and hitler's union,n to invade soviet russian blood, and american industrial power. the american ability to build ships faster than german u-boats could sink them, fill them with equipment, get them across the ocean and the channel and to sustain it through an entire campaign to berlin. that is an astonishing accomplishment. thank you very much. [applause] next, john mcmanus talks about his book the dead and those about to die. he tells the story of the u.s. army first infantry division a great one, and how they were the first army soldiers t-storm normandy on

june 6, 1944. society posted this event in celebration of d-day's 75th anniversary. it is almost an hour. >> dr. mcmanus is the first ever missouri smt faculty member in the humanities to be named curatus distinguished professor. as one of the leading historians and the author of 12 well-known topic,eived books on the he is frequently in demand to speak as an expert commentator, in addition to lots of local radio shows and national programs that he has done, he has appeared on cnn.com, fox news, c-span, the military channel, the discovery channel, the national geographic channel, netflix, smithsonian network, the history channel, and pbs.

you have probably seen him. also served as the historical advisor for the best-selling book and documentary salinger, the latter of which appeared nationwide in theaters and on pbs. during the 2018-19 academic year, he is in residence at the as the chairademy of naval and military history, distinguished visiting professor. his forthcoming book fire and fortitude, the u.s. army in the pacific war, 1941-43 will be out july 30. today, his talk will be based on his recent book, the dead and those about to die, d-day, the big red one on omaha beach. he will speak about the

unforgettable story of the big triumph. ultimate isle the role of officers part of the story, john will share the infantry soldier's story during the landing. i am sure dwight eisenhower would have appreciated john's work. eisenhower always said the real bureau of -- hero of world war ii is g.i. joe. introduce dr. john mcmanus. [applause] mcmanus: thank you. everybody hear me ok? i will try to keep the microphone at the proper level. thank you for that wonderful introduction. i appreciate it. i would like to thank all the folks that made this possible,

our hosts at eddie's berg college, the eisenhower society, eisenhower institute. thank you all of you for making time today to listen to me and these brilliant scholars that preceded me. tough act to follow. what struck me when dr. simons was talking so movingly about eisenhower's weather-related decision, what always struck me about that moment, before he made that decision, you could argue he is the most powerful man on the planet, or one of them. at hisall this airpower disposal, naval power, technological power, the ground power of the soldiers, this prodigious military might, this coiled spring. he makes that decision, and then it is out of his hands. it is out of his hands and in the hands of not just the

generals who rank below him or the admirals or lieutenant captains,or majors or but it is in the hands of the average soldier, sailor, airman, and a few marines. what i want to give you a sense of today is the d-day combat experience for the average allied soldier by looking at the first infantry division at omaha beach. i would not try to argue this is in any way exactly representative for every allied soldier. we could build a strong argument that on d-day, this is the hardest, toughest, bloodiest fighting that allied soldiers and german soldiers experienced. this is not necessarily a representative example, but it is an illustrative example.

the thing about this is how i would have come to this story, where this comes from, why another book on omaha beach and so much has been done on d-day. of course, we have brilliant books, but the thing that made it incredible for me after studying the battle of normandy and omaha beach for about a quarter of a century from when i was a child until i was a graduate student, i got to participate in a program called the normandy scholars, which was a remarkable opportunity to immerse ourselves in normandy for about a month. not just the invasion, the large., the battle writ later on what was incredible to still morethere was to say. specifically the story of the big red one, which had certainly been covered to some extent, but

not in the kind of depth i warrants.this is something that has been relatively undercovered. enormous amounts of after action reports and letters and diaries and unit journals. ,istorian writings of the time the morning reports that the units kept at the company level that told about what happened to these various units when they hit omaha beach and individuals coming and going. memoirs, people i knew and corresponded with. all of this comes together. was to tell the story of maybe this is something what theet a sense of

soldier experienced in the mindset that day. is first thing to grasp something of the unique personality and culture and feel of the first infantry division, nicknamed the big red one. it was dating back to world war i, the division still exists, celebrated its centennial founding this year. a history of tradition and pride, heritage, a sense of being very special. it had thought in north africa and sicily. -- fought in north africa and sicily. in north africa, the big red one was a major component of the allied invasion. hardlearned some har

not lessons. ardknock lessons. they follow, gained ground extremely well, they go to unit. line,hey were off the they were a handful. they loved to fight, drink, beat people whoechelon they thought were a lower form of life. call themselves grunts in those days. they called themselves dog faces or doughboys. they had a surly attitude towards a 30. they did not -- authority. they did not always listen to in theirthat were not unit. they had a reputation as being a handful. this thing that was so popular in the big red one gives you a sense of that. they often said to one another, the united states army consists

of the big red one and 10 million replacements. that's who they were. mattered anden troubling in other ways. troubling to general eisenhower and generals patton and alan. general theodore roosevelt. they had allowed the discipline to slack. they were good fighters. it was not necessarily a healthy thing for the army to have this kind of thinking. they are relieved not for competence or cause but for disciplinary reasons. and roosevelt were too valuable to send home for good. commands the 101st

airborne division. roosevelt earns the medal of honor on d-day, was about to get his own division level command and died of a heart attack. needed aoper division new culture. knowing what you know, their insular he and resentment against outsiders come you can imagine how happy they are going to be about these really popular commanders, people you would have known and seen throughout north africa and sicily, people you would have felt a connection with being cashiered. when you have received this momentous mission of leading the invasion of france, which they deeply resented because they thought we had done enough, we are supposed to go home and train new people to do this stuff. combat soldiers always think

once we have done our battle, let someone else carry the load. guy, major general clarence oner comes to the big red late summer, early fall. he could not be more different than terry allen. allen was not worried about whether your uniform was rumpled as long as you are a good combat soldier. the soldiers initially hated the new replacement. we are combat soldiers, why do we have to deal with this nonsense? that is rear echelon, basic training stuff. the rumor is running around that he is just this desk jockey who did not know any better. what they did not know was his background. in 1944,s 55 years old

had joined the army as a private soldier in time for world war i, worked his way through the nco ranks, got a commission, was a commander in world war i, ends as a lieutenant colonel and is decorated with a distinguished service cross. what division did he serve in? first division. hardly anybody knew that. they just knew this guy is here to change our lives in a bad way. what was indisputable as they started to watch and once they got to england in the run-up to prepare for the invasion, he definitely knew his stuff. his nickname throughout the army was coach. he was an athletic coach. he was a teacher as a young man. he brought that sentiment to leadership. i always thought the instances

bner is annd hu example of how excellent leadership can come in completely different ways. it could not have been more opposite and effective. when hubner stresses you down, it is not personal. it is instructive. you are going to have to fire your rifle because of xyz. himself through the same training. he was in excess rifleman. he had a cancer scare during the run-up to the normandy invasion. he was fine. he later told his chief of staff , in explaining why he came to division with such a heart attitude cap he said, you can .o.b. andbeing an so become a good guy, but you cannot start by being a good guy

and become an s.o.b. heavyvision had taken casualties in the mediterranean. you have a lot of new guys. probably about one in two who hits omaha beach on d-day is a new guide seeing combat for the first time. they are getting located with this culture, this unyielding training standard of having to have proficiency in all sorts of things that are relevant to the invasion. not just that. this is one of the few divisions that did urban combat training. hubner is thinking ahead. by the time they are in the position of going ashore, you have been crosstrained. you are a mortar gunner, and you

know the loader's job. you are a squad leader, you need to know the platoon leader's job. might expect, many of the veterans resented getting the honor of going in. why is the big red one chosen? it is a successful unit with a lot of combat experience. it was one of only two divisions that general bradley, the , thatan ground commander had any combat experience at his disposal. he would later say i cannot spare the first division. they knew going in that omaha beach was going to be a tough not to crack because of the terrain and minds and obstacles -- mines and obstacles.

29th's role is a little more culturally famous because it is portrayed in saving private ryan. it is in the longest day and whatnot. the first division felt it would have been nice to have someone else have the honor of doing this, but it is what it is. there is a little sad back story to this. there was a captain in the unit who once told me in an interview, he said this is not necessarily for attribution and record, although i am telling you, in the weeks leading up to d-day, there were two ncos in this regiment who committed suicide rather than put themselves through that responsibility of leading people in combat. this was and was not just side of we get this job again, but there were some people who literally could not handle it

anymore. what are they up against? this is the first division side of omaha beach. would like to point out some things. out would like to point some things. is see those wn's, my german terrible. they are basically strong points. the purpose of this, in order for an invader to do anything productive, they have to get off the beach. there are no roads at omaha beach. there are no obvious ways to do this. that the natural defiles have been created by erosion. those are going to be your beach exits. that is what the germans are going to defend. fortifications are designed to prevent the invaders from getting off the beach. once they do, that is going to

lead to problems for the germans. that is the objective you want to take if you are part of the big red one. you can see there are three subsectors to the big red one beach. omaha beach is about 4.5 miles long. it is crescent shaped, which is good for the defender, so you .an have interlocking fire you have to have those beach exits. you have to. planners further subdivided the three portions of the big red one beach into fox red, fox green, and the most famous of them all, easy read. what is within those wn's? it is primarily concrete whole structures with machine guns and mortars, often called murder holes by allied soldiers.

pillar boxes. you have plenty of rifleman. you have got mortars. you have grenades. i would argue the most formidable defenses the germans have in the big red one sector is the inland artillery. in some ways your deadliest adversary as you go ashore that day is the forward observer for the german artillery. he is the eyes that is calling in the deadliest and worst firepower. 105 millimeter artillery pieces inland from the beaches, all of which survive and almost completely useless compartmentnd sea

with the lines of communication contact. you have forward observers in those bunkers with eyes on calling down firepower. they had what the allied soldiers called screening mimis, these rocket launchers. that is what you are up against. is what it looks like later on. there is more foliage than you would have seen. theare looking from wn60, eastern most extreme of all of omaha beach. you have to have that say you can move eastward and link up with the british landing at gold beach. that for theecure obvious reason that from one glance at that picture, any german on top of background can sweep almost all of omaha beach with fire. you have the other extreme in the distance.

this is what you are up against. someone who has high ground like this shooting down at you like fish in a barrel. fromas this different 1944? you did not have a parking lot, on you do not have tourists the beach. you had much more foliage. the germans cut down almost all of the foliage to have better fields of fire. of what you a sense have got. --e allies plan to this min planned this minutely. predicated on surprise. you are not going to hit omaha beach over and over again so you're telegraphing your

invasion. you have a quick aerial bombardment. areare asking bombers that lucky to get within a mile of their target, asking them to bomb within a 1000 yard window with your own troops about to come in. particularly it is a cloudy day, lots of bad weather. you are not going to drop if you think there is any chance you are going to hit your fleet or people. they tend to wait a little longer. they bomb inland. it does next to nothing. he sea bombardment is better target a great once you see these explosions, you have all , cloudy weather, dust and smoke that make it tougher for the naval observers

to see what they are targeting. you are shooting at a fortified enemy that is hunkered down in his bunker. it was a was going to be difficult. bombardmentd air germany wounded two soldiers. it did not do a lot of damage. it knocked down a fortified flamethrower. other than that, the beach was largely untouched. you have been briefed as a soldier to their going to knock it over. you are going to go straight in. many of these guys thing very cynical infantryman were extremely skeptical. unfortunately, they had their skepticism confirmed. you go ashore at about 6:30. you would have seen the footage of climbing down the nets earlier. it happens about two hours before that. seasick.e

you can imagine the seas are choppy. it is a miserable expense. regiment hadntry the honor of going in first at low tide so we could see the obstacles. there are mines and obstacles. one out of every four soldiers that goes ashore that day is an engineer. the navy and the army had put together combined teams of engineers from the army and the navy. the navy is supposed to deal with everything underwater. they went in as first assault troops. second and third battalion, 16th infantry. armor is coming ashore. are quiteanks that disastrous. the concept is land them all at the same time, provide the germans with all of these targets that will overwhelm them, have supporting fire p

takeand surround them and the beach. the problem is it all goes wrong. captain james park, the armor commander who commanded the battalion whotank is wondering should we launch the swimming tanks or not? he decides let's go. it is a bad call because most of the tanks are swamped by the surf. 27 out of 32 of those tanks sank with the average of one crewman lost per tank. five tanks got ashore, three aboard landing craft. two swam in. in did that swam tremendous damage to the german wn 62 and 61 and knocked out the only 88

millimeter gun they had at that section of omaha beach. damage, and then more tanks came in. only about 16 out of 56 tanks. for you as a tanker that they can you are presented -- that day, you are presented with a difficult situation. you want to be stationary to provide fire support. you have so many soldiers around you you don't want to run them over. if you are stationary, german antitank gunners can pick you off. it was a devastating battle for them. assault troops land haphazardly injected groups. were messed up. the smoke and dust and fear, seasickness it all leads to late landings in the wrong spot.

the two main assault companies e the exactanded in wrong spot. that leads to massive loss of life. a german machine gun or roughly in that vicinity claims to have fired 12,000 rounds that day. i don't doubt that. he picked off other soldiers with rifles. it gives you an insight into how devastating this was. you come ashore, probably seasick, wet, scared, tired, resistantwearing gas uniforms in case they use poison gas. like sour milk. the soldiers called them skunk suits. you are caring 70 pounds of stuff. way too much stuff.

you are staggering around when you need to move around like a rabbit. you are moving leike a tortoise. overloaded,ck and as he put it, i did not care if it off it there was waiting for me. you are landing at low tide. it is defended by barb wire, mines, assault teams getting decimated. they are trying to wire up the obstacles to be blown to move tanks and people through. behinds are taking cover the obstacles. that is shown very well in saving private ryan. you are not to wire up obstacles when you have your own guys in the way. you are taking casualties. you had explosive laden landing craft that are hit and touch up

massive explosions. there is about a 56% casualty rate in the gap assaulting. -- assault team. a brand-new platoon leader in f company, like all platoon leaders on the day he is the first one off the landing craft. you will notice that in pictures of the day. markguy with a vertical hash on his helmet is the officer leading the way. hisguy the back is the nco, push man. i am your sergeant, tyrannical leader, move. off first. he takes his first step in france and is hit in the head by machine gun fire and is killed instantly.

after the war, his heartbroken mother wrote to historians and urged them to tell the story. you talk about being humbly. speckler, this is not pleasant, he was carrying a satchel charge. something touched at all. -- it off. it blew him to pieces. crawlher survivors had to over this as they made their way up the beach. after this book was published, i heard from a french family. it is a custom in france and the other liberated countries to adopt a great of americans who are buried overseas, and they grave,pted speckler's

they wondered if i could share with them how he had died. it was not a pleasant thing to relate, but at least they had some closure at least. pinned downs are against a stony bank that gives the illusion of safety. it is tough for vehicles to get over. when mortar and artillery shells come in, it compounds the fragmentation. it is slippery and wet. it is the first place you would have gotten to beyond the obstacles. many dead and wounded along the water line. medics are risking their lives to go back to the surf to grab and drag people forward. it is one of the few times in the war when medics are dragging wounded men toward the enemy.

it is an insight into a planning oversight that the allies landmark a lot of shipping for things that are ancillary, trucks, but not as much for medical evacuation. they would stabilize a guy, get him to a landing craft, and the say,wains would no we are leaving. they were not to evacuate the wounded. this was a point of frustration. i think it certainly cost some lives. folks i'm showing you. that is lieutenant john spalding. lead?does this

you are presenting the germans with a lot of targets. they cannot hit them all. there are only about 500 to 600 german soldiers defending the big red one beach. you are looking at lieutenant john spalding, who is the commander of probably the first american boat section to get off the beach. he was 30 years old. commission,n an ocs was from kentucky, loved baseball. he was married, had a young child back home. this was his first day of combat. techs a very seasoned nco, k, had to leave school to get the family by. joins the army, fights through

north africa, sicily, was heavily decorated. inyou were to take a poll the big red one on the eve of d-day, who was the most valorous soldier in this division, he would have gotten a lot of votes. spalding, you are new to combat. you are roughly about the same age as the sky, but he has been around a lot. -- this guy, but he has been around a lot. beachsection gets off the first. .ou can see where this happens right there where it says spalding. .hey start to work their way in they are like knives in the vitals to the germans. they do tremendous damage around and4, 62, lose to killed eight wounded. 11 men in this section of 32 got

the distinguished service cross. another example, captain joe dawson, texan, who had seen combat earlier in the war. this is his first company command. he was a 30-year-old geologist who had worked in the oil business, the son of a prominent baptist minister and graduate of baylor university, feels he has to prove himself to his men. from the guy over who was really popular, took over e company. spalding is determined to lead by example. excuse me, dawson. he comes in 20 minutes after spalding. he starts to make his way up. he takes out a machine gun nest himself with grenades. you have a prominent church steeple. his unit ends up fighting bitterly the rest of that day and night. the tragic thing about dawson's

company, they took about 16 casualties getting off the beach. the heaviest casualties were late in the day because of the poor coordination between the army and the navy. the navy had preplanned fire, and it killed several of dawson's guys and wounded several others. he will also be highly decorated for this. governing over this is colonel george taylor, 16th infantry commander. the term the dead and those about to die comes from him. if you have seen the longest day, it is attributable to meacham. it is taylor who said this and wrote it. d-day, he said in a landing operation, there are two classes of men that may

be found on the beach, those who are already dead and those who are about to die. he comes in about an hour after h-hour, hiss-- after xo is killed immediately. get up and off the beach. two people, the dead in the about die. his contributions are twofold. he saves a lot of lives by getting people off the beach. you are vulnerable. you are a target. once you are starting to move inland, you are a hunter. he gets this. i just mentioned spalding and dawson. there are other groups that are doing much the same thing him we probably don't know about to this day. -- same thing, some we probably

don't know about. now there are other guys putting more pressure on the germans, creating that natural manpower advantage the americans already have an going a long way to helping win the beach. at the end of the day, what do you have? you have a beachhead. you have a confused beachhead. by midday, a lot of this is sorted out. with the help of accurate naval gunfire from destroyers that come in, and once you have spotted targets, they do tremendous damage. you have done this by nightfall, but it has been costly. there are no lines, just positions, foxholes, patrols. casualtiesimate 1174 are the big red one, including 300 killed.

probably an underestimate, probably another 500 casualties from the gap assault teams. the emotional toll it took on the survivors, you can imagine. spalding fought throughout much of the rest of world war ii. he had been wounded many times and eventually had to be evacuated for combat fatigue. both of them went on to lead productive postwar lives. thecek took his own life in 1950's. spalding was shot to death by his own wife in the 1950's. you would have to think the hadma of omaha beach something to do with this. dawson became a millionaire. he lived well. he wrote to his family shortly after d-day, what little

satisfaction gained from it is the belief that has all been worthwhile. this is shared by all of our loved ones and those who represent our nation. it might have been hard to see that in the summer of 1944, but that is how he looked at it in the moment, and i think he was anticipating. where is hubner? this has been a small unit leader's battle. inre are only two generals play throughout most of the day on d-day. wyman, hubner's second in command and dutch coda. hubner comes in around 7:00 in the evening when most of the fighting had died down. patrols,still german artillery, mines, thousands and thousands of mines.

had beenin, and hubner a caged lion throughout the day. lead therom the front, way kind of guy. his staff tell him, general, you can be cut it short, best, sure, but you will be -- you can come ashore, but you will be cut off from communication. he finally gets a short and sees the aftermath of this battle. he sees what his guys have done. there is this sense of awe. he speaks to a young staff officer who explains to him here is what we did, here is the toll. hubner is very emotional. he has tears in his eyes. he says over and over, you did it. a sense of awe.

at the moment, it probably meant nothing. you can extrapolate that to the larger normandy invasion,, not just these guys at omaha beach. i don't know how it happened, but you did it. at that moment, hubner believed solidifiedwas a bond between him in that division that never abated. he commanded it very successfully and was looked on very lovingly, just like terry a llen. i think that is the place to close the loop on this. they did it. thank you. [applause] questions? i would love to take questions. there is a lot i did not include. >> yes, sir. can you expand upon the german division that defended that day?

>> there are parts of two divisions on the big red one side. division,he 716th which has a lot of eastern european recruits, you can either work to death or serve as recruits. nd german infantry division is a better unit. during theecdote course of the day. strecek is a polish-american. he encounters a polish soldier who had just shot at him and his guys. he was not pleased. he took the sky and kicked him in the pants as he took him prisoner and walking down omaha beach. i don't blame him. that about the conundrum

soldier is in. he probably has a german nco ready to kill him if he doesn't open fire. think about where the war has taken him. that is what the war had done to a lot of people, the poles just being a good example. the average german infantryman at the big red one side of omaha beach is not your greatest enemy. it is the artillery and other firepower controlled by other folks. yes, sir? when and why did they get rid of the entire shingle? >> the shingle bank i mentioned where a lot of people to cover, and away some of it is still there in the stones. a lot of the stones at omaha beach are exactly what would have been there. a lot of them have been scarred

by the ordinance of that battle. aftermathers in the of the successful landings, the road building engineers are going to come in and start blowing holes in the shingle bank in order to get roads. dr. simons talked about the logistics earlier. start building a road on the ravines leading off the beach. the engineer mission is one of incredible complexity. you have some that were dealing with mines, some dealing with barb wire, some building roads. they have a lot to do. great question. in visiting normandy, we went to the german cemetery. we were amazed at the ages of the people in the cemetery, 14 years old, 15 years old, 16

years old. these some of the people that were there at d-day? >> i am only guessing that these guys are not the ones you would have seen at the cemetery. i suspect some of those were in 12th ss hell are you division. the guys at omaha beach tended to be older, fairly well into their 20's, some in their 30's, a few in their 40's. the german opposition, some of them are polish or whatever, is really kind of diverse. i am not aware of all that many although oneiers, of them was 19, another guy was 18. there were young guys, but maybe not quite as young as 14.

say again, please? gravesites, 15, 14. it may have been later on. >> that is my suspicion. i have seen them. they might have been from the 12th ss hitler's youth division that fights the canadians and is basically annihilated. >> i think i have seen a documentary that talked the 35 2nd was a pretty good division, the remnants of a division that was in the east, had been brought back to the hanover area and had a fresh breath of 18 years old -- draft of 18-year-olds. a lot of seasoned guys. >> and some eastern european

guys came in as well. there was this myth on d-day that tended to endure in pop culture about the three 52nd just happened to be on maneuvers in normandy that day. no. to defendbjective was the water line. resistance new something of this, but allied intelligence had failed to determine this. in a way they had figured out some things because they knew that omaha beach was getting more fortified with the mines and obstacles, and that is why they created the gap assault teams. other questions? >> i have several questions.

raked the's beaches from the lines of her head. i suspect many of those that were killed were the result of those machine guns. those obstacles, could they not have landed later at night? allen, i heard he was relieved because he was not very kind to his superiors, and his son was killed in vietnam. >> you are correct. his son was killed in vietnam and the big red one in the fall of 1967. wasof the reasons allen loved is that the soldiers figured out quickly he cared a lot more about them than making himself look good to his superiors. he had a tempestuous relationship with george patton. happen or set up to

anyone else -- suck up to patton or anybody else. is a pioneer in his advocacy of night attacks. the u.s. army in world war ii and through the vietnam era has this view of let's fight the 9-to-5 war and hunkered down in our perimeter and shoot at anything that moves. let's use our firepower to destroy anything at night. this is not a good thing. 4th, wasdivision, the 10 different. he was too