D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

‘one felt very private .’ A number had discussed ‘who was going to make it once we landed and who wasn’t’. ‘My thoughts turned to home and family,’ one soldier recounted, ‘and I wondered how they would take the news of my death. I consoled myself with the fact that I was insured for the maximum amount of the GI insurance plan, and that my parents would at least have ten thousand dollars to compensate them for my death.’
    The men of the 116th Infantry Regiment heading for Omaha found it hard to forget the address of their commanding officer, Colonel Charles D. Canham. He had predicted that two out of three of them would never return home. He finished off his warning in a pronounced southern drawl: ‘Anyone who has butterflize in the bellah , speak up now.’ A senior British officer on the Empire Broadsword provided an equally discouraging envoi when he finished his pep talk with the words: ‘Don’t worry if you do not survive the assault as we have plenty of back-up troops who will just go in over you.’
    On the USS Bayfield , a young officer wrote in his diary of his sense of ‘approaching a great abyss - not knowing whether we are sailing into one of the world’s greatest military traps or whether we have caught the enemy completely off guard’. Another man observed that there was little hatred of the Germans, but everyone sensed that it would develop after the first casualties.
    The captain of the USS Shubrick ordered his crew to shave, shower and dress in clean clothes to reduce the chance of infection if they were wounded. Soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division headed for Utah beach also shaved their heads, some leaving a V of hair, but more opted for the Mohican fashion like the paratroopers. The sobering thoughts prompted by these precautions were offset when ships’ captains read Eisenhower’s message to the invasion troops over the public address system: ‘Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon 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. In company with our brave allies and brothers in arms on the other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.’ Many admitted to getting ‘goose bumps’ on listening to the stirring words. Before midnight, US Navy ships went to ‘general quarters’ and the Royal Navy to ‘action stations’.
     
    On more than 100 airfields in England, bomber pilots from both the RAF and the USAAC were being roused from their beds for breakfast and an early briefing. Most guessed that something big was up, but they were not sure what. The pilots of the American 388th Bomber Group at Thetford were apparently unprepared for the ‘dramatic announcement’ of the briefing officer on the platform. ‘As he drew back the white sheet that covered the operational map, he said, “Gentlemen, today the Allies invade the Continent”. Pandemonium broke loose as the briefing room exploded with cheers and whistles and shouts.’ He then went on to tell them that ‘everything in the Eighth Air Force that could fly’ would be taking off that morning. The bomb groups, once assembled in the air, would stretch for miles and miles as they streamed over towards their targets on the Normandy coast. Formation and fire discipline was vital. ‘Any individual plane flying in the opposite direction, that is, against traffic, once we left the coast of England, would be shot down.’
    The reaction at British briefings appears to have been more subdued, mainly out of awe at the magnitude of the whole operation. ‘The preparations were staggering,’ wrote Desmond Scott, a New Zealander who commanded a wing of four Typhoon squadrons. ‘The airborne assaults, the quantity and variety of shipping, the number of army divisions, the tremendous weight of the air offensive. The scale and the precision of it all made our past efforts look insignificant. When the briefing was over there was no conversation, no laughter. No one lingered and we filed out as though we were leaving church. Expressions remained solemn. The task ahead outweighed all our previous experiences and sent a shiver down the spine.’
    The RAF was putting up a maximum effort that night. Apart from