real toughness of fiber-not only in the soldiers that must endure, but in the homes that must sacrifice their best.” “I think that all these trials and tribulations must come upon the world because of some great wickedness,” he said in another letter, “yet one would feel that man’s mere intelligence to say nothing of his spiritual perceptions would find some way of eliminating war. But man has been trying to do so for many hundreds of years, and his failure just adds more reason for pessimism when a man gets really low!”

The contrast between Eisenhower and those generals who gloried in war could not have been greater. Small wonder that millions of Americans in the 1940s felt that if their loved one had to join the fight, Eisenhower was the general they wanted for his commander. Patton, MacArthur, Bradley, Marshall, and the others all had their special qualities, but only Eisenhower had such a keen sense of family, of the way in which each casualty meant a grieving family back home.  Eisenhower’s concern was of such depth and so genuine that it never left him. In 1964, when he was filming with Walter Cronkite a television special entitled “D-Day Plus 20,” Cronkite asked him what he thought about when he returned to Normandy. In reply, he spoke not of the tanks, the guns, the planes, the ships, the personalities of his commanders and their opponents, or the victory.  Instead, he spoke of the families of the men buried in the American cemetery in Normandy. He said he could never come to this spot without thinking of how blessed he and Mamie were to have grandchildren, and how much it saddened him to think of all the couples in America who had never had that blessing because their only son was buried in France.

One reason, more rational than emotional, that Eisenhower was concerned about his troops was his realization that while he, SHAEF, the generals, and the admirals could plan, prepare the ground, provide covering support, ensure adequate supplies, deceive the Germans, and in countless other ways try to ensure victory, in the end success rested with the footslogger carrying a rifle over the beaches of Normandy. If he was willing to drive forward in the face of German fire, Overlord would succeed. If he cowered behind the beached landing craft, it would fail. The operation all came down to that.  For that reason, Eisenhower spent much of his pre-D-Day time visiting troops in the field. He wanted to let as many men as possible see him. He made certain that every soldier who was to go ashore on D-Day had the opportunity to at least look at the man who was sending him into battle; he managed to talk to hundreds personally. In the four months from February 1 to June 1 he visited twenty-six divisions, twenty-four airfields, five ships of war, and countless depots, shops, hospitals, and other installations. He would have the men break ranks, gather around him while he made a short speech, then go around shaking hands.  He always managed to talk to the enlisted men as individuals. Other generals did so too, of course, but none had Eisenhower’s touch. Bradley, Patton, Montgomery, and the rest would ask a man about his military specialty, his training, his unit, his weapons.

Eisenhower’s first question invariably was, “Where are you from?” He wanted to know about their families, what they did in civilian life back in the States, what their postwar plans were. He enjoyed discussing cattle ranching in Texas with them, or dairy farming in Wisconsin, or logging in Montana. To Eisenhower’s associates, the men were soldiers; to Eisenhower, they were citizens temporarily caught up in a war none of them wanted, but which they realized was necessary.  His face would light up whenever he met a boy from Kansas; he kept hoping to find one from Abilene, but never did. The British and Canadians responded as enthusiastically to Eisenhower’s friendliness, informality, curiosity about them as individuals, and sincerity as did the Americans.  To the graduating class at Sandhurt, the British officer school, in the spring of 1944, Eisenhower delivered an impromptu address that ranks as one of his best. He spoke of the great issues involved, and made each individual aware that his own chances for a happy, decent life were directly tied up in the success of Overlord. He reminded them of the great traditions of Sandhurst. He told the newly commissioned officers that they must be like fathers to their men, even when the men were twice their age, that they must keep the enlisted men out of trouble, and stand up for them when they committed a transgression. Their companies, he said, returning to his favorite theme, must be like a big family, and they must be the head of the family, ensuring that the unit was cohesive, tough, well trained, well equipped, ready to go. The response of the Sandhurst graduates, according to Thor Smith, a public-relations officer at SHAEF, was “electric. They just loved him.”

In early May all over the British Isles men went through final exercises for D-Day. From May 9 to 12 the 101st held its dress rehearsal, code-named Exercise Eagle. The entire division participated. Easy Company used the same airfield it would use on D-Day, Uppottery. Personnel and equipment were loaded onto the same aircraft the company would use on the real thing; the takeoff, drop, and assembly followed the plan as close to the letter as possible, including spending the same amount of time in flight.

Climbing aboard the C-47s was difficult because of all the gear each man carried. Individuals were overloaded, following the age-old tendency of soldiers going into combat to attempt to be ready for every conceivable emergency. The vest and long drawers issued each man were impregnated, to ward off a possible chemical attack; it made them cumbersome, they stank, they itched, they kept in body heat and caused torrents of sweat. The combat jacket and trousers were also treated. The men carried a pocketknife in the lapel of their blouses, to be used to cut themselves out of their harness if they landed in a tree. In their baggy trousers pockets they had a spoon, razor, socks, cleaning patches, flashlight, maps, three-day supply of K-rations, an emergency ration package (four chocolate bars, a pack of Charms, powdered coffee, sugar, and matches), ammunition, a compass, two fragmentation grenades, an antitank mine, a smoke grenade, a Gammon bomb (a two-pound plastic explosive powerful enough to damage a tank), and cigarettes, two cartons per man. The soldier topped his uniform with a webbing belt and braces, a .45 pistol (standard for noncoms and officers; privates had to get their own, and most did), water canteen, shovel, first-aid kit, and bayonet. Over this went his parachute harness, his main parachute in its backpack, and reserve parachute hooked on in front. A gas mask was strapped to his left leg and a jump knife/ bayonet to his right. Across his chest the soldier slung his musette bag (knapsack) with his spare underwear and ammunition, and in some cases TNT sticks, along with his broken-down rifle or machine gun or mortar diagonally up and down across his front under his reserve chute pack, leaving both hands free to handle the risers. Over everything he wore his Mae West life jacket. Finally, he put on his helmet.  Some men added a third knife. Others found a place for extra ammunition. Private Gordon, carrying his machine gun, figured he weighed twice his normal weight.  Nearly every man had to be helped into the C-47. Once aboard, the men were so wedged in they could not move.

General Maxwell Taylor had moved heaven and earth to get enough C-47s for Exercise Eagle. The planes were in constant demand for logistical support throughout ETO, and Troop Carrier Command came last on the list. It was cheated on equipment. The fuel tanks did not have armor protection from flak.  Easy got its briefing for Eagle on May 10-11. The objective was a gun battery covering the beach. At dusk on May 11, Easy took off. The planes made “legs” over England, flying for about two and a half hours. Shortly after midnight the company jumped. For Easy, the exercise went smoothly; for other companies, there were troubles. Second Battalion headquarters company was with a group that ran into a German air raid over London. Flak was coming up; the formation broke up; the pilots could not locate the DZ (Drop Zone). Eight of the nine planes carrying Company H of the 502nd dropped their men on the village of Ramsbury, nine miles from the DZ. Twenty-eight planes returned to their airfields with the paratroopers still aboard. Others jumped willy-nilly, leading to many accidents.  Nearly five hundred men suffered broken bones, sprains, or other injuries.  The only consolation the airborne commanders could find in this mess was that by tradition a bad dress rehearsal leads to a great opening night.  On the last day of May the company marched down to trucks lined up on the Hungerford Road. Half the people of Aldbourne, and nearly all the unmarried girls, were there to wave good-bye. There were many tears. The baggage left behind gave some hope that the boys would be back.  Training had come to an end. There had been twenty-two months of it, more or less continuous. The men were as hardened physically as it was possible for human beings to be. Not even professional boxers or football players were in better shape. They were disciplined, prepared to carry out orders instantly and unquestioningly. They were experts in the use of their own weapons, knowledgeable in the use of other weapons, familiar with and capable of operating German weapons. They could operate radios, knew a variety of hand signals, could recognize various smoke signals. They were skilled in tactics, whether the problem was attacking a battery or a blockhouse or a trench system or a hill defended by machine guns. They knew the duties and responsibilities of a squad or platoon leader and each was prepared to assume those duties if necessary. They knew how to blow bridges, how to render artillery pieces inoperative. They could set up a defensive position in an instant. They could live in the field, sleep in a foxhole, march all day and through the night. They knew and trusted each other. Within Easy Company they had made the best friends they had ever had, or would ever have. They were prepared to die for each other; more important, they were prepared to kill for each other.  They were ready. But, of course, going into combat for the first time is an ultimate experience for which one can never be fully ready. It is anticipated for years in advance; it is a test that produces anxiety, eagerness, tension, fear of failure, anticipation. There is a mystery about the thing, heightened by the fact that those who have done it cannot put into words what it is like, how it feels, except that getting shot at and shooting to kill produce extraordinary emotional reactions. No matter how hard you train, nor however realistic the training, no one can ever be fully prepared for the intensity of the real thing.  And so the men of Easy Company left Aldbourne full of self-confidence and full of trepidation.

They were part of a vast movement of men to the embarkation ports in the south of England. Overlord was staggering in its scope. In one night and day, 175,000 fighting men and their equipment, including 50,000 vehicles of all types, ranging from motorcycles to tanks and armored bulldozers, were to be transported across sixty to a hundred miles of open water and landed on a hostile shore against intense opposition. They would be either carried by or supported by 5,333 ships and craft of all types and almost 11,000 airplanes. They came from southwestern England, southern England, the east coast of England. It was as if the cities of Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, were picked up and moved-every man, woman and child, every automobile and truck-to the east side of Lake Michigan in one night.

The effort behind this unique movement-which British prime minister Winston S.  Churchill rightly called “the most difficult and complicated operation ever to take place”-stretched back two years in time and involved the efforts of literally millions of people. The production figures from the United States, in landing craft, ships of war, airplanes of all types, weapons, medicine, and so much more, were fantastic. The figures in the United Kingdom and Canada were roughly similar.

But for all that American industrial brawn and organizational ability could do, for all that the British and Canadians and other allies could contribute, for all the plans and preparations, for all the brilliance of the deception scheme, for all the inspired leadership, in the end success or failure in Operation Overlord came down to a relatively small number of junior officers, noncoms, and privates or seamen in the American, British, and Canadian armies, navies, air forces, and coast guards. If the paratroopers and gliderborne troops cowered behind hedgerows or hid out in barns rather than actively sought out the enemy, if the coxswains did not drive their landing craft ashore but instead, out of fear of enemy fire, dropped the ramps in too-deep water, if the men at the beaches dug in behind the seawall, if the noncoms and junior officers failed to lead their men up and over the seawall to move inland in the face of enemy fire-why, then, the most thoroughly planned offensive in military history, an offensive supported by incredible amounts of naval firepower, bombs, and rockets, would fail.

It all came down to a bunch of eighteen- to twenty-eight-year-olds. They were magnificently trained and equipped and supported, but only a few of them had ever been in combat. Only a few had ever killed or seen a buddy killed. Most had never heard a shot fired in anger. They were citizen soldiers, not professionals.

It was an open question, toward the end of spring 1944, as to whether a democracy could produce young soldiers capable of fighting effectively against the best that Nazi Germany could produce. Hitler was certain the answer was no.  Nothing that he had learned of the British army’s performance in France in 1940, or again in North Africa and the Mediterranean in 1942-44, or what he had learned of the American army in North Africa and the Mediterranean in 1942-44, caused him to doubt that, on anything approaching equality in numbers, the Wehrmacht would prevail. Totalitarian fanaticism and discipline would always conquer democratic liberalism and softness. Of that Hitler was sure.  If Hitler had seen the junior officers and men preparing for the assault he might have had second thoughts. They were young men born into the false prosperity of the 1920s and brought up in the bitter realities of the Depression of the 1930s. The literature they had read as youngsters was antiwar, cynical, portraying patriots as suckers, slackers as heroes. None of them wanted to be part of another war. They wanted to be throwing baseballs, not hand grenades, shooting .22s at rabbits, not M-1s at other young men. But when the test came, when freedom had to be fought for or abandoned, they had to fight. They were soldiers of democracy. On them depended the fate of the world.