Just Julie’s Takes

But for the weather, D-Day would have come a day earlier.

The low that swept over the Channel on the eve of June 4, 1944, threatened the entire operation, roughing up the seas and driving rain onto troops crammed into the mass formation of landing craft.

The planning that goes into any large-scale operation is almost by necessity complex, and proportional to the number of people in authority (or think they are) that are involved. As I read the history, it’s clear that the planning for the Normandy invasion was no different.

Though Eisenhower was selected and named Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (what a title!), even that was a process. To be sure, he spent a significant portion of his time in preparation for the invasion ensuring that if he couldn’t get buy in from those in authority below him (or in parallel commands), he had the time and fortitude to lobby at the top, securing his backing from Roosevelt and Churchill to seek his end. This was not always easy, though they knew deeply that he sought approval to ensure success of what has been called the most important military operation in history.

The final decision to move forward had to be made, with only a prediction of the weather clearing based in part on reports of increasing barometric pressure reported from a ship stationed 600 nm off the coast of Northern Ireland. The impending cold front would pass the coast of Normandy by early morning on the 5th. But the “go/no-go” decision? Made by one man alone, in a room in England where the rain fell on and the thundering wind shook the house.

Eisenhower felt weather in his bones, like the native Kansan he was. Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory, concerned about the ability of his air force to execute in the borderline conditions, felt it too and lodged his reservations. In the end, Eisenhower gave the command, simply:

“Okay! Let’s go!”

from May 9, 2014

There is no substitute for being there.

I sat on a hillside above Portsmouth, England, five years ago, with a local aviation historian. We looked out over one of the landing fields used by the combined British and American forces as they prepared and executed Operation Overlord–known to us now as the Normandy Invasion, marked by one unforgettable dawn: D-Day.

With broad gestures, he described the arc each flight of Dakotas took as it assembled for the final line, the heading that would take those airplanes full of paratroopers or towing gliders over the Channel and into the air over the Calvados region of France. I interviewed soldiers who rode on board those Daks, and I talked with the pilots that flew them, either with a stick of troops in the back, or towing a glider.

With this movie in my mind, and the direct knowledge of how it looked, sounded, and felt to see a mass formation of Douglas DC-3s and C-47s march overhead, I could write that part of the airplane’s story (http://www.asa2fly.com/Together-We-Fly-Voices-From-the-DC-3-P1616.aspx).

But across the Channel? Where the action played out in all its terrible glory? No. I’d yet to go visit the beaches where my grandparents’ generation landed, where I could look out and picture where my great uncle, Richard Ellenberger, was on a supply ship standing off in the Channel as the invasion rolled out. Where so many of our young men fell, for a mighty purpose, never to return.

One thing I know from my experience at The Last Time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si0PpuGpgA8), from that grand assembly of DC-3s and C-47s in 2010, is that nothing replaces knowing in your body that physical feeling produced by the sights and sounds when they surround you.

You have to be there to know certain things. In fact, you don’t know what most of those things are until you go. So I’m taking the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see, hear, taste, and feel those things when I visit Normandy for the Daks Over Normandy (http://www.daksovernormandy.com/) celebration and remembrance this June. So I can know this part of the story just a little better than before.

from May 2, 2014