■j it leads you on the path towards liberating much of france, especially this pivot point to it does offer that advantage, which means that you can liberate people in all. but of course, from a logisticians point of view on the allied side, it's like, oh, great, i get to liberate people and now feed them in addition to my soldiers who i can barely feed to, you know. so it's all a very difficult proposition, you know. all right, thanks. appreciate it. we think we have a really nice mix of important themes that are going to be outlined by some of the best speakers. we could possibly find. and so what i'm going to do

right now, rather than any talk myself, is give you brief, brief introductions of all three of our speakers and then susan eisenhower will lead off for us, followed by doug dowds and then general metz. okay, so let me start with withh of these individuals has had such careers. i could spend quite a long time talking about each of them. i'm going to be as as succinct as i can be as susan eisenhower has had a versatile and impactful career as an educator, author, soviet expert and administrator, her resume is far too extensive to do more than highlight a few of the main aspects of her professional life. i'll just mention her work on arms control during and after the cold war. american russian partnership in space leadership of the original eisenhower institute.

her bestselling books about her grandmother, mamie and her grandfather ike respect in her mentorship gettysburg college students through her distinctive course thinking about dangerous susan's today will focus on early planning for operation overlord. our second speaker is dr. doug dowds who has forged a distinguished career as a military officer and an f-18 pilot. iraq before moving on to work at the pentagon and, specifically as a chief speechwriter for the chairman of the joint chiefs of staffs, doug dowds current responsibility is director of. the advanced strategic program at thecollege and some of you might recognize him. i think those of you who watch the equivalent of the history channel as a talking head on various history documentaries right we call it that folks relating to american wars his

topic today we'll focus on german defense at normandy which tends to get overlooked and we are overlooking it and then our our cleanup hitter is general william katz jr. major general metz is no stranger to this campus. he's in 1961, graduate of gettysburg college and subsequent he went on to a very distinguished five decade military career, including a stint, a company commander with the ninth infantry division in vietnam, where he was wounded in the 1968 tet offensive. general mattis served as executive secretary to two secretaries of defense. caspar weinberger and frank carlucci. he worked in the defense industry before from the army in 1995, i should say, on retiring the army in 1995. and he has served, on a number of important national commissions as a capstone to. general mattis, his storied career in 2018, president donald

trump appointed him as secretary. the american battle monuments commission that position he held until march of 2021. for our panel this morning general mattis will speak about allied operations in normandy, d-day. so with that, susan, to is yours. mike thank you very much for that kind introduction like to thank the eisenhower society and carol hagaman and tracy parks and walford. everyone who has made this possible i too was on this committee. i'm delighted. the extraordinary talent we presenting today i'm going to take a slightly different tact as we had such a extraordinary overview. thank you very much, dr. it was a memorable in every way and i think you've got excellent

ground doing in so many of the issues that were underway at the time. i'd like to use this opportunity d to say that it's been a real honor of mine the 15 years that i've been engaging actively with a student group selected year competitively to. take five cadres to the normandy and when i go there now, you know there's so many people in normandy that are tremendously worried about whether this story isbeloved, are passing away. and i keep telling them that the veterans who were here would so admire any attempt to cast the story as a story of young people, what they accomplished. i tell my students were on the beaches of normandy that. actually, if you think about it, everyone coming on shore was your. and when we go to the americans cemetery, i say we're now standing in a kids cemetery.

don't want to call your kids kids, but it is a cemetery of, young people, the sacrifices borne by that are based on decisions arrived at by th elders. and so it's with that note, i'd like to talk about one of those elders i wrote a book called how i led. so this really satisfied a lot of things for me, both combining what i knew about him personally, but also it satisfies a lot of my interest in strategic leadership. regrettably, a piece of leadership i don't think we have nearly enough of today. this is the capacity to bring together a million moving parts. many of those parts we heard about earlier this morning and to make them into a coherent policy, a policy that will achieve the most important and in the most efficient and effective way. now, this is not an easy thing to do or i think we woulddi plan

contemporary life. but still, we were so blessed with a level of talent during that war that i personally am doing everything i can see if i can help young people. think about a set of complicated problems in a different way. i say to them, imagine the time we're talking about no computers, no maps, no distance, phone calls, no augmented data air, all the planning for this phenomenal invasion that required meaningful work to 16 million addition to that bringing together forces different cultural and by the way a different view of strategy together for

warfare to accomplish a set of goals. i would add to the many things that this operation led to was the dawn of a new way of war fighting, not just an alliance based war fighting, but a integrated command. and this was the first that means that the british and the french in many cases and all of our allies were sitting in a completely officewas no differen you're nationality. imagine what that took to come in at this job a little late in the day to try and refashion an entire organizational culture in the short time. that was still available for planning the invasion of normandy. and so this legacy also a complete change actually in our own military in. the united states that led to the concept of the joint chiefs of staff and certainly the

eisenhower administration. there were two major reforms of the defense designed to realign the defense in a way that would put civilians in charge of inter-service rivalry and to manage that process. and finally, it brings us to the point of discussion this evening about who are the stories this morning? who was this man whose legacy during the war extended all the way to 1961 and beyond he was a man who had strategic gifts, but he was also a middle child. okay. he had a very outspoken, outsize older brother. and he well, he was one of seven boys. six survived boys. he was the middle child who managed to reconcile differences and. so he brought that talent actually to the european

theater. let's back up again, because it really wasn't discussed this morning. i was next up. but one of the things that's really impressive about the general strategy for world war two is that they had to make a decision about where they were going to concentrate their resources obviously, if you read eisenhower diary, he complains a bit about having to go out and argue for the right level of resources for the normandy invasion, because we a two front war or two wars he calls them. having said that, it was very clear that the u.s. policy and strategy was europe first, which frankly took a lot of courage. when you think that the united states of america was attacked initially by the japanese, adolf hitler made the fatal mistake of declaring war on the united states, and that opened the way for an assessment that if we could defeat hitler it would weaken the japan■s=e.

in any case, the numbers are legends of how many people participated in d-day overlord. include 12,000 airplanes. 7000 vessels, two 24,000. paratroop. 160,000 soldiers deployed. think about the logistical challenges of getting all of them food and water and rations and emergency medical supplies that they with them and imagine of all of these numbers, only 15% of them were veteran combat soldiers. only 15%. the rest had not been in combat. so as i say, my students, when we get to those speeches, the vast percentage of people who came on shore on that didn't they didn't know who they and they found in an instant, they

know if they were brave. they didn't know if they were cowards. they didn't know whether they could manage their stress. ved through the day. can you imagine? imagine only 15%, from what i understand and the way we handled it is we integrated those 15% with the other soldiers provide some maturity in each of these. but still, it's extraordinary. let me say something about the kinds of struggles that the man who took responsibility for the entire operation managed as the youngest, as i just described to her, in one of the most existing social moments they would ever expect in their lives. you could say that dwight eisenhower, in an existential moment over future of career, his career and what i think is moving about what i read in research when i wrote my book is

that he cared not one whit about he was remembered now i that sounds like it's too good to be true but if you read his musings in diaries for really the place to go naive dwight eisenhower thought nobody would ever be reading them. of course they're now published and you can read them. but he muses what heortsightedne average human and their care about the intense promoting, their intense personal outlook that most officers have even in such a critical thing war. how many? he went on to say that he that his principal effort w going to do his duty no matter where it led and in doing she meetingg which was serve something larger

than himself. now this is not too to be true because this was deeply embedded his religious beliefs that were fostered right here in pennsylvania, not far from, you know, his father grew up not far from harrisburg as a matter of fact. but these these deep seeded feelings of self-sacrifice can be seen in how he handles so many of the allies. there. so many crises that we started to talk about today. but let me say that. the the difficulty of bringing together a multination group for the first time can be as simple. what kind of language are we going to use? trunk of car or are we going to call it a boot and not understanding which set of vocabulary words we're going use

took a tremendous amount of effort. there were also differences between the way the british, for instance looked at strategy and their availability to resources, which then had an impact on what choices they wanted to make the ones that they could afford the ones that made sense them. but then there was the american viewpoint and america has never found a full on something that didn't like. we are very oriented, being focused on direct action, whereas british have always, always and i lived in britain for seven years. they're always more interested in going around in a different, more indirect way. in any case the effort to bring those together underscored a way. one of the biggest problems eisenhower faced and that was that the united states was becomingding country and britais

beginning to lose a grip on its empire and the war. this is one of the subtexts for the war, is the fight to try and keep that empire from imploding. and so without getting too much more of those sorts of slightly off subject, let me just say that dwight main personal objective, i understand it a i say reflect it in his diaries is that his main job was what he called unity purpose to bring together in that upper echelons of the alliance, a unity of purpose. and then in both his diaries, other research, there were times when i read it and i want to say stand up for yourself kind of for heaven's sake, stand up for yourself. but then i realized he had different way of going about this. probably way he managed dinner table conversations when we were growing up and certainly the

home that he grew up in, that to let some people win a few minor things to hold back a bit being active listener and then when really analyze the problems he was he won every fight he won every fight so is a short list of the headaches he had to deal with. and i know that the people coming along after me will give you the full detail on it. but first of all, i had to deal with the skeptics of the plan the british did not like the idea of invading normandy and winston churchill quote unquote come around or hardened to the enterprise as the quote goes until within weeks of the actual deployment in normandy. can you imagine having boss who has no confidence that you're going to pull it off so that was one thing then the size of the invasion force, he fought a huge battle at the vy early p5stage

where we're going to have three beaches or are we going to have five with two divisions in reserve? he fought that battle and he did it through general. very smart. send out the guy that churchill respects and is looking to for this kind of information. then again, the airborne, a decision that was described earlier or he says in his diaries is very worried about the flak. he obviously knew there was a flak, but he understood that the airborne assault was the linchpin of the operation, the transportation plan, the british war cabinet absolutely rejected idea. and eisenhower had to say, sorry, we're doing it me if you want to or resign from my position. so he knew when to soften up and when he knew when to the metal, to the pedal as. a matter of fact, i think in my book i said in my own in on reflection, i think he was a genius at knowing when to

deploy. he go and when to suppress. finally, we have the fight over strategic bombing, which was related to the transportation plan, logistical problems, not enough landing craft going into an invasion that's already on the calendar, a shortage of ammunition at the very last moment and anvil. i don't know how many of you realize that in conjunction with d-day there was to be an invasion from france that would support the operation and the british were opposed to it. as a matter of fact by the time i finally talk them into it churchill had renamed it operation dragoon. i'm yes, it's such a british word, you know. then then i had to deal with both the who were only strengthening their defenses there along the normandy coast, but were also moving divisions into the area and the french.

and we have not discussed the divisions, the deep divisions, france. but this created a very important diplomatic, strategic and operational set decisions. you could say that, of course, at the end of the day, the weather forecast was the most vexing. but if you take the weather forecast in context of using airborne, this was one of the bravest things. i think will remember in in history. and so early the war. i'm just going to close by saying early the war he complained a bit that the british press was described being as timid. and he said and i'm looking for the quote here, he said, it worries me to be thought of as timid when i have had to do things were that were so risky as to be almost crazy. the fact is, and this is how i'm going to end my talk he didn't show it he didn't show how risky

thought it was. he had capacity to to project optimum wisdom. and for all of the veteran i've met and he went out and visited as many people as he could who were in and preparing for this invasion, i wish i had the list in front me, but every possible he could, he went out and talked to them and exuded this kind of optimism. but even more important, projected that optimism. his british comrades to our other allies. and so it's not surprising, actually, given the fact that he fought for every one of those things that he was given in the end, that on june 5th, the evening of june, before he went out to see the airborne troops, he wrote a note that said, my division to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. the troops, the air, the navy

did all bravery and devotion to duty could do if any blame or fault attaches to the attempt. it is mine alone. this in case of failure? no, never had to be used. but that is the man who led d-day. thank you. good morning. i'd also like to thank the eisenhower society, the eisenhower institute and my gracious panel members for the opportunity to engagth taking tt of your busy schedule this morning where i take a look at the other side. it's often valuable to stand in the adversary shoes. we'll use a design methodology which is trying to understand the environment understand what guidance they were given, how they define the problem, and what approach they chose to use. so let's step to how are things looking? in 1944 for germany? well, let's go all the way back

to frederick the great and. they have a germany problem which it's in the middle of europe and they're surrounded in this case by alliance of strange bedfellows who share one thing in common. they want the defeat of germany. now, if we think about what the extent of that empire is in both europe and, north africa, it will slowly start to be rolled starting around november of 1943 with there are 42 with the invasion of north. this will be the first time that american troops will fight germans and churchill would routinely remind you haven't been to war until you fought, the germans. it won't be until february of 1943 that we would see the turnaround around stalingrad. this would be the high tide of the german advance in the east and, really the turning point that would continue to the germans back on the east for the rest of the war. then what we'd find in may of 1943, this would the battle of the atlantic finally turns between and october of 1943, the allies will stake 135 u-boats. if you think about in the three years and three months prior to that point they had sunk 153.

this is how that this gives the allies naval supremacy. it is a prerequisite necessary. the invasion of northwest europe we can find in june the combined bomber offensive with the british bombing at night, the americans bombing to the day are following a point blank directive that you're going to target the german aircraft industry. it actually won't slow so much their production. but what it does is forces german to come into the air. what does that translate to between, there's thousand 283 german pilots. of those 2260. two of them will be shot down. that's a 99% turnover. this gives allies aerial supremacy. another prerequisite for the invasion of northwest africa by going to find in july of 43, england and the united states will invade sicily. this will open up the mediterranean to shipping in september, though of eight italy proper. this will force italy's surrender. this breaks the tripartite

agreement. italy is out of the war that forces at least ten divisions to go in to the italian peninsula. won't be in normandy. finally, what you're gonna have in the spring of 1944, russian advance is all the way across the east means that are some 200 german divisions fighting on a thousand mile front between the baltic and keeping at home of te 13 divisions that are in norway, that gives you about 58 divisions left. and why all of this is happening in the east with not a whole lot left to go. the idea is something is going to happen. and so what we find on top of all this is the arsenal, democracy supplying not only the united states, but all of our allies. so what's the guidance from here? it really starts march of 1942, which the hitler directive 40 says, let's build an atlantic wall. at this point, it's truly just a propaganda arm and you get bunch of these pictures. that's 1760 mile coastline that you have to defend. and that's a problem. oh, by the way, that in your principal response right now, it's actually in the east.

that happens in early 1942 is rommel pull out of retirement■+ field. gerhard von roon stead, the oldest field marshal in the german army at 68 years old. he's last prussian. he will do a study because he's a good professional and realized the atlantic wall is a sham. write a report, send it back to and say hitler should really read this and bring at that time in the war. he actually does which is going to lead the führer directive number 51 in november of 1943. that says he warns of the catastrophic consequences of the allies, a foothold in northwest europe. that's the problem statement and the response to that or the approach be strengthen the western defenses and be prepared to the enemy back into the sea. to that end, that■! same will ao sign a field marshal, the youngest in the germann rommel,o do an assessment of the atlantic wall. they all agree it's a sham with that von roon step will assign

rommel command of the two army groups responsible for calais normandy. this is when t atlantic war really starts to be built as was brought up earlier. there's a lot of study where to, you know, where are we going to build our fence? he who defends everything, defend nothing. so what they do is they look at where are the landed in the past and it's always been ports. so therefore they prioritized ports. calais, westerham, cherbourg, brest. that's where the predominant mounts goes. moreover, for all the reasons we talked about besides under air cover, the closeness to berlin, the idea that that is the most likely landing and, the most consequential one, most of the responses or most of the resources go to calais. now, when they start to build that atlantic wall. this is the western defenses. what we should think about this is a living beast. okay when you see these concrete bunkers, they're going to build 15,000 of them. it's. 1.2 million tons of german steel. it's 5% of the german steel production is found in the rebar

in those bunkers. think about this is the bones of this defensive beast. okay, the bones of the defensive would be connected by trench lines. those the ligaments that hold it together, you see these artillery pieces, 8000 artillery pieces from 28 countries in 21 different calibers. and the point you go, oh, those germans are so creative to use all of those are captured that they found from all those countries they occupy. true, except do you resupply 21 different calibers of artillery find spare parts from logistically it's a mess nonetheless this is the muscle of the beast. then think about the ice. they're going to build radar stations because we don't have a navy and we don't have an air force. so how do we that they're coming 92 radar stations between calais and cherbourg of which only 5% will still be standing on june six, but nonetheless, these are the eyes of the beast sense when that adversary's coming. and then we should think about what is the skin of the beast and when you think this this ends up being the 6.5 million

mines the 500,000 beach obstacles arrayed in three lines between the low tide and the high tide mark. this. 325,000 romulus farragut picture, six foot fault telephone poles put in every field for which they think the allies might land. paratroopers, gliders. and on top of that, they the fields to reduce the mobility and maneuverability of allies who might lay it. that is the beast. and, of course, the blood that flows through it. the german german troops that are there. now, let's talk about these for a moment. 800,000 of them under von runge, dead in his command of the west, except that the germans have reached the bottom of the manpower manpower barrel. so what you're finding is they're recruiting very old, the 709th regiment that founded utah beach. the average age is 36. the 352nd regiment that's on omaha beach was mentioned average age 18 and a hf on of that one sixth of those troops are outgroup group in those people from eastern europe or soviet socialist republics.

look at these faces. they are not aryan. they're from so you have a problem with language and readiness. are they going to fight? well, and truth be told it's a mixed bag, some fight very well. and others can't wait to surrender. but effectively, what we should think about this. this is the reinforce western defenses. what this means though when we said, hey, this is only an act progress only 18% of the atlantic wall built in normandy at the time that the allies invade. okay, so let's talk about the other decision have to make. how do we drive them back the sea, the best units we have are we have about ten panzer divisions. this is what you think about when you think about the german army in world war two. these are mechanized and motorized forces that fight with combined arms operations that can fight in a modern war, whereas of the 58 divisions, 23 of them are static, defending atlantic wall cannot fight offensive operations and are not mobile.

the panzer divisions are. how do we use them? and what you're gonna find is two different approaches. the first one is proposed by gerhard von ernst, the commander of the west, and really attack dog is this guy is via die or von weapon burg both of their experiences fighting the east against the russians that's they beat what they would propose is the atlantic wall is just a trip it's an outpost defense it's minor delay what we do is use that traditional doctrinal approach of using mastery massed mobile reserves made up of massed panzers that the allies commit to where they're going to. we launch them in a counterattack now there are some assumptions built into this. it is first that the luftwaffe or the german air force should be able support that counterattack. moreover, the thing we fear, more than anything is allied gunfire. it's an asymmetric advantage, which we have no real response. it was proven both that the armored c■wounterattacks in sicy as well as italy, that's a problem. therefore don't put all that

armor upfront, leave it in the back around paris to account for a potential airborne drop in paris, but also to be able to flow to calais or to normandy, depending where they land. one approach, the other approach. this one largely the brainchild of erwin rommel, because his experience is different. where did he get his fighting? the british in north africa. now he's an armor man, too. but here's the thing. he'll say the war changed. you don't understand. allied is destroying us. we can't do that doctrine. approach all those reserves. put the rear will never make it to the front. allied air will ensure they do not. therefore, we need a new approach. we need to put that armor up at atlantic wall is not a trip. that is the battle line. we fight at the coast. if the allies land and they take a hold for more than 48 hours. we will lose the assumptions inherent of this is we have no german navy and. we have no german air force.

now that's the debate that goes back and forth now, be told these guys are going to push back a erwin rommel. that's mildly interesting. here's the thing. africa. europe and not north there's 66 days of cloud cover in. northwest europe, alli a going to be that effective. moreover, this isn't the desert. this is europe. look at all those tree look at the rolling terrain. there's cover and concealment. allied air won't be nearly that effective. nonetheless, as this debate continues, it goes up to adolf hitler to make the choice. and what choice he make, he splits the baby. what he's going to do is give of those divisions, three of them to erwin rommel, two of the divisions he's going to put up towards calais, most likely and most consequential landing for the allies. one of them he's going to put near normandy. three of the divisions are given to army group in the south, for which von roon sets. 9ñwhy are we even defending the south? and then four of the divisions are given to guy von schweppe and berger paris with idea that they would execute the plan. traditional doctrinal approach. but here's the limitation. you can't move them until hitler

releases for guy or von schweppe goes, you go, you're killing me. you're stealing share pumped my weight my master panzers that should be able to counter-attack have now been split up all across the country. so they get neither. the advantages one or the other approach. so this whole problem is exacerbate aided moreover by a very convoluted change of command. so you've got hitler at the top and he's got an army and navy, an air force commander y, geier von runge, that is responsible for the command of the western part of europe. his naval and air commander don't report him. they report back to berlin which means he has neither the authority nor the necessary cooperation of those commanders. that translates to all his commanders to be responsible for defending those beaches for which they're going to land. problem. if you think about all the ss units that are in france, they report to heinrich. they're not even in the army and

goes straight to hitler to on top of this, hitler will roin reach all the chain of command directly to these people. he wants to talk to you and. he's given them the authority to reach back him. many of the german commanders sit in normandy, call this command bytaff of von that would say this is it. the problem every tyrannical leader. you don't want to give too much power to any one leader. however this command and control system effectively slows down the decision making of german war machine on june six and thereafter. so are the results of all this. first of all, the germans only have a one domain response to the allied invasion. how do you defend normandy if all you have is an army? that's their first problem. the second one is we don't have a common operational approach about how we use our best troops, not in intent, not in posture, and not in use of how we use those panzer divisions next. and unbelief. everybody who was around in

1940, we have a hierarchal and rigid change of command that disempower subordinate commanders to be able to act and react at the speed of the problem. so ultimately for the german defense in europe, in world war two, they don't have enough resources. there's a fair amount of senior german officers who are applying to apply a doctrinal traditional culture proclif massed armored reserves that fail recoe now a coalition who can fight in air, land and in harmonious activity that, are well-armed, well-trained and well-led and that traditional doctrinal approach is no longer suitable to the changing competitive environment. of course, the lesson we should take today is we should ask ourselves if the united states and our allies capable of responding to radically changing national security environment, maybe more importantly, for those in the armed forces that serve today, are we able to learn from the past anticipate the future and react to the ever changing, accelerate changing

character of war? thank you. okay, folks, time to put the parachutes on. going to jump in. i'm i'm bill metz and delighted to be back on the campus where i graduated from years ago and delighted to be with all these experts and professionals that spend so much time studying, researching and on this particular battle d-day and then give it to us today. so, folks, i'm going to discuss the airborne operations, allied airborne operations that took actually, it was of operation neptune. neptune was the assault phase of overlord and it consisted of

across the beach, amphibious and the parachute. which professor mcmanus touched on a little bit here. neptune lasted 6 to 30 june. and as i say i will talk about the airborne operation of it, which consisted of three airborne divisions, 82nd, 101st, which i had the opportunity spend nine years with when i was on active duty. and of course, we leave our british cousins out. the six brits, six british, airborne so the airborne troops total about. 3000 413,400. us parachute did in and about another 30/904 thousand came in assault glider. so in 6000 brits came in just as eisenhower and his weathermen were so concerned about the state and getting across the channel and landing the people on the beaches. why the weather plays a major role in airborne operations. also the biggest the biggest thing we worry about on airborne operations is win. win is a killer.

that was not a major issue. but what was a major issue? the second issue that we worry about is the navigation is the cloud cover is the density and the fog and of course, we did hit that and the existing weather conditions were really worse over france than they were over england in the channel. much so. so in considering the airborne plan as someone already pointed out, we to take care of the very vulnerable flanks. the flanks, the op the airborne operation took place at the crittenden peninsula here. so you had the the eastern flank and the western flank. here's your beaches. but the the assault forces came across. so that was a major consideration. and eisenhower was a little skeptical on mass tactical drops of the after the debacleration n

sicily, we learned a of lessons learned there on that one. and i'm going to tell a little bit more detail on that afterwards. but the airborne operation consisted of, say, the 82nd all-american patch, the screaming eagles and the pegasus patch for the brits. this is general ridgeway, max mackerel. taylor and this is windy gale, the brit, these two folks participated, the earlier airborne operations in, sicily. and then in salerno, in fact, taylor was with the 82nd as a devotee, commander that operation and matt ridgeway was the commander under him, a atc who's some someone's already mentioned his name. general gavin, a real airborne trooper. so let meih discuss a couple of things here. what is there was a diversion theory plan as part of the

airborne operation and it was called titanic. it of dropping about 500 pirate dummies in inland off off areas, away the actual landing zones. they actually them in an arc like this they were dropped by the brits and they called them the british god bless the british. they gave them the name of rupert after rupert the bear comic strip articlereand so 500n with some sars troops. and it's interesting, had some little notes attached to some of these dummies. there you see one there. they're in a lot of our airborne museums. they're about three and a half feet high wrapped in hessian cloth with withstand and so forth to fill them. they put attached little notes on there saying as they drop in the early morning hours, this this area here. good morning. we have arrived.

good morning, schultz. we have it's but anyway, that was very successful because it did draw off of some of the german units to go and investigate that in particular it drew up a couple of units that were very close to where the 101st, would eventually jump into. let me show you the routes here that used so the 82nd came out of departure airfields in this area here flew a straight course south when they got to the the channel, they went to 450 feet altitude to get onto the german. that's pretty low, folks to big heavy airplanes when thot here,a boat there with a light on and the pilots got in on that it had the code name of hoboken. and at that point they made a left turn and came in from the

west across the, uh, the french coast. there and dropped a paratroopers right into? this area, the glider troops this route, and then turned and came in7[■ here. glider troops did not commit to about 434 or 430 in the morning, three or so hours after the airborne had made their parachute drops when they hit when they hit the coast here is when the weather turned extreme cloudy. navigation was very difficult. and the as a couple of our speakers already mentioned, the german flack, the area aircraft guns started to open up one their so as a result of that the serials across there were 1047 aircraft, 1047 c, 46 aircraft coming in there. they had to disperse, climbed high. some went to the left to right some dipped low, which is reason. you'll see what i show you.

the jump pattern as to why some of the troops did not land on their drop zones. the brits in here now they outside right over the landing like they did inakes they did in sicily. and in fact the five oh is in the five of fifth went into sicily. the five oh fourth had 23 aircraft shot down friendly. shot down by naval gunfire because of the assault. the airborne were actually right over the beaches. they also did not use pathfinders or that operation. these are some of the lessons learned that the planners looked at and eisenhower insisted that they make those changes becau st operation in sicily. so, again, as i say, they came in this way here on the on western part. the british came here. they flew in what they call a v formation.

and then there was v of these. so you see three aircraft in each v formation and then there was a v of these nine aircraft. that's how they both approached the 101st in the in the 82nd. let me mention here quickly, the british airborne. if you orient you if go off the map here, you go to sword beach. there were two critical, critical bridges that had to be taken prior to the assaults on the beaches and this was the boehner bill and the granville bridge. later pegasus for the brits and the horse after the british troop carrier here that they used glider. but this was a very daring operation and in my view was one of the best operations done ever conceived an planned in world war two, it consisted.

six gliders. you see them here, two, three, four, five, the six one actually never made it. he took the wrong bear again. ended up four miles away. but these gliders landed right in this area here. that's about 2/10 of a mile distance from bridge to bridge. you've got the con canal in new york river. six gliders landed at. zero, 16 minutes after midnight, led by major john howard, the brit. here you see the british loading one of these horses gliders. they would carry about eight men. they were larger than the american waco gliders that carried 17 or 18 men. within 15 minutes after they had landed, they land totally took the small garrison surprise. it was a small garrison there they say about 20 german

soldiers, huns. this hans schmidt was a major. he was the commander of that garrison, of course, gliders. there's no engine. there's no noise. they set right down here. howard was in the first glider. he wasy few meters from the bridge. they got out quickly and the bridge knocked the germans out anthso one lieutenant was kille. a british lieutenant was killed as he was the pegasus bdge. and one of the soldiers, one of the gliders was killed when the glider landed hard and broke his neck. so two people lost and they took that this was this was a major in my view, as i say a major operation that sealed these two bridges. this is a high speed avenue approach. and as doug just mentioned, there were a number of panzer units and other units out here that could have easily in and hit the beaches.

the sword landing well, and eventually came up and linked ue british airborne jumped in in this area here and linked up. so a very successful operation. as i say, it was operation dead stick. you don't learn much about it. but i leave my british cousins out of it. they are so proud of that operation and they should be. he come around when i was a young officer of the 82nd howard would around on tour and he would he would talk to us about this operation oak next chart. so let's go back to the us airborne plan now so we were we had the western sector and this chart shows you again here's utah beach to. two the 82nd area here. this was about a ten mile or ten square mile area and this is the 101st. they jumped closer to the beach. they had about a square mile

area. the. the object, the disease shown here, there's three of them for each division and three here. remember, now, the aircraft came in this way■o from west. they did not come across way. so they came in, dislodged their troops that way the photos you see. this is one of the american c 30 sevens and you could see a jump these 101st troop 82nd troopers here up you see the two troopers from the. 101st this chapel here is the chapel at the the st mayor dumont. and it's got a very unusual steeple. and of course the troops who jumped miles away could see that steeple and that helped bring them in.

the. 101st and they came in, as i say, in this area here, their objectives as frombeaches to tas that came inland. there were four of them. also this artillery battery had four guns. and you could very easily range utah beach was another objective of 101st this town here a very critical objective they picked up. then they had four bridges over the du, a river there, which they would responsible for taking. so that gives you an idea of their objectives and course always then to link up with their sister division the 82nd over here. the 82nd then jumped in and objectives were the town of saint mary's at least which we all know about a major road junction. sort of reminds you gettysburg, when you looked at it five or six roads coming together there

were three or four german battalion headquarters there. usually most of the time. they were also responsible for two key bridges. this is the marriott river that's flows south into the the do there were two key highway bridges there one at lafayette air and, one down here, very key. they had to get those to prevent any kind of a german counterattack coming into the the area of operations. so the 82nd opera was actually boston. they came in with about 6420 paratroopers in 370. so c 47. the 101st came in. it was about 6900 paratroopers. so they they had they were about a little bit bigger. so just remember before i show you the next chart exactly. the drop zones were preceding the drop of the major airborne units. they sent in power 500 units.

they were a three man teams and they three teams came in for each drop zone. okay, folks, where did they actually there and be telling you about when they hit the coast how the the any aircraft fire hit them and also the cloud cover was bad some pilots were better than others some had a steady head and continued it. some tried to evade. so this is real quickly here. this will show you where they landed the 101st startedat 4848t and went through 140 each dot represents a stick. each stick is one airplane load and each airplane load has about 15 to 18 paratroopers. to give you an idea. so you see in some cases they actually missed the drop. so so this is drop zone alpha.

the aircraft are coming over. well, this aircraft that was supposed to go across here came here. so this stick, dark circles you see here should have jumped in there. the other two drop zones, 101st did a pretty good job. these were pretty tight jumps. i think you can see there this was perhaps the best here. each of these drop zones about a mile and a 10th across the long general max mortality rate in this area right here, the arab easy company guy, lieutenant -- winter, landed down here. just to give you an idea also you'll some of these darts that are off on the side this way this way down here. these are troops that were landed anywhere from ten, 15 to 20 miles away.

yeah. so, you know, that's how they were scattered, ten to 15 to 20 miles away. not many of them. some of them were that way as result of trying to evade the the flak, trying to find a hole through the air cover the pilots released them. one or two were actually one or two sticks were actually released. the over the english channel. so those paratroopersied down the 80 seconds started their operation 10 minutes after the last aerial of the 101st. again they were coming in this way here. this is the 5/5. this is galvin with this group. this is saint mary's. so they actually jumped almost right on to saint mary's release. and some of them did land right in the town. you know, the story of a private steele, who's parachute got tangled in the in the steeple

there and hung there for about 2 hours. but these had a very good drop. they were able to get out of their harness as quickly and get on with their objectives these two. did fair too. well look empty the drop zones are this one here in particular particular. they dropped a little bit late. so this huge group you see here, the dark dots here belong in tango, drop zone tango. these folks, it's a shame they were they dropped the marshy area along. the marinette river couldn't get of their chutes. it was only two or three or four feet deep. but many of those died. and this one down here, this this drops them down here, they didn't fare much better. they were scattered all over. and some oth even down here you see a few dots, a few sticks here around charenton. and i will tell you, those

troops dropped that distance. why the germans picked them up and most cases. again, you can see whe othese ty off. way off this way. way off this way. but just take a look at that, folks take a look at wherehe planned drop zones, they're over a mile inland and you can see where the troop drops were. it really it in view of the flak and the bad cloud cover, it really wasn't too bad when you get right down to it. okay. my chart here, i wanted to discuss just real quickly, lessons learned, mission applied. so as i salerno now in sicily drops. one is the pathfinder this is the pathfinder badge here. they didn't use for the sicily

drop. they did use them, obviously in the 82nd and 101st. and they were armed with this eureka little radar portable radar station. they tracked, jumped in with it, and then set it up. and it set a signal to the pilots coming in that helped in navigation, but not in all cases. when they dropped that jumped in to equipment, were in a couple of cases that crashed to the ground and didn't work where it didn't work where they were not able to set up the drop zones the way they wanted to. why? obviously, the pilots aircraft didn't make their exact drop point. here's a picture of c 37. you'll notice stripes. here's p-38 on sicily. there was no designation the friendly gunners below they couldn't tell whether it was an enemy aircraft a friendly aircraft. so they made sure they did. and these are very easily seen.

they use the p30 eight. so the naval gunners that were down in the channel could easily distinguish that with a two tails again as i say great lessons learnedthis and this and incidentally, one they were looking at shall we use mass attacks with airborne again after the sicily drop, one of the biggest proponents was montgomery, the ground commande he really pushed it okay. the eject is in the missions with the objectives, the mission is accomplished. i say yes. were here's st mary's glaciers. the troops moving through there shortly thereafter. that's the town of saint merkley's that was taken by the five oh fifth and it was in hands by 430. that morning this. is the german battery that i showed you this was located here and 101st took that out very quickly before the first boat beached on utah beach had. those guns had those guns been

in operation, why we would have lost more than 200 people on utah beach, the day. so that mission was accomplished. this the lafaro, a bridge famous, if you've ever been over there and walked normandy and walked the historic trails you've probably crossed this little bridge and seen there. it's a real it's a real tourist spot and that's why over the murder river here w only only a four day fight where 250 to 80 second airborne division soldiers from the five of the fifth lost their life. and a great number others were injured. so that was a tough fight for that bridge. but they took that they also took the the bridges took the opposite of the bridges were along to do the river here, and they were able to take take the other that was south of the la■3$vfaro, right to this point here. they also closed off western sector with small pockets of

infantry to alert or take care of any enemy that might be coming in from the west. so and of course, the main thing is they very quickly got these r causeways coming off of utah beach across the marsh, it up into the hard start 101st got them real quickly which allowed the utah beach the fourth and gt their infantry up rather quickly. and across the causeway as it entered their fight. so folks, that's just a quick rundown on the objectives. the major objectives they were they were, in fact, taking care of vi. i'd say by day d-plus one on balance on balance, there was 50% casualties. you know, you could every report you look at every casualty

numbers. so roughly, it was the airborne, the two airborne divisions, u.s. divisions took, about 50% casualties. on the first night,■ five or six june. and this incded they killed in action, missing in action, wounded and prisoner paratroopers, as i say, their objectives really they used the as eureka radar beacons and the germans really were clearly clearly disorganized by the random drops, not able to counter-attack, in my view, in any fashion for the first two or three days, lacked. this is bill maps as a opinion when you look at it read it. the germans lacked a good good general officer presence and leadership that time many had been because of the bad weather. many had gone to a a major

meeting. they were going to have to discuss the landings and they were off they were away from their units and off in the town of red. so they weren't there. and of course, we killed general farley, who was a 91st division commander of 50850. we've got him. and he was killed down here. so, so so the germans were lacking, in my view, a good leadership. another thing i think we need to mention here is the sabotage efforts by french resistance. it was very, very there in normandy. they assisted tremendously once paratroopers on the ground, etc. they were a force multiplier. think and take it that the other thing i want to mention is folks the courage, the tenacity, the bravery, the individual initiate of of the young trooper. and we teach that in army basic training. it's not rigid rigid, hi diddle

diddle. this is what you'll do. we teach the young troop to think in these young troopers. 18, on zones that they weren't familiar with or landing and not seeing their buddy or not finding their ficer. they marshaled together, got together in units of two or three or four and started moving towards the objective. to me this was a major force multiplier on how that young troop responded there. and was very, very influential in the success of the airborne operations and of course, american leadership airborne leadership was the best it the best. you can't win. you have the likes of ridgeway, of galvin, of matthew taylor, of mcauliffe. these are all names you heard later on. and they all went through the war. two of them became chiefs of staff of the army. i think maxwell taylor, chairman of the joint chiefs, these great leaders. so i think this made the difference here.

i want to i want to end by saying this here, i want to read a just a real quick quote from a german panzer grenadier commander. he was a commanding one, 25th panzer grenadier. colonel, hans von look and a good friend of mine interviewed him many years in the interview when he was asked about how his unit reacted or asked about the normandy invasion. this is what he said. my regiment was left attack. the american paratroopers. madness. no one knew how many paratroopers had or even where they landed or even where they were. it was a matter of guessing where they were or where they would. you could not imagine confusion. i had to deal with my did not owre to fight end of quote. so thank you, folks.

and i think we look forward to your questions. yeah, the is open for questions. the one thing we want to say is that if you have a question, please wait until our student gets you with the microphone so that we can all you. so let's see if there's a hand up. i see a hand way back. yes, sir. but we have to wait until sam gets up to you right. thank you. this is a question for dr.on byt general matt spoke about with the stragglers from 101st 82nd captured because they were so dispersed and away from their unit this is on a personal my canadian mother's classmate at

mcgill university city was a third infantry division who came ashore at normandy. canadians made it about eight miles inland. he was captured and within. 24 hours of landing in france. he was executed. members of the 12th waffen ss, he and 17 other shoulder ]

hello hello. okay. okay so there's a couple of things baked into that. one, ss units are different, right? they're fanatical nazis rather than a common german who goes a if they've already, they're not going to stop until our unconditional surrender. i'm going to fight for my homeland. those are philosophically two different people on. top of that many of these units that are in france. in fact, for the first two years of the war, it is backwater of the war. when you're inhe russians or the soviets we brought you back to france. that's recover get your replaces before we sent you back. that brutal fighting is background for many of those people who were out there. so when you think about the brutality of the eastern theater it comes the mindset of many of the soldiers who had fought in the eastern theater order that sits out there and it's the commando order that basically hitler gives commandos that say they should be executed because these are special operators now that are operating

between behind lines, interfering with governance and all those other things. they have orders kill. i think this is largely, though a matter of one. those are ss the brutality of the and you know to keep this in context when the canadians about this and they do because that's their sector then they also come up with their■á n of engagement. you are we're not taking any german prisoners below the rank of major. this is about the escalating of war. when you take fundamental set of values and you put them in extraordinary circum and now they are reacting to the environment that they are in, i would offer, though, that those stories tend to be the rather than the rule in the sense of almost everybody has a value underpinning. everybody there is a largely christian the idea when you're wounded, the stories of wounded soldiers from one side or the other helping the other, the paratroopers overlap here. british paratroopers taking care of german ones. those stories are more ubiquitous than those heinous

acts that you just brought up. a question there. yes, ma'am. whoever like to address this, feel free to do so. can someone elaborate a little bit as moving inland. why did korsak shave overlook the geographic significance and obstacles that we're going to be presented by the book courage country. one one way up? what i would offer is they do know it's there. allied aircraft fly over. they pictures of you know taking that you it's the famous four square mile picture of which there's 8000 individual fields. julius writes about the carnage country. it was known, but here's the

problem. this is about amphibious landing in particular. everybody knows, there's three things. first of all, you start off with zero combat power. sure. minutene, you land. soldier one. it's a race build up combat power. so now you to establish a foothold, build a beachhead, and then generate enough combat power to break. what's the thing? most commanders are really worried about landing? so all of that training, the time we're split on, how do we get on the beach and secure a beachhead, it was not spent in breakout. and so those ended up being very difficult lessons learned as soldiers adapt to the environment. and now you find these combined infantry engineer and armor teams as they start to fig through, they're learning in real time. you have a question over here here and please, everybody going to try to get a couple more in, but make your questions short. i'm not picking on dr.uestion io him, during the june six excuse

me, the sixth june the 21st panzerbig, deep foray into the beachhead. could you talk to that? and what kind of impact it had on the overall landing? this the one panzer division that rommel had front. it was in the vicinity of khan when they realized the airborne operations have started to happen as a general matt said, they actually lean to the east, but they're on the wrong side of the horn river. so now they got to stop you got to go back all the way to the southern of khan before you can launch this. a counterattack when they launch the counterattack, you're right ultimately they will get within sight of beach, but they are so strong out. and who is on their flanks as. dr. mcmanus has brought up the canady it's their literal responsibility and the orders of overlord are stop the german attack. they are set up with armor artillery to go ahead and drive that. and what they find is there's not truly not enough weight for the germans take advantage of that advance almost all the way

to the beach. those guys are almost cut off and they will have to pull back. so it is a small window of opportunity could play the what if game of what if there were more mass there would if rommel had given more panzer divisionsg snapshot about those armored disid-day, gentlemen right here. no, no, no. sam, great. down here. the checkered shirt. excuse my. i lost it. i do tours at the eisenhower memorial, so i've been doing a lot of tours just for general match. general metz, what made montgomery so confident that paratroop drops would be successful as opposed to eisenhower, who was skeptical? no. hello. i think the answer i think montgomery of all of the

planners and he was the ground commander, he recognized right up the vulnerability of the flanks, i think perhaps more so than some of the others. everybody fixated on just coming across the and not where montgomery was smart that way. he saw the of those flanks and who else could do it any better than the parachute troops so he pushed for them as was brought out by one of the earlier speakers. the air marshal did not the airborne he was so worried about losing the troopers. but folks, he was also worried about losing his airplane. let me tell you so. but it was really that that's why my coverage weighed heavily on that. and i listened to that. there's there's a good or four paragraphs in a on just that particular decision. hey, well, i mention the part of the british airborne, they had one battalion of canadian parachute. i can't let that. i hope there's no canadians here with us. and and they did a great job.

one quick final question before we go to lunch. yes, sir. it it is quick answer. the logical follow up to the one just injuredafter took their obe the paratroopers supposed to move toward the water or just stay where they were? you know, when you make a mass attack airborne jump like that, the first thing you do is rally on drop zone and get together with your squads of platoons sao many were dispersed. in fact, were even 82nd guys that were dropped over to the 101st at an area that's why i say it was the adaptability and the ingenuity and the initiative, these young kids to get together. and they knew where the objectives, they knew where the so they got together in two whatever. finally they picked up an officer and they went towards the objective. now their objective was not to go to the beach.

no, just tgo the to the inland. most point of those causeways and take that. before we bring the session to a close. just wanted to go back to the question of the of the boat cache and a key and to what general match said about this ingenuity. part of the way the boat kaj gets sorted out is with the innovation of a farmer from the midwest who said that he had know underbrush problems and he wanted to put a device on the front of these tanks to clear the way and somehow from that level all the way up the food chain, it rose rapidly. and it really is a remarkable story of how open minded these commanders were to new ideas about how to solve problems as they emerged. we