Survivors on rafts: Lewis, Exercise Tiger, 104; L. R. Talbot, “Graves Registration in the European Theater of Operations,” 1955, chap. 26, PIR, MHI, II, 2–3 (embalmers); Joseph R. Darnall, “Powdered Eggs and Purple Hearts,” ts, 1946, MHUC, MHI, box 24, 90–91.
Drowned men continued to wash ashore: The precise death toll remains uncertain. CCA, 270; John Connell, “Over Age in Grade,” ts, n.d., MHI; Ingersoll, Top Secret, 103–5; Hoyt, The Invasion Before Normandy, 155–61; MacDonald, “Slapton Sands: The ‘Cover-Up’ That Never Was,” Army 38, no. 6 (June 1988): 64+ (remained secret).
Eisenhower grieved: CCA, 270 (LSTs); DDE to GCM, Apr. 29, 1944, GCM Lib, corr, box 67, folder 5.
“the man who can do the average thing”: Eisenhower, General Ike, 219; AAAD, 286 (expected to be relieved); Chandler, 1898 (Hollywood); D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 511 (“generous and lovable”); Chalmers, Full Cycle, 261 (“a very great man”); DOB, 310 (“best politician”).
“When it comes to war”: D’Este, Decision in Normandy, 50n; Danchev, 546 (“No real director”); Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diairies, 111 (“They dislike to believe”).
He needed sleep: Chandler, 1865, 1891, and vol. 5, chronology, 153; Williams, “Supreme Headquarters for D-Day,” AB, no. 84 (1994): 1+; “The U.S. Army Special Train Alive,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #16 (Monsters); Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 294 (“the human soul”).
By the tens of thousands: LSA, vol. 2, 231; Ross, 289 (four thousand in early 1942); Coakley, 370 (twenty now could be found); “An Army in Transit,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #241, 7–37 (more than 100,000).
Down the gangplanks: Robert W. Coakley, “The Administrative and Logistical History of the ETO,” 1946, CMH, 8-3.1 AA2, vol. 3, 102–8; “Blankets,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #500; Amy, lecture, Apr. 8, 1944, NY Port of Embarkation, HIA, Henry J. Amy papers, box 2 (pillowcases).
“You are something”: Randall Jarrell, “The Sick Nought,” 1914; Karl Cocke, “U.S. Army Replacement Policies, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam,” DA, 1990, MHI, chart (eleven thousand); Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 710 (average GI was twenty-six); Crosswell, Beetle, 789 (teenagers); “Activities and Organization of COMZ,” May 28, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #89, 57 (grade school education); “Army Life,” WD pamphlet 21-13, Aug. 10, 1944, NARA RG 407, AGO Cent File 1940–45, box 3638 ($50 a month).
The typical soldier: Wiltse, ed., Physical Standards in World War II, 19–29, 37–42, 163, 193–94.
But what of their souls?: Cawthon, “Pursuit: Normandy, 1944,” American Heritage (Feb. 1978): 80+ (“amateurs”); “Memorandum,” May 1944, NARA RG 330, E 94, Surveys of Attitudes of Soldiers, ETO, B-46 (April survey); corr, Charles L. Easter to Marion Page, Aug. 14, 1944, USMA Arch (“civilian at heart”).
Skepticism and irony: Reynolds, Rich Relations, 324 (“Sums up my attitude”); Rottman, FUBAR: American Soldier Slang of World War II, 98, 152; Dickson, War Slang, 208; Richler, ed., Writers on World War II, 487 (“ambiguous farce”); Cawthon, Other Clay, 147 (“If it’s not ironic”); Yardley, “The Fight of Their Lives, and Not Just on the Battlefield,” WP, Mar. 6, 2009, C1 (“corrupt, inefficient”); Scannell, Argument of Kings, 122 (“madness”).
“War is all foreground”: Reporting World War II, vol. 1, xxi; Simpson, Selected Prose, 120–21; Reynolds, Rich Relations, 400 (“quarrelsome continent”); Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 258 (recent Army survey).
Certainly they believed: Scannell, Argument of Kings, 112, 121 (“drab khaki world”); Steidl, Lost Battalions, 31 (“unseen powers of God”).
And so four by four: “The Role Played by Communications Zone in the War Against Germany,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #479 (1,200 camps); VW, vol. 1, 34 (133 airfields); Eustis, War Letters of Morton Eustis to His Mother, 190 (“Thomas Hardy”); Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 482 (“old steady manner”); Bernard Paget, OH, FCP, Feb. 18, 1947, MHI (Home Guard); “A Yank in Britain,” ts, n.d., Thor M. Smith Papers, MHI, 75 (road signs).
Nearly 400,000 prefabricated huts: Botting, The Second Front, 66; “Construction in the United Kingdom,” Oct. 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #506 (20 million square feet); LSA, vol. 1, 255 (“Spamland”); “Marshalling [sic] for OVERLORD,” Dec. 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #547, 14 (School of Hygiene); Amy, lecture, Apr. 8, 1944, NY Port of Embarkation, HIA, Henry J. Amy papers, box 2; Robert W. Coakley, “The Administrative and Logistical History of the ETO,” 1946, CMH, 8-3.1 AA2, vol. 2, 189 (GLUE); H. H. Dunham, “U.S. Army Transportation in the ETO,” 1946, CMH 4-13.1 AA 29, 160–61 (“exposure to weather”); “A Yank in Britain,” ts, n.d., Thor M. Smith papers, MHI, 32 (red tape).
No alliance in the war: “Britain,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #23 (“Redcoats”); Hastings, OVERLORD, 49; Wieviorka, Normandy, 111 (twice a month); Reynolds, Rich Relations, 298 (Goatland); Ross, 313 (shoe sizes); A Short Guide to Great Britain, 29; “Quartermaster Procurement in the United Kingdom, 1942–1944,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #154 (tent pegs); Thomas V. Barber, “Quartermaster Procurement,” n.d., chap 41, PIR, MHI, 4–5 (beer).
The British displayed forbearance: Mass Observation Archive, University of Sussex Library, MO, FR 2454, provided author by Prof. Donald L. Miller (“irritate me”); Meet the Americans, 1; Margaret Mead, “Army Talks: The Yank in Britain,” Mar. 15, 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #23; Reynolds, Rich Relations, ix (Orwell).
Occasional bad beheavior: Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 159 (royal swans); Francis L. Sampson, Look Out Below!, 1958, in CJR, box 97, folder 21 (grenades); Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 709 (haystacks); “Army Life,” WD, pamphlet 21-13, Aug. 10, 1944, NARA RG 407, AGO Cent File 1940–45, box 3638 (“men who refrain”); “Legal Questions Arising in the Theater of Operations,” NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII Operations Reports, no. 87, 31–32 (“bastardy proceedings”); Longmate, The G.I.’s, 285 (“drive carefully”).
Both on the battlefield and in the rear: Lewis, Exercise Tiger, 48 (“delicate hothouse”); Hastings, OVERLORD, 293 (“the chaps that mattered”).
The loading of invasion vessels: Bykofsky and Larson, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, 259; ONB, OH, 1975, Charles Hanson, MHI, IV-19 (Seven thousand kinds of combat necessities). This oral history with Bradley, conducted in fourteen sessions over ten months, had been closed to the public until made available to the author in January 2010.
evocative of the Marx Brothers: Van Creveld, Supplying War, 210; William E. Depuy, SOOHP, 1979; Romie L. Brownlee and William J. Mullen III, MHI, 18 (Selfridges); Marshall, ed., Proud Americans, 138.
In twenty-two British ports: Gilbert, D-Day, 108; H. H. Dunham, “U.S. Army Transportation in the ETO,” 1946, CMH, 4-13.1 AA 29, 120–23 (301,000 vehicles); “Ordnance Diary,” Dec. 1, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 602, box 1 (2,700 artillery pieces); “Historical Report, Office of the Chief Signal Officers,” vol. 1, Jan. 1945, NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 602, box 1 (telephone poles); Waddell, United States Army Logistics, 41 (7 million tons); Frank A. Osmanski, “Critical Analysis of the Planning and Execution of the Logistic Support of the Normandy Invasion,” Dec. 1949, Armed Forces Staff College, MHI, 99 (41.298 pounds); LSA, vol. 1, 441 (500-ton bales); “Ports: How an Army Is Supplied,” Oct. 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #521, 1-3 (war flats); “The Reminiscences of Alan Goodrich Kirk,” 1962, John Mason, Col U OHRO, 302 (ferries); Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 136.
Armed guards from ten cartography depots: “Supply and Maintenance on the European Continent,” NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII Operations Reports, 97-USF5-0.3, #130, 26; Beck, 565 (210 million maps); IFG, 68 (charts); Wieviorka, Normandy, 178 (aerial photos); “Reconnaissance in a Tactical Air Command,” 10th Photo Group, Ninth AF, 1945, CARL, N-9395, 3–4; Allen, “Untold Stories of D-Day,” National Geographic (June 2002): 2+ (watercolors); Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, 864–65 (“restraint and discipline”); Bradley, A Soldier
’s Story, 224 (Gone with the Wind); Field Order No. 35, 1st ID, Apr. 16, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, 301-3.9 (Field Order No. 35); memo, XXX Corps, May 18, 1944, NARA RG 407, ML #753, box 19123 (Pink List).
Day after night after day: Leppert, “Communication Plans and Lessons, Europe and Africa,” lecture, Oct. 30, 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 199, L-7-44, 14 (radio crystals); Field Order No. 35, 1st ID, Apr. 16, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, 301-3.9; Perret, There’s a War to Be Won, 475 (“marksmanship medal”); Beck, 308 (“Hagensen packs”); “The Administrative History of the Operations of the 21 Army Group,” Nov. 1945, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 458, GB 21-AG AH, 29 (metal crosses); Ross, 683 (mattress covers).
Four hospital ships made ready: Martha Gellhorn, “The First Hospital Ship,” in Reporting World War II, vol. 2, 151; Dowling, lecture, Feb. 28, 1945, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 207; Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 167, 245 (“dirty trap”); Frank Davis, OH, Nov. 24, 1944, 68th General Hospital, NARA RG 112, E 302, interview #109 (steam tables); Ambrose, The Supreme Commander, 413; MacKensie, Men Without Guns, 97; Nalty, Strength for the Fight, 181 (black and white donors); Robert R. Kelley, OH, Jan. 27, 1945, Office of the Chief Surgeon, NARA RG 112, E 302, interview #130; Paul R. Hawley, OH, John Boyd Coates, Jr., et al., 1962, MHUC, 56 (pallets).
A new Manual of Therapy: memo, Office of the Chief Surgeon, Mar. 28, 1944, James B. Mason papers, HIA, folder 1 (morphine poisoning and whole blood); Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 182; Paul R. Hawley, OH, John Boyd Coates, Jr., et al., 1962, MHUC, 54 (carbon dioxide tanks).
But whole blood would keep: Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 245; “The Evolution of the Use of Whole Blood in Combat Casualties,” U.S. Army Medical Department, Office of Medical History, http://143.84.107.69/booksdocs/wwii/blood/chapter3.htm; Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 175–76, 193; Gellhorn, “The First Hospital Ship,” in Reporting World War II, vol. 2, 151.
On Tuesday, May 23: “Stories of Transportation,” vol. 1, Frank S. Ross Papers, HIA, box 20, 203; memo, W. H. S. Wright to Henry Stimson, July 25, 1944, NARA RG 337, E 54, AGF top secret general corr, folder 319.1 (“One Way”); A. C. Doyle’s Sir Nigel, chapter 13, in Wilson, ed., D-Day 1944, 197 (“We sat on a hilltop”).
Mothers held their children: Watney, The Enemy Within, 20, 49 (“boomerang” and “girl-saint”); Ziegler, London at War, 1939–1945, 278–79 (“half empty”); Fussell, Wartime, 109 (Whore’s Lament).
By late in the week: Moorehead, Eclipse, 100 (“Civilians must not talk”); Burgett, Currahee!, 69–70 (German uniforms); Watney, The Enemy Within, 63 (Cherbourg); Scannell, Argument of Kings, 121 (diversionary attack); Ziegler, London at War, 1939–1945, 282 (death beam); AAFinWWII, 92 (icebergs); Wilson, ed., D-Day 1944, 198 (“shock kept the wounded”); Longmate, The G.I.’s, 316 (“Don’t be surprised”).
Security remained paramount: Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, 250–54 (“certain defeat” and 600,000 monthly visitors); Stafford, Ten Days to D-Day, 15 (“handsome”); “History of SHAEF, Feb. 13–June 6, 1944,” July 1944, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 CB 8, 14–19; Gilbert, D-Day, 67; CCA, 270 (counterintelligence agents).
Camouflage inspectors roamed: “Chief Engineer’s Report on Camouflage Activities in the ETO,” Nov. 15, 1945, Howard V. Canan papers, HIA, box 3; “Concealment and Display of Camps,” Plan FORTITUDE, section II, “Implementation,” n.d., Thaddeus Holt papers, MHI, box 8 (Garnished nets); “Camouflage,” historical report #18, Aug. 1945, CEOX, box X-32, folder 18, 38 (“tone-down paint”); “The Concealment Aspect of Beach Group Work,” Camouflage Development and Training Center, Farnham, U.K., Sept. 22, 1944, CARL, N-5122, 4–5 (Standard Camouflage Color 1A); “Marshalling [sic] for OVERLORD,” CE, Dec. 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #547, 28 (“contours”).
Deception complemented the camouflage: “History of SHAEF, Feb. 13–June 6, 1944,” July 1944, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 CB 8, chapter 3 (“strategic dispositions”); Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 110–11 (Pas de Calais); http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.mod.uk/aboutus/dday60/fortitude.htm* (“Bigbobs”).
The British genius for cozenage: Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, 239; Penrose, ed., The D-Day Companion, 58–59; Hesketh, Fortitude, xi–xiii, 46–52; Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 114, 131 (German hallucination); Hinsley, 118–19, 450; Holt, The Deceivers, 561–62; James, The Counterfeit General Montgomery, 53–66 (strutted about).
As May slid toward June: LSA, vol. 1, 369 (waterproofing); Beck, 317 (fifty-four inches); Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 10 (“wren’s tail”); VW, vol. 1, 137 (Sherman tank); Gilbert, D-Day, 104 (white stripes); Howarth, Dawn of D-Day, 126; Drez, ed., Voices of D-Day, 64 (push brooms).
Soldiers drew seasickness pills: Royce L. Thompson, “D-Day Personal Loads,” OCMH, Dec. 4, 1951, CMH 2-3.7 AE P-11; Cawthon, Other Clay, 42 (“braying”); memo, Cleave A. Jones to G. S. Eyster, SHAEF, July 17, 1944, NARA RG 498, UD 603, ETO HD, SLAM 201 file, box 1 (“skunk suits”).
“We’re ready now”: TR to Eleanor, May 30, 1944, TR, box 10; Ross, 695 (quartermaster box).
“I am a free man”: John M. Thorpe, “A Soldier’s Tale, to Normandy and Beyond,” Nov. 1982, IWM, 84/50/1, 80; Airborne Museum, Ste-Mère-Église, V-mail shown to author by curator Phil Jutras, May 1994 (“If I don’t come out”); corr, May 30, 1944, Joseph T. Dawson collection, MRC FDM, 1991.65, box 3 (“destiny of life”).
Eisenhower left Bushy Park: Chandler, vol. 5, 155; corr, T. Smith to family, June 17, 1944, Thor M. Smith Papers, HIA; Williams, “Supreme Headquarters for D-Day,” AB, no. 84 (1994): 1+; Stafford, Ten Days to D-Day, 178 (three telephones); “Normandy, 1944–1973,” AB, no. 1 (1973): 2 (Georgian mansion); Kingston McCloughry, Direction of War, 138 (nautical almanacs).
“The intensity of the burdens”: Overy, Why the Allies Won, 158; Three Years, 558 (“jitters”); Richard Collins, SOOHP, 1976, Donald Bowman, MHI, II, 16; R. H. Winecke, CI, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, folder 170; E. T. Williams, “Reports Received by U.S. War Department on Use of Ultra in the European Theater,” SRH-037, Oct. 1945, NARA RG 457, E 9002, NSA, box 18, 2; memo, H. R. Bull to W. B. Smith, May 26, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, box 76.
Such a robust force: diary, Oct. 14, 1944, N. T. Tangye, IWM, P 180 (“nincompoop”); Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals, 141 (“peculiar knack”); CCA, 186 (“speculative operation”); Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 303 (“futile slaughter”); VW, vol. 1, 139 (“two airborne divisions”).
“soul-racking problem”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 263; CCA, 279.
Emerging from his canvas hideaway: Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 303; Chandler, 1894 (“It must go on”).
A leafy hilltop: VW, vol. 1, 67–69; IFG, 77; CBH, June 3, 1944, box 4, MHI (Late spring warmth); memo, W. H. S. Wright to Henry Stimson, July 25, 1944, NARA RG 337, E 54, AGF top secret general corr, folder 319.1 (barrage balloons).
Soldiers still braying and bleating: Cawthon, Other Clay, 48; Pogue, Pogue’s War, 55 (“If any of you fellows”); E. Jones, ts, n.d., IWM, 94/41/1, 4 (“real white bread”); Balkoski, Utah Beach, 66–67; memoir, Ralph Eastridge, 1995, NWWIIM (“a man could have jumped”); D. K. Reimers, “My War,” June 4, 1944, MHI, 67 (“which was Clara”).
As always where land met sea: Pogue, Pogue’s War, 47; ETOUSA pamphlet 370.5, Jan. 1944, Charles E. Rousek papers, MHI (“Preparation for Overseas Movement”); “War Diary of Force ‘U,’” June 2, 1944, SEM, NHHC, box 82, folder 46 (Eighteen LCTs); Lewis, “Landing Craft,” lecture, Sept. 18, 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 199, 9 (immersion rate); AR, Don P. Moon, Force U, June 26, 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #217 (ships were overloaded anyway).
The deadwei
ght included: “History of SHAEF, Feb. 13–June 6, 1944,” July 1944, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 CB 8, chapter 3; Wilson, ed., D-Day 1944, 204 (“annoying and mysterious”); Pogue, Pogue’s War, 92 (“sparse and gray of hair”); Tobin, Ernie Pyle’s War, 205 (“scarecrow”), 164–67 (“All I do is drink”).
“I’m no longer content”: Miller, The Story of Ernie Pyle, 321–30; Tobin, Ernie Pyle’s War, 221 (“fucking throat”), 168 (“too late”).
In claustrophobic holds: Harold S. Frum, “The Soldier Must Write,” 1984, June 1, 1944 entry, GCM Lib (“I love my fellow man”); Liebling, Mollie & Other War Pieces, 177; Brown, Many a Watchful Night, 10 (On Augusta); Marshall, ed., Proud Americans, 138 (“old uneasiness”).
More than five hundred weather stations: R. J. Ogden, “Meteorological Services Leading to D-Day,” Royal Meteorological Society, Occasional Papers on Meteorological History, July 2001, 2, a.p.; Stagg, Forecast for Overlord, 51 (reconnaissance planes); Charles C. Bates, “Sea, Swell and Surf Forecasting for D-Day and Beyond: The Anglo-American Effort, 1943–1945,” 2010, a.p., 6 (British beach watchers); Charles C. Bates, e-mail to author, Nov. 11 and 23, 2007; Hogben, “The Most Important Weather Forecast in the World,” London Review of Books 16, no. 10 (May 26, 1994): 21+.
Each Allied invasion constituent: J. M. Stagg, “Report on the Meteorological Implications,” SHAEF, June 22, 1944, CARL, N-11359.
Eisenhower had never been fortunate: Chandler, 1761; Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, 248; Charles C. Bates, “Sea, Swell and Surf Forecasting for D-Day and Beyond: The Anglo-American Effort, 1943–1945,” 2010, a.p., 13–15 (Cyclonic disturbances); diary, Kay Summersby, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 140 (“very depressed”).
At 4:30 A.M. on Sunday: Ryan, The Longest Day, 48; Botting, The Second Front, 62; “Memorandum of Record,” June 4, 1944, Arthur S. Nevins papers, MHI.
“A series of depressions”: “Report on the Meteorological Implications,” June 22, 1944, UK NA, CAB 106/976, 9–11; Stagg, Forecast for Overlord, 124 (depression L5); Bates and Fuller, America’s Weather Warriors, 1814–1985, 92–94 (“quite impossible”).
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