leadership during the planng and execution of the allied invasion of france then david eisenhower, the grandson o general dght eisenhower, discusses his grandfather's legacy and later, a look at the transport of troops during d-day. announcer: earlier today, president biden spoke in normandy, france in commemoration of the 80th inner bursar of d-day, when allied troops liberated northern france from nazi occupation on june 6, 1944, marking a major turning point in world war ii. watch the president's remarks in full tonight starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. announcer: coming up, -- coming up a look at the planning and execution of the invasion of france on d-day. author john mcmanus talks about

how this event was received in the u.s. this eve took place at the gettysburg college and the dwight d. eisenhower society to mark the 80th anniversary of d-day. >> we will focus primarily on the american experience, but i want to emphasize the invasion was absolutely a team effort. i think in general-president eisenhower would emphasize that above all. there is a great lesson to be learned. there was participation of a dozen allied country on d-day. everybody contributing what they could. what we would call skin and the game. certainly we have that. it is a harbinger, it demonstrates to us the vital importance of u.s. security of successful partnerships, successful alliances over time, of like-minded folks. the last time we fought a war of

any size and scope without actual allies was the spanish-american war. that has been a while and i think what happened on d-day gives us a sense of how incredibly important these partnerships are. that said there was only one western country in 1944 that had the intrinsic strength, wherewithal, military power not just to lead the invasion but the campaign that follit goes ot of a year and by the end of it, 2/3 of the combat power w the u.s. that being the case, no doubt there would be an american commander and that was eisenhower. in the west the invasion was heavily anticipated, an iconic event. the sort you would remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard about it. people participated in betting

poong when it would come. if you bet june 6, you are lucky and would make money. people had dates march and april onward to deeper in the summer. the new york stock exchange on june 6 closed for several moments of silence and read eisenhower's order of the day. major league baseball that day canceled its games out of observance for the invasion. there is no other invasion in world war ii where i am aware they did it. war industries were closed for the day. they were operating 24/7 with ships around-the-clock. and on june 6, 1944 many simply shut down for the day. a day to contemplate why we are in this for. churches and synagogues were packed, as we can imagine. fdr famously broadcast a national prayer. the story of d-day, to show you

the familiar overview of the operational area, it begins with something of planning. i don't want to dive to deep --too deep, because we could focus entirely on that. it took years of planning and arranging. i should mention, as of the middle of 1943, there is a planning group under an overlooked british general who is to some extent the father of the normandy invasion plan. this group under morgan begins setting down the foundationswhal invasion the next summer. at that point they will decide they will invade on4rp the nortn french coast, specifically where, it is morgan's team that makes the difficult decision to go with normandy over calais. calais was the logical place to

invade. you can see how incredibly close it is. so close to england, a lot of good ports for supply once armies are ashore, suitable landing beaches, close enough to germany you can go perhaps towards berlin. it will be heavily defended. another factor, it is so close to england, it might be difficult to hide and obscure all the many tens of thousands of troops and equipment they are amngn. normandy is a second choice and offers a lot of the same advantages of quick enough turnaround of air cover and sea resupply. it had harbors considered to be key for logistics once we were ashore. had suitable landing beaches. once eisenhower is in place with

his command team, by the end of 1943, early 1944, they expand the original division morgan had come up with. five divisions plus,eas we are familiar with today. especially this, where you can see the distinct five different landing beaches. the key before you get there is to isolate this battlefield. as you saw a moment ago, with this invasion, it is a continental operation which means your anomie controls the continent your invading. it is not like the pacific island where the japanese could be cut off because maybe you control the air and sea and they cannot reinforce. in this case with german control over much of the european continent, anywhere we land they could bottle up the beachhead and annihilate it if they can move enough people and power

into place to do that. to do that, they need to know the time and place of the invasion. that was a great game in the spring of 1944, keep them guessing come offguard and isolate the battlefield. eisenhower's command ll do this in two distinct ways. one, through a counter intel plan called operation fortitude, which has a northern element which attempts to convince germans an allied invasion is coming to norway, the purpose is to link up with the soviets and outflank german controlled europe from the north. more famously, fortitude south, which attempts to convince them the actual invasion is coming to calais under the first u.s. army group supposedly under general patton. there is some element of success to this. not on the norway side, though germans had divisions in norway. norway itself was wrested from

control, and an important site for controls and u-boat bases. calais made sense because they believe there is a strong possibility of an invasion, the initial invasion. once normandy happens some germans think another invasion is coming to calais. a big reason they remain in place at calais is because of the suffocating nature of allied air, to restrict movements. that leads to the next attempt, the next way to isolate the battlefield, called the transportation plan. just my opinion, we in the u.s. tend to overlook this element of d-day. that meant you will use allied air. four engine bombers, every air asset, to basically destroy a lot of french road and rail networks that are leading to areas you would land.

this will prevent germans from moving vehicles and people toward normandy. you isolate normandy this way. all of this is not happening in a vacuum, is it? there are people who live near the railroad yards, bridges and a lot of people are near their. -- there. it is controversial initially because a lot of french and belgian civilians are likely to lose their lives under the weight of allied bombs, the very people we are protecting. that comes face-to-face with the dilemma of this situation, we will have to destroy much of which we will liberate. whether it is preinvasion bombardments, airstrikes, ground fighting that can destroy villages or whatever. a price will have to be paid by the locals for their own liberation. not just in the sense of joining the resistance, but in losing their lives this way.

to take this step eisenhower needs the permission of the free french to do this. just because they gave permission does not mean every french person is on board. about 19,000 french and belgian civilians lose their lives in the weeks running up to d-day. i would submit to you they sacrificed every bit as much for their own freedom and liberation as do the allied soldiers coming to fight for them, for their freedom. the plan is successful. you can see, i am sure you have seen this 100 times, the five separate landing beaches. three of them are not american. two british, gold and sword. sandwiched in between, juneau, where the canadian third division will invade. one thing in relation to■ñ that, the canadians have arguably the most important role on d-day on some levels. as the british are pushing for one of the key objectives, the inland harbor, canadians have to

protect that flank and stave off some of the most powerful german armored reinforcements. for that purpose the canadian third division is over equipped with antitank pieces and supporting armor. canadians will do precisely that, run into some of the most difficult postal fighting on d-day itself. once they get ashore, they will run up against some of the most potent german countern an armord level. to the west is the american role. famously omaha beach and to the extreme western flank, utah notice too, three allied airborne divisions are committed to this operation. the british six airborne which has the responsibility to seal off the entire eastern flank of the invasion area, to capture and destroy bridges over rivers. absolute vital role.

two u.s. airborne divisions, 82nd and 101st, famously dropped inward from utah beach. their purpose to secure the western of the causeways that lead off utah beach. also impede german reinforcements the best they can , capture inland bridges because we will need to advance west. the airborne division i will point out, not just paratroopers, but also gliders. this is a one off in world war ii. helicopters take over the role gliders have. but in world war ii both have an entire regiment. that is where a lot of resupply will come from and something of your firepower. d-day in numbers, it is fascinating when you think about this, what this took and how much sea and air power was

necessary to make ground power even relevant. you have 7000 watercraft. a lot of them are landing craft, not necessarily ships. not many capital ships. it is a landing craft operation. there are 11,590 aircraft, 156,000 amphibious troops with 12 divisions scheduled to land somewhere on the beaches on d-day. notice the plurality of assault troops are american, but not the majority. that is worth noting. the canadian third division, how large it is and the british complement, too. each division requires 270,000 tons of shipping and 30 plus ships just to move from england to normandy. think about that, the shipping capacity. my friend craig simons makes that point well. everything comes from shipping.

everything we can do in terms of resupply. it all comes from shipping and the ships have to be secure, which is where airpower comes in. all of thisteam effort which ultimately the ground troops have the lead role to liberate france. for the u.s., the other map i want to show you, this is from the time how the american planners looked at it. you can see the follow on divisions involved. you saw the shipping needed for the assault complement. this is for the reinforcing cup limit, the ninth and fourth infantry divisions coming -- the third armored and infantry divisions following on to omaha beach. that is just the divisions, and everything needed to support them. it is staggering.

notice the code word top-secret in the planning for the normandy invasion, it was the key word that meant you were briefed into this great secret of the plan. iesay we would not use that term now, i hope we would not. it is so weird to look at. that is what they said at the time. allied soldiers in late may begin to cluster over the marshaling areas or called sausages because they look like sausages on a map. all over southern england you have american soldiers waiting for the word to go. they have been trained to a fine edge at this point. there is not much more they can do to prepare. they passed the time with card games, dice games, movies, sports, final preparations, of the nature of, i will clean my rifle for the 50th time. let's make sure i have enough grenades and they are ready. do i have rations?

just 100 things you could be checking on. the food they are eating at this point is really good. ■'■othat is disquieting in a wed way because there are fattening us up for the kill jokes. what kind of food? as a recon soldier slated to hit omaha beach said, it is the finest any of us had seen or eaten since we left the u.s. -- white bread, ice cream, steaks, chicken. i have to have a settled enough stomach to eat it. if you are thinking ahead you are queasy and nervous, you may not enjoy it. some did, some did not. there is enormous tension through the sausages as you may imagine. this manifested in fights. these are after all young men trained to a fever pitch. they will fight at the drop of a

hat, especially when paratroopers,■6 even more than amphibious troops. weird things happened. colonel russell reader of the 12th infantry regiment, a west point legend on many levels. he is leading and infantry regiment slated to be part of the fourth division. one day a psychiatrist says i have orders to examine every one of your man. he said really, now? what are you going to do? he interviews each guy as he goes through and says, there is one guy i will flag as a psychopath and he can't go on this operation. reeder says i know the guy. he stood up for the guy and went to his commander and said, can you tell the psychiatrist to back off? and he did.

just weird things like that you would never envision as a commander that reflect something of the jumpiness of the moment. no one was allowed in or out of the sausage because in many cases the soldiers had been briefed and were bigoted by now and new when and whehein norman. security is tight, armed guards outside the fence with machine guns. you are penned in like a prisoner. some men inevitably got antsy, tried to get out. a couple anecdotes. one private and a buddy from the infantry got out of their sausage and are walking around outside in the local area looking for a pub. that will shock everybody, soldiers looking to drink. along comes a command car and in it was brigadier general james gavin, first commander, a legend already and this is an insight

into gavin. does he chew these guys out? he jokes with them. what are you doing out here? making up stories. says, do me a favor, go back to this -- go back and tell them no one is supposed to be out here. it is an interesting leadership moment. wouldn't you be thinking you would jump down their throats? gavin does not do that. a different leader at the lower level in another instance does and you can understand why. two senior nco's from the engineer combat battalion, part of the division going in on omaha beach under captain charles murphy, they ought to have known better and left their marshaling area and arranged to hook up with their british girlfriends. that could be a real secrecy problem, couldn't it? murphy catches them and says,

you just signed your death warrants. we are going on a recon thing and you are coming along as my orderlies. one of them was killed. just weird tension happening at this point. of course some soldiers like this one had premonitions of death. on the eve of the invasion he had a conversation with a friend of his and he was really morose and is staring in the distance and his friend wondered what was up. he says, i am going to die tomorrow. ed tries to talk him out of it, he could not be dissuaded. unfortunately he is right about the outcome, just not the timing. dom was killed on june 8, 1944. you had weird instances with premonitions. of course others had premonitions and they did not

die. it speaks to the emotion of the moment. how people are reacting to this. no one is more nervous than general eisenhower the you can see in the middle with his command team. he has picked june 5 is the original invasion dates, famously has to postpone it because of the weather. in addition to all the other burdens he is carrying, he now has to worry about whether or not to launch the airborne assault itself. here is the error commander for operation overlord as the normandy operation becomes known. he went to eisenhower and urged him to call off the parachute landing and says we will take terrible, devastating casualties. these are some of our best troops. they areers, elite

soldiers. they will be wasted and nt recos it would be. this is one of your key people, your aerial expert who says i wanted on the written record that i oppose this. so now they step back and reconsider. he goes to the commander of the two u.s. airborne divisions, asked of about it. he asked general bradley, the highest ranking american commander. asked others, one who would later be army chief of staff. what do you think about this? sorry, we have to do this. utah beach is not feasible without airborne landings. i don't think lee mallory is right, that it will be as bad as he says, but we have to do this. imagine the trauma of having to wrestle with that for several days. lee mallory had a reputation as an alarmist.

that is another factor, too. it is not as if eisenhower did not trust him, but he is taking other pieces of evidence into place and making a decision as he must. famously he decides to go ahead with it. and of course on top of that the weather and that situation. one interesting thing about the weather. one reason why eisenhower was able to make the decision as well as he does, he has good weather data from an incredibly competent staff. we all know about that. the folks who were briefing him. stagg and their guys are getting data from weather stations in the north atlantic, the western coast of ireland, that the allies have because they won the battle of the atlantic. hence the importance of sea power. and good, reliable weather data gatherers adding it to eisenhower.

it allows him to make an educated decision to launch the invasion on june 6, after much liberation. we know that works out. at the time it had to be tough. when he makes that decision, ships are underway, ships are aboard. many are seasick once aboard. the air armada is ramping up. eisenhower decides he has to look these guys in the eye if he is sending them to their deaths. he later says that. he goes to the parachute regiment, moves among soldiers doing what he does, chatting, commiserating, demonstrating his incredible warmth as a human being, person-to-person. a command presence. he is there to buck up morale, but it is also the other way around. they say general, don't worry,

we will get this done. this is one of the most famous images of d-day. he is talking to a lieutenant here, who is from michigan. as i understand, a back story behind this, it looks like they are talking about some military thing, you have to fight the germans or whatever. instead they are talking about flyfishing, testing the rod. eisenhower loves flyfishing in michigan. there they are talking about whatever comes to mind. he is having that presence. he famously sticks around until the planes take off, has tears in his eyes when he is asked about it 20 years later by walter cronkite. you would have to not be a human being to not have tears in your eyes. at the airfield you have pent-up tension. this man, commander of the 3rd battalion, has a poignant and

moving address to his troops. they gathered in an orchard, listened to the colonel, a man they loved like a father. he asked them to pray with him and said, god almighty, and a few short hours we will be in battle with the enemy. we do not ask for indulgence. use us as an instrument to return peace to the world. if we must die, let us die as men without pleading, and safe in knowing we did what was right . there were a few prayers after he concluded. 760 paratroopers rose as one, marched to their planes without a dry eye in the whole 760 men, according to the sergeant. imagine the emotion of the moment. he trained them and everything it meant to them. one later said as he knelt and prayed, you could not be more

trusted had he been the father of each one. i believe many of us would have followed him through hell. the sad realit is, they were about to do just that. the battalion had the most dramatic drop, almost right on a german troop area. wolverton tragically was killed in his harness before he could touch the soil of france that he was there to liberate. wolverton himself was -- only had hours to live when he led that prayer. the airborne drop, to give you a basic overview, in relation to where utah beach is, that is the importance of how to control the western sectors for the fourth division to advance inland. the general later this morning, who will cover in depth the airborn» story, i will not get too deeply into that, except to tell you where they will land and how scattered the drops are.

every. represents a drop somewhere in normandy. a stick is a plane load of paratroopers, could be 16 to 18. from the beginning this drop was chaotic, a jumbled, deadly mess. the german aircraft carrier is one of the reasons. these are transport planes that have no self-sealing fuel tanks, are not armed, they are slow, they fly low to drop paratroopers anywhere from roug. they are vulnerable. the airborne divisions have been briefed by those on the invasion side saying, you will be able t. aircraft batteries are in play. plus it is cloudy, foggy, there is a lot of disorientation.

1.i want to address that is unfair in our historical memories. the paratroopers understandably blamed the transport pilots for these miss drops, saying they did not do their jobs, scattered and dropped us in places we should not have been. but, you're flying straight into deadly aircraft fire. that is not the fault of the transport pilots. the batteries have not been suppressed properly. the intel is not correct. and, you can drive straight into them, like the muzzle of a machine gun, but when the aircraft's get shot down, the paratroopers will be just as dead. they take the less bad option of scattering and dropping these guys wherever they can. it is a bad situation they make the most of. it is unfair to blame them for the scattered drops. i think there has been pushback against that with normandy

history by now. once on the ground these guys have to fight for their lives. a key objective, you can see there and there. and in relation to utah beach. it is important because it is a crossroads. a german wanting to get to utah beach probably has to go through there. there is a lot of fighting around it and it is one of the first towns liberated from the germans. there is an interesting anecdote i wanted to tell you about that. in the parachute end -- infantry dropping around there is a 17-year-old paratrooper named ken russell from the knoxville, tennessee area. he left school early to join the army because he wanted to be

there, on the liberation of france. here he is about to be dropped in and it occurred to him that his high school class in knoxville, tennessee was probably fragile waiting at that same time. it is so true. even the time difference, his classmates are graduating as he ise put it, oh lord, they are jumping us into hal. one of the buildings had caught fire, still burning as these guys dropped. one guy was killed in his harness when it is shot to pieces and explodes into many pieces unfortunately. there are two paratroopers that probably descended into the burning building and in russell's case he lands on or near the famous church. such an interesting convergence and the other thing, russell will die 60 years later almost to the minute in 2004 on june 6,

2004. a we are deal. the utah beach landings as you see will be taken -- taking place here. the landing was supposed to have -- happened there. four key causeways will lead inland from utah beach. the challenge you have is, as the mappjndicates, many areas near and around are flooded. the germans have done that to impede allied vehicles. that is the challenge you that's the challenge you have, exactly how you are going to took point on this beach. the aerial bombardment is arguably the most effective of the entire normandy invasion. this median bomber, the-26 bombers, and they are going to this german defense of utah beach quite extensively.

quite accurate, and the utah beach defenses already worno asy omaha beach, but in this case, of coue, have of stunned german defenders, but also people of different ethnic backgrounds. so i want to mention this --he the german army is not just german. it is also eastern europeans who are serving in the german armed forces, mainly ass. state but the country -- who are defending utah beach. there's ukrainians, russians, and of course, germans, to, in kind of admixture. some of these guys when they get bombed, they are not too enthusiastic about staying and fighting. some are really traumatized in

their bunkers and pillboxes. it is just a mixture. finally comes the time for the s to invade -- the lead troops to invade. they are riding in their landing craft, packed in like lemmings. you have probably been in your landing craft about two-plus hours by now, circling around, trying to keep your footing, wet, overburdened. it's a great american tradition to overburdened your assault troops with too much stuff. probably 70 to 90 pounds with too much stuff. when it gets wet, is heavier. the navy minesweepers have done a terrific job of clearing a lot of the channel waters leading to the landing area, but they cannot clear everything, so minds are a problem. there are a couple of landing craft tanks that hit these

months. i saw tanks blown 50 feet into the air. german artillery, machine gun fire from the coast only added to the disarray. famously, the lead assault troops hit here about a mile south of the targeted area. if you have ever been to utah beach, you know precisely what i'm talking about. that's where the museum is today and whatnot. they run into these georgians, as i was mentioning a moment ago. the americans struggle up their landing craft, put shelter along a country seawall, and the dunes are overwhelming some of the seawall, so again, you got a combined arms assault with tanks, infantry, engineers all doing their own thing the best they can. one of the remembers

each step was as though a ball and chain had been tied to our ankle. again, the great american tradition. you've got to be carrying all this stuff and it's just the nature of the beast, isn't it? we waited through three feet of water. we charged the house fire into the door, we heard shots, and one of our soldiers kicked in the door so i could throw a grenade inside. 10 to 15 germans came out with hands up to become prisoners. we also used a flamethrower. really kind of ghastly thing. american flamethrower teams are going to burn out germans who are hunkered. private james conway never forget the smell of burning flesh and hair. utah beach has a place in our memory as the kind of walkover of normandy, and it is not quite that. there's 197 u.s. casualties there and also the trauma of

victory, too, of burning guys to death. the original place to land is going to be here. are you really going to send all your forces down here where you just landed? the guy who has to make the call as this man, kadir general ted roosevelt. he is actually sort of■% attachd as this supernumerary general officer present, and he has convinced general barton to let him go in with the initial wave. roosevelt has seen a lot of combat, fought in world war i. he had been heavily wounded. his leg was still damaged. that's why he had a cane. he had served in the mediterranean theater. ted roosevelt comes in with the initial wave, and he and the eighth infantry commander who

had a great career ahead of him, basically make this difficult call to reroute everything to let madeline -- to la madeleine. roosevelt makes that call d-day, leading, planning, organizing, and remember, utah beach is under very dangerous artillery fire much of the day in addition opposition you are facing. roosevelt plays a key role in the utah beach landing. he, ofbr course, w deserved med, and he will get a division command of his own, but unfortunately, it is about a month later. he is supposed to take command, he dies of a heart attack. he was all of a think to seven years old at that point. 20,000 troops made it ashore by nightfall.

of course, the tougher lending more famously is that omaha beach a little farther to the east, and the planners knew bega would be the toughest nut to crack. foreign a half mile stretch of crescent-shaped beach. the crescent shape means the defenders are going to be able to bracket you with fire. it's also a lot of high ground brooding over this narrow beach. that means they can really nail you with plunging fire, the fish in apparel kind of effect. that's why you are going to have the better part of two u.s. divisions, the first and 29th, devoted to taking the objective. there's also some of the better quality german opposition. most of them are ethnic germans. they come from a solid unit was has been put in place as of about march, and the above apartment here is next to useless, unfortunately. it is as effective as the ones at utah was by air. this one is completely ineffective.

does not have as much accuracy, bombing through heavy clouds. they are not going to be able to a thousand-yard window. that is too big of an act. you have about a 45-minute naval bombardment because you want to keep the element of surprise, so does not do much damage. there's just not enough of that. the navy will play a vital role later once you have observable targets. you have destroyers come in and give you a lot of really fire support, but the preinvasion apartment is not as effective. there's very heavy ties that will pull you to the east. there's going to be dependency here. when the troops at the beach around 6:30 that morning, they famously run into a buzz saw. the point i want to make is that omaha beach was supposed to be a combined arms assault minutely timed. tanks coming ashore, either amphibious tanks or via landing

craft to be discords. gaps assault teams, special army and navy engineers. this beach is bristling with so much obstacles and mines that about one out of every four soldiers coming ashore is going to be an engineer to deal with it. later, they will have to do my -- demine and build roads. you will also have troops coming in to nail this german pillboxes and things, all those things we think of when we think of d-day. all that is specially timed to prevent the germans from fixating on one part. there's only about 1200 germans defending omaha beach. if all goes wrong, when you are landing piecemeal, in wrong spots and especially under the south as some of their strongest defenses, natural ravines. that's the way you get off omaha beach, so that is what they are defending, the resistance nests

or strong points. that is why omaha beach is so incredibly deadly, both west and east, because most leading assault units are coming in piecemeal in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the germans can fixate on one and then another and then another and just decimate them in place. this is the part portrayed in saving private ryan. you see that's where the famous bedford boys, many of them are killed. same kind of thing happens to them. the gap assault team suffers something on the order of about 50% casualty rates. many of them are blown to pieces because they are carrying live explosives and getting hit. it is just an absolute mess. tanks are getting hit by antitank fire, of course. sinking in the waves of

the amphibious tanks that sent 27 out of 32. also you have people from other supporting units, artillery people, engineers, barrage balloons, african-american unit. you have medics and quartermasters mixed together with the white soldiers in some cases for the first time here at omaha beach. you have a guy named waverley woodson. his from the 320, a medic, and he is running this impromptu aid he even performs mp tatian's himself in the course of the day. there's a pending medal of honor case for him because he saved probably dozens of lives that day. he is a microcosm for many medics who are severely challenged that day, too. as this thing develops, just to give you a sense of how it starts to turn around -- by the way, this gives you a sense,

many yearscrescent shape. this is what you tend to do if you survive those initial moments. there's, like, and sloping -- it's called a shingle bank of rocks. you may be safe from machine guns and small arms, but imagine the artillery and mortars coming in and how that will multiply the fragmentation effect. for all of our preoccupation with pillboxes and bunkers and all at omaha beach, the deadliest german weapon at omaha beach is the inland artillery because they keep the communication lines intact. every part of the beach is pre-cited. when you are pinned down as many of these guys are, you are still really vulnerable, kind of doing nothing. you are just a tget. the way to start to turn around is you will have small groups of either land safely or who know their way around a start to figure out ports -- points of

vulnerability. one of them led by this guy. his first day of combat, leading a boat section of 32 guys, and his boat is the only one that lands in the right place, so he lands sort of in a dead spot in the german offense. not an easy landing, partial because of the water but also because of the mines, but tall enough that his section is intact. he is a former sportswriter from owensboro, kentucky, 29 years old. he has a wife and baby back home. it's a really interesting leadership dynamic. he is spalding'snt, equitably c, from a big polish american family in new jersey, one of 10 kids. finds himself a natural soldier when he joins the army.

he knows his way around. he and spalding have to figure out how they are going to work this, you know? as much as anybody, he helps them get off omaha beach by blowing a torpedo pathway through the mine and figure out where the mines are going to be and where they are not. and moving around a route that roughly takes us to where the cemetery is today, they are going to kind of move in a westerly direction, and if you can see where it says w m 64, the section lands here, moves up in this direction, and just starts to nail the defenses of w and 64 from behind. significance -- follow-on forces that are landing are much safer because of what the soldiers are doing. they suffered two pills, eight wounded in the course of the day. there's seven distinguished service crosses conferred upon

soldiers in both sections. they are an example of what could be the firstroup on omaha beach. we will never know for sure. another group under this guy comes in right about here, starts to hook around where you see it says w m 60. he too is fascinating. he dropped out of virginia tech. his family had a long tradition of going there. just was not much of a student. he eventually goes into the army, finds himself as a person and a small unit leader. he had really succeeded in sicily and here he is on d-day leading his guys from the front. one thing he says in the course of the day, c-span.org -- one

thing he says in the course of the day, [indiscernible] but he is kind of wrong. unfortunately, he loses his life in leading his men. he is cut down by a machine gun, but his valor and leadership are such that he gets the medal of honor as well. they are just part of that larger sense of here's the first groups off. what do we do with that now? there's a guy who does as much as anybody to exploit that is the 16th infantry commander, colonel george taylor. he and his team come in an hour and a half after h hour. he's the one who under the famous phrase, there's only two kinds of us who will be here on the beach, those that are dead and those who get off the beach, not get the hell off the beach.

in his mind, he was obsessed with this when he got ashore. his xo who had been killed at h hour, so you have this jumbled mess, and taylor starts to bring some sort of organization out of the mess. he is the one walking up and down that part of omaha beach, getting people to move. so there's two assets to that -- two facets to that. number one, he is fixated on doing something productive. when you are lying there at the shingle bank or further to the west, the seawall for the 29th division sector, you are a target. that's all you are. the germans at their leisure can get to you. when you are on the move, you are a hunter. he turns his american soldiers into hunters. number two, all those first groups that have gotten off the

beach and are operating like knives in the vitals of the germans, they have got to be reinforced because the germans are going to cut them off. that the second half of what taylor has done. he's getting these vital forces inland. in the course of thee dynamic i. some parts of omaha beach reasonably safe. a lot of it swirling with these deadly encounters, and taylor sort of making a difference in this regard. the other way that you are able to even survive here is that you have u.s. navy destroyers that are going to come in so close that they may run aground, and they are giving you close and vital fire support that allows taylor to succeed. you can see what a team effort this whole thing truly is. omaha beach is by no means safe in the course of the day, but i would say about m day, the

americans are really decisively winning the battle. by nightfall, this is your situation. you don't really have a continuous front line. you've got perimeters. you have carved out a beachhead, and you land 35,000 troops, and you've got about 2500 casualties. d-day casualties overall for the allies, 10,000. this is the latest scholarship of the national d-day memorial folks in bedford. they have done a project to figure out every allied k.i.a. on d-day. incredible work. we know of 4420 six deaths on d-day, 2500 and nine were american, so quite a price■é pa, though not what eisenhower would have originally edin a larger sy the beginning, the first step in that long, bloody process of defeating nazi germany. does not guarantee allied victory, but it is a real pivot point. it makes victory highly likely.

for the united states, as i mentioned, the beginning of world leadership, the campaign in northwest europe is going to be very much u.s.-dominated. it is a kind of seminal moment, i think. it is the beginning of the beginning of a new international militarily powerful world-leading u.s., when committed, shedding its own blood for the security of europe. we have already seen it in world war i. we will see it seriously in world war ii, but it is a bloodbath that's going to lead to the foundation of nato and i would say to this day, the idea of americans defending european security. with that, i will shut up and i will take some questions. thank you. [applause] how are we doing the questions? >> [indiscernible]

>> can you hear me? >> yeah, i got you. >> [indiscernible] >> germans must have what? >> they must have realized that was a possibility. >> in case you did not hear, let me repeat. have been better to land at night, and did the germans anticipate because they had flooded these beaches? it is a good question. the previous landings had been night landings, in north africa. this was considered, but the idea here is that you need low tide. absolutely must have low

order to see the obstacles and the minds as much as he possibly can in order to maximize air support, so allied planners considered that, but decide there is a greater good in landing during the day. i think it is going to be terrible confusion and difficulty no matter what. just my opinion. the germans, of course, know that any of these beaches we were just looking at could be very much a lding page. interesting anecdote about omaha beach -- rommel, who is responsible for the defense of northern france, commander of army group b, he visits omaha beach, and he said it reminded him of palermo, and allied landing beach in italy in september 1943, because of the crescent-shaped, the bracketing of the high ground and all that kind of stuff. he certainly would have anticipated omaha beach. anybody who figured an allied invasion coming in nobody would look at these actual landing ages where we land and note what we are going to be doing, so that's why they built the

defensive -- these actual landing beaches where we land and note what we will be doing, so that's why they built the defenses. the germans are feverishly fortifying up to the last moment. if rommewill hear, i daresay he might tell us, my defenses were not complete as of d-day, so you think about the cost of this. boy, i'm glad they were not complete. imagine if they were. >> could you talk about the relative effectiveness of the mulberry harbor? >> the question is about the relative effectiveness of the mulberry harbor. just in case you have never heard of that, that's the codename for the artificial harbors that the allies engineer as one element of d-day. the thinking was we may not have the supply ports we might want, so let's create artificial harbors on the landing beaches by creating breakwaters. you have tetrahedra, sunken

block ships, all that kind of thing. and we will have those in place. these are going to be built by engineers in the aftermath of d-day. famously at gold beach, onebe■ f the british beaches, and omaha beach. unfortunately, there's a terrible storm that comes along june 18 and 20 that severely damages the british mulberry harbor and basically destroys the american one. in the broader sweep of things, the mulberries, though it is an incredible achievement, are a bit overrated in terms of what they will be able to contribute. i think something on the order of 10% to 15% of our logistical needs are served by mulberry harbors, so what will they do instead? offload stuff on the landing beaches. what are called landing ship tanks or lst's, which are a goodly the most important ship in the invasion, will just be disgorging stuff that way.

very low-tech in that regard. all the way back -- you. >> [indiscernible] >> he wonders what percentage of transport aircraft will be shutdown down before they can disgorge theirow that often topf my head, but i can say it's a real minority. you will have the most famous one, of course, is the one carrying the commander of is a company 506. one of the reasons he is famous is because this was fortunately unusual, for a plane to be shut down and have all of its paratroopers aboard and killed. far more commonly, you are going to have planes that will be damaged, and maybe you have a couple of casualties on board, and then everybody jumps, most will survive and whatever happens to them on the ground, who knows?

i cannot think of two -- too many other instances in which you will have too many troopers got shut down and killed. fortunately, that is an unusual circumstance. the glider landings are actually more dangerous statistically speaking, so this becomes a little more common among the gliders. not only fires, but the trauma after landing. you can imagine smashing a glider into a hedgerow. not a good comnayes, sir? >> [indiscernible] >> good question. why did they wait until june? the original plan was make. a lot of factors contribute to this peer the first has to do with allied landings in italy in january 1944, an attempt to

outflank in italy, get us to rome. that is going to absorb some shipping not just for those landings, before the resupply. what's called operation dieting in may 1944. this absorb some shipping that could have been earmarked for normandy. closer to the answer the question is something called exercise tiger, which is a rehearsal landing that happens in late april 1944 as the germans come in and sink several ships, inflict severe loss of life. this really stretches eisenhower's shipping capacity to the limit. those factors as much as anything contribute to the postponement if you the june 5 through seventh window in which allied planners have the kind of tidal conditions they want, the moon conditions for the airborne and all that kind of stuff.

>> [indiscernible] >> you mean, like, there -- that l.a. would to choke pointing? yeah, the question is about considering calais versus normandy. calais started in part because of the choke pointing problem once you get ashore because it would be problem -- it would be private, absolutely. this certainly is a factor. plus, the dense nature of the fortifications that are there, too, will only add to that problem. what calais offered, though, in response was really good roads that could have solved that problem to some extent. morgan and his people are mulling this over and decide

ultimately through the choke pointing but more so the mortar -- more so the fortifications, that calais will be more trouble than it's worth. the other factor i would add, that i don't know if they consider this, but they probably did at least on the free french side of the house. calais is going to take us inevitably straight into germany. and that is great. maybe that will end the war, but it will also lead to severe humanitarian problems back in france. in paris especially. before all this starts to shake out, unless we are very lucky psed in the weeks after d-day. one advantage of normandy is it really leads you on the path towards liberating much of france, especially this pivot point with paris. it does offer that advantage, which means you can liberate people, but from a low decision point of view on the allied side, it's like, i get to liberate people and feed them in addition to my soldiers who i can barely feed, too.

it is all a very difficult proposition. all right, thank you. ap earlier today, president biden spoke at the 80th anniversary of d-day when allied troops liberated northern france from nazi occupation on june 6, 1944. marking a major turning point in world war ii. watch the president's remarks in full starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more. including mediacom. >> atcom, we believe what we do here or right here, or way out in the middle of anywhere, you should have access to fast, reliable internet. that is why we a