>> his remarks were part of of conference hosted by the world war ii museum in new orleans. >> one of the two of you may have heard of the gentleman who's about to join us for the

raymond e. mason jr. distinguish lecture on world war ii. general raymond e. mason junior served under general george patton in world war ii. he worked his way through the rankses including important posting at the pentagon. after his military career, he was a successful businessman and concert with his wife margaret, became a generous philanthropist. a gift from the mason foundation created an endowed lecture series here at the museum which we have been hosting 2008 and with which we will be bringing in here for multiple events many distinguished speakers such as the gentleman who will be joining us in a moment. for the final session of the morning, we're bringing one of

our oldest friends from the museum best selling author, alex kershaw. who i joke one or two may know him, i think all of you know him, anybody who has any interest in world war ii or military history generally has great respect for alex and his many books which include "the bedford boys." "longest winter" "escape from the deep." in our final mission submarine experience. but today alex is here to discuss his latest book, "the first wave: the d-day warriors who led the way to victory in world war ii." please join me in welcoming alex

kershaw. [applause] >> good morning, can you hear me? good. i'm going to leave the podium and join my men. how are you this morning? let's get this thing started. you'll see my bald spot here, which is growing very quickly. do we have -- can you see this? finally great.

this is what it's down to for me. this is a shot. second deadly place that you guys could find yourself on d-day. this is easy sector. one of eight sectors on omaha beach. it takes you through all june 6, 1944.

i will photograph enormously when i woke up in the hotel this morning, i could smell paint. thank you for that. i love the smell of paint. look at that plane there. look at the plane. the paint on that plane is fresh fresh. this is taking it -- thank you. this was taken around 6:00 in the evening. the guy here, second from left is a guy called joe crouch. he's the finest c47 pilot of world war ii. think about this. plane one, his job is to drop

the first yanks since normandy on d-day. plane one. why he got the job? because he's done it four times before. lead pilot north africa, lead pilot sicily, lead pilot number one, plane one first american to be drop on d-day. former united airlines pilot, thankfully in those days you weren't dragged off leading from the united airlines. he's a super star. lead pilot operation market garden. six times number one. these are --

[indiscernible] i'm pleased to give you british or european. these are the first 18 americans to jump out the plane out of joe crouch's plane 12:15 a.m. on d-day. i love them because they started to kill my least favorite people. german nazis. i should add nazi to the german part. only one of these guys were killed. they are pathfinders. their job is to set up lights, beacons, radars to guide in that beautiful magnificent sky train 6.5000 screaming eagles. they don't get the job done. d-day could fail. here's their leader, captain frank, 28 years old. 43 practice jumps let's not

forget almost three quarters of americans were prepared on d-day. [audio inaudible] superstition. in his boots hit the jew sudden graphs normandy, 12:15 a.m. on june 6 1944, badly 1 wounded that evening, completed his mission.

hit in the face with shrapnel, went back to england and came back to 101st airbourne. all the way through end of the war. fantastic combat leader and american. you can tell from my tones that aren't white like boris johnson i am british. been here 25 years. my heart beats faster when i look at this photograph. this is the most successful operation in british military history. 10 minutes. there's a glider a plane made of wood. it different land using the wheels. they are entirely cosmetic. this plane is designed not to

land, it's designed to crash land at 100 miles per hour. 30 guys in each glider, this is famous bridge. after 10 minutes crash landed at 12:15 a.m. just 10 minutes later, 90 guys have carried out successfully the first operation that is a success on d-day. question arises, who was first? americans or british.

who was able to claim brag rights that they were the first? it wasn't captain frank and the pathfinders. it was norman poole. imagine him standing in the door of c-47. he jumped out holding a grammarphone. four other britts. we did stop to have cups of tea four other britts jump out with grammarphones. surrounded by thousands. these are not british public schoolboys from minor public schools. they are about 4-foot high.

they are part of decoy unit. they land and they actually play the grammarphones and they play the sound of war. we can legitimately claim on d-day we were the first. here's the first guy, american guy dome in from the water. 6:20 a.m. think about this, over 900 americans gave their lives on one beach on d-day.

there's really only significant opposition that morning. 197 i think. a frenchman who is a wonderful guy, give me a wave. thank you sir. 197 casualties. this guy was the first guy i will pause a second here. i find that photograph to be very powerful. very emotional.

thank you. always fear. it's not a good thing. second time it's this moment here. this dude here is a junior officer. he's a captain. that's the only place you'll be if you lead leave working class americans today. you're at the front of the boat. most of these guys will be killed. the guy there at the of the boat will not be standing up like this. the sound of machine gunfire of enemy fire will be so intense that he would be towering down most of them shivering with

terror. he sat there 3.5 hours on d-day. all he could hear was a pop here we have a famous autograph to use. guy over here, he looks like my son. my son is 21 years old. average age of americans killed in combat is 22 and 23. he had a captain leading.

look at the photograph carefully. you see the clouds, the hay of clouds above the bluff. [indiscernible] he has the beginning of the sequence of photographs taken by the great robert capper. finest combat photographer of the 20th century. look at that intensity there. same sector, it wasn't easy at all. look at that. look at the level of the sea the ocean. the weather conditions were terrible. i just showed you a picture the

fourth division. four out of five guys were sea sick. they were not combat ready. they were so sick. lot of guys couldn't wait to put their feet on the sand. they want to put their feet on the sand. look at them push around there. you can see why. they are the only ones that show us what it was like to be in those early moments. plus around the defense obstacle. bad idea.

i wait too long on that beach, and stand up and have a smart idea that somehow you'll live in you walk back, way back bloody, vicious. if you do that you'll have to remember one thing, if you keep your head above the water like this, you have to make sure to survive. otherwise, a fine german will put a bullet in your heart. there we go again. you can see now just below the bluff where some of you walked in respect and honor, you'll see the first wave pinned down. they can't move. if some of them left their heads few inches dead. sniper bullets. you can see them there pinned down first wave. look at that.

5.5 miles of that on omaha beach. 5.5 miles of defensive obstacles, all along bloody omaha. here we have robert capper, perhaps his most iconic shot. this is how close you had to get to obtain this beautiful history with a 50-millimeter camera. he's standing probably where i am to this guy. here he is. over the years, there have been several fine warriors who claimed to be this man, claim to be this guy here. it's private houston riley photograph. i think about this. we all know, many d-day's in world war ii and those who serve in the pacific, will say, the europeans five or six, we did 10

d-day. this guy when he handed in the first way on omaha beach standing near the front of that landing craft as that ramped up to rattle down. that's the third time in world war ii that it's been in the first wave. 1942, 1943 and then 1944 with the first division. third time burst of land with the first wave. a&m here. that fine shut out to texas a&m thank you. i spent wonderful week with them this past year. 34 years old on the left here. 34 years old, 225 guys in second range battalion. it was the hardest job on d-day, maybe i think the britts would disagree. they had to take that here. you can see that photograph was not taken on d-day. it didn't have time to stand

around and talk about how hard it was to get closeed fist. both receiveing after d-day. 153 americans receive actions on omaha beach. just four medal of honors given for action on d-day to americans. d-day wasn't that bad. it was lot easier than we thought. even though the germans were dropping grenades, after two days out of 225, only 80 guys could stand and fight. they said it was easier than i thought. we've been trained by the britts. makes a big difference. in fact, maybe 100 feet high. they actually trained on cliff,

on the island. 350, 400 feet high. that's how well trained they were. it's a very fine young american. 26 years old. looks like a baby there. really young.

leadmarch 1945, when i walked up that path, there were mines on both sides of that path. when i got to the top of that path, i believed one thing, there was an angel of each of my shoulders. i have been put on this planet to do one thing. i was immortal, how could i survive that with the first wave on omaha beach. when everyone was being killed around me. how could i lead those 18 men. how can i do that if i wasn't immortal? that was my mission. he knew only too well by august august 1944, he wasn't immortal.

today, 75 years ago, in the meat grinder, when nine americans of division square wasted certainly decimated in. longest defeat for americans in world war ii, this guy broke down. he broke 1945 end of the war he entered psychiatric unit. the price of victory was very high. here we have my favorite d-day super star for obvious reasons. it's not because he's scottish. this is lord lovat. 34 years old. graduate just like me. a brutal poet. wrote beautiful accounts of world war ii. a ruthless man. he said to his men before d-day he said we are the fine

cutting-edge of the british army army. our best killers, guys do it nice and gentle. don't stab and jab, pull him on the eye. 2.5000, you're the fine cutting edge of the british army. if you make one single mistake most important day in history. you'll never come into combat with me again. late june 1944, lovat buried 12 of his officers an apple orchard in normandy. he said on our brothers, after we have dropped the last civil of earth, thank you for the interruption, after we dropped

the last civil of earth on to our brothers we tiptoed out of the field. lord lovett. here's my ugly mug and i'm sorry, i almost missed the best part of the show. those of you who adore world war ii, this is a wonderful image. that's lord lovett on the beach walking towards, walking across. the guy in front of him here, some of you may recognize this chat, it's bill miller. he's actually playing the pipes there. there's over 150,000 allied troops that landed on d-day. we believe that he's the only guy with a bagpipe. we believe he's the only guy

wearing the kilt. he talked to lovett before hand. he said you're going to be my piper. bill said the british army has regulation. they don't allow pipers. after the first world war, they blew up pipers and the sniper would kill you. we're not allowed to have pipers in combat, sir. lovat said you're not in the british army. you're serving as scotsman. you're following my orders. bill millin said after the war he waited for lovat to go first so he could test the depth of the water. [laughter] why drown if you don't have. we don't know what tune he's playing there. who cares. any way, millin said it was colted water was very cold that day. it was 57 degrees. when he finally walked in the water with his nice little

scottish kilt, the kilt rose up like a tutu, like this. i should apologize to anybody who's scottish or scottsman or relate to a scotsman here. i won't because i'm english. i don't care. there's been expensive studies done about the size of various nationalities testicles. we know that all scotsmen do not wear anything under these tutu or kilt. they don't wear anything underneath. it's fair to say when he entered the water, not only where they were very small, they were very small indeed? [laughter] sometimes that gets a larger laugh than other places. [laughter] we have to be careful here. we're not far from the end. frenchman, 177 guys get the huge honor. the fantastic honor of invading

-- yes you sir -- 177 under british command of course invade their own country on d-day. this is leon gotye here on d-day. reason why i love this photograph is because if you look up at the top here, you'll see an oil painting. oil painting of the part of the sword beach where he landed. the house where he's sitting is half a mile from where he landed. he's still alive. he's one of only three french guys living gods in france. 30-year walked among the same beach he landed on with the britts on d-day. married an english woman, we have the most beautiful women in the world. his daughter is half french half english, not quite as beautiful

as the mother. british troops first, this is where most of us were killed. nowhere near as many as you on oimomaha. this is an amazing representation and adrenaline and drama and tension what it's like in the first wave for the british. canadians, do we have any canadians here? anybody canadian? well let's not forget that for the americans and the british and the french and the others, this was their -- they had to do this. every single guy in this photograph every canadian on d-day was a volunteer they didn't have to be there. this is footage taken from the first for about two or three minutes of film. only film that we have. motion film what it was like to arrive in the first moment.

you can find it on youtube google, whatever. i have to say that after omaha beach, the canadian suffered the second highest casualties on d-day. over 300. towards the end, over here, everyone knows his famous desires here. this is taking mid-morning june 6, 1944. guess what he's thinking. he's thinking this is a big disaster. we are in real trouble. early reports coming from omaha beach are very negative, very pessimistic. one message comes from one officer in the 116th infantry. it says we are being butchered like hogs. butchered like hogs. he's thinking, do i do the unimaginable. do i pull off the first division do i pull off the

29th division from omaha beach. what happens if i pull over 30,000 americans off the second american beach. should do i that. that's what he's thinking. thankfully that those who like to go back to france to vote in a democracy, he didn't make that decision. further reports later this morning on june 6th, suggested that americans were starting to get off that beach. they were starting to take the ground that we needed. young americans very young let's say six dozen, we can argue the tough. six dozen young leaders on omaha. leaders who never been in combat before, who would kick and shove, punch inshout and scream and take that combat knive and stick them in the back of young americans who they thought were

dead, get them to stand up and run in the line of fire and get off that beach. six dozen, changed history, i believe. courage matters. it matters. here is a picture of omaha beach. it's a bad map. i'm using it to show you one thing. not one of the defenses, german defenses was taken by an assault. that's how costly it was. all of them were outflanked. not one taken from the front. here we have some statistics. not going to bore you. my eye sight is really bad. omaha beach 4700 casualties. over 900 killed. it was a blood bath.

as you know, the water ran red and a slaughter house for company a on the sector. 116th infantry regimen company a, original 6.5 miles of the beach. only units to land in the right place at the right time. 6:32 a.m., 180 guys, 102 killed in neighbor 20 maybe 20 or 25 minutes. that's not wounded. that's dead bleeding out on the sand, 102 killed. from virginia, guys joined company, hometown of that national guard unit in the 1930's. they joined the national guard because they were really poor. they were patriotic, they loved

their country and they wanted to put food on the table. imagine this, 103,000 joined the national guard in 1937 in 1944 still 34 of you guys from a town of 3000 in the first wave in company a. 19 killed, dead. look at the penetrations on d-day. the thing i like to stress here is my half baked theory, which is look at utah over here. look at omaha and look at the british. that's around 30 miles. what would have happened if he said pull them out. that's a massive gap. even the most rudimentary strategy tells that the german could have divided the forces and d-day would have had a very different outcome indeed.

look at these statistics. the one i want to stress here casualties. 10,250 casualties. u.s., it didn't have the majority of troops canadians and british did. you had the majority of casualties. already on june 6, 1944, the yanks are doing most of the dying and the bleeding. by december 1944, 75% of the killing and the dying and the bleeding is done by americans in the european theater. you arrived far too late from our point of view but boy, did we need you, did you do a fantastic job in finishing that dirty job. 6603 casualties. d-day did not end on the 6th of june 1944. for many veterans, i can say

many i'm old enough to say that, many veterans d-day i interviewed, they said that d-day was the easiest day. the cakewalk compare to what happened next to the fourth division in utah, for john spaulding, 1 a 68 days in combat after d-day. 158 days, getting every morning and having to move forward towards berlin. this is taken two days after d-day. this is sergeant jack pune over here. two days after june 6th, the americans the ones who can

stand, who have not collapsed who have not been shot killed, wounded or traumatized, so they cannot fight on. two days later, they are finally relieved by the fellow americans. you might be able to see the little arrow over here up there that's pointing at rudder. it didn't end on d-day. it only ended in europe on the 7th of may 1945. for many of those allied troops, the fighting got a hell of lot harder. we talk about statistics. we talk about numbers too often too much history extending wickepia entries. i prefer to look at faces. these are 19 faces of young americans.

bedford boys, 19 brothers, literally four sets of brothers identical twin. these are the men that landed on omaha beach at the right place at the right time and was killed about they gave the most precious thing any human being can give it's life. now, bear with me i'm about to end. i'm convinced of this, it is deep in my bones in my heart i do not believe that these men died for your freedom. your freedom in america in 1944 was assured. no way a tank would come rolling rattling along the streets out here. there was no way every jew in this country will be systematically industrially killed quicker than any other human beings in history. no way that 19 million of your

fellow civilians were going to lie dead at the end of world war ii. 19 million were dead. when these guys gave their lives and think about this when you walk through that grave yard among these white crosses, all of those dead young americans had they lived full lives at 600,000 human life years given. so that people like me, flench and germans, europeans can grow up in peace and freedom. i'm 53 years old. i know that to be true. 75 years since d-day, the longest period in european history we have not been killing each other. we have been united in democracy

and peace and freedom. thanks in part to what was given on d-day. it was a beautiful gift. incomparable. i'm very much indeed thankful. [applause] >> before we go to question please make your way to the podium. i like to take an opportunity to introduce you a friend to the museum what is about 500 plus. jim pee wee martin jim was in the third battalion of the 506.

[applause] pee wee, i know i can call you pee wee like a badge of honor. you're a thoughtful guy. we thank you for being here and we thank you for what you do. our first question here, would you like to say something? >> i like you to know, i'm nothing special. all the people in my unit did the same thing. i'm here only because --

[indiscernible] [applause] >> first question here is from bruce. >> i like you to talk about -- [indiscernible]

>> end of d-day was proclaimed that thank god for the u.s. navy certainly on omaha beach. yes, u.s. navy, the coast guard were very much involved on d-day. the situation you're talking about that literally was, i hate to use the term, suicide mission. that's what it was. being an engineer trying to -- [indiscernible] they had the highest casualty rate any unit on d-day. i didn't get that one wrong. that's not forget omaha beach, you got the bedford boys landed by a 21-year-old guy jimmy

green. he was a commander that landed with company a on d-day. the story is yanks pulling out their colt 45, british to make them land in the right place at the right time. without navy we wouldn't have succeeded that day on omaha. we were able to pinpoint german defenses positions very accurately and destroyed them. but note at 6:30 a.m., is when the first wave landed.

great question. >> next question is from connie. >> in this wonderful world of commanders. [indiscernible] >> i feel omaha beach with groups. sometimes people always filled with anger and frustration. why do so many guys have to die?

we did make lot of very serious mistakes. we knew. we made omaha terrible mistakes. i think the answer to that is yes, certainly they will attack. you shouldn't have a wet 80-pound pack on your back. you should be very lightly armed. just like british commanders. he went mile and a half and took out 15 german strong points. they ducked their paths. pick them up later.

move fast. that's the trick. the rangers were told the same thing. if you go to utah beach, next time you go, walk along those and think about this. almost 30,000 americans came ashore on utah. some of those beautiful planes with almost touching. boy, do they do a good job.

thank you. good question. >> thank you for moving and the presentation. my question is similar. what is the single factor using those captions of omaha?

>> it's a mg42 machine gun. maybe across 300 yards certainly the size of this room you have five or six mg42 machine guns. most of the killing is done by machine gunfire. that's statement from the u.s. navy intelligence officer to report that. not a single obstacle destroyed.

it's very hard from 5000 feet to drop a bomb on a defense area maybe size of this room. 5000 feet include cloud core when you're being told to delay dropping of the bomb by a few five seconds. we delayed dropping of that most important -- [indiscernible] you can be shot in front and the back for machine guns. basically yes, that

intelligence the failure of many people including omar bradley. you like to blame any one individual, he was in charge of the orchestration. he protested that this was going to be difficult. omar bradley was the one guy to say, hey, you messed up. >> you mentioned the naval engineers, can you speak little bit more about the role combat engineers once they got obstacles opening up the path? >> combat engineers on utah they had to destroy the onlines to get through them. they had to carry on during the war. we're about to not dodging the

question, i think everybody kind of understand combat. they destroyed obstacles. they built bridges and they allowed the u.s. army and u.s. combat engineer to move quickly and a speed towards their objectives. think about this, we're about to celebrate the and commemorate the 75th anniversary of the biggest battle ever fought by the u.s. almost 800,000 americans involved in that battle. the reason why you can argue that we actually prevailed in the first phase of that battle was because of the speed and the bravery of u.s. engineers. yes, combat engineers were actually vital. they were vital. we built bridges so quickly. it was almost unbelievable.

every bridge on the same blown as german treated. didn't matter. [indiscernible] >> detailed question there. they were neutralized. yes, they had to be fully constructed. had they been fully constructed might not have d-day.

they knew how to pull a trigger. they knew how to fire the machine gun. [indiscernible] everybody including the american public knew about what was happening in the pacific.

one thing we have to remember this is called national world war ii museum. only way that we could win, i say we, i mean you americans did a way we can do that to wait two wars, 3.5 4000 miles away in the pacific and europe. there were about landing young americans and taking territory. moving towards tokyo. really, as eisenhower said, the most important outcome of world war ii was higgins. he built many of those boats here in new orleans.

[indiscernible] 501 days of combat. it all kime down -- it all came down to one thing. a statistic. if you suffer 20% of casualties in amphibious operation, that's

to be expected about. if you go higher than that didn't do very well. flood good. if you go lower than that, success. omaha beach, we didn't have 20% killed or wounded. it was relatively successful and in utah, it was miraculously miraculously successful. it comes down to number. he's got enough men in harm's way. some of them will manage to have the courage to get up. thank you very much. [applause] >> today at 4:00 p.m. eastern on

american history tv, on c-span 3, on real america. the 1985 all-star party for ronald reagan. >> only man from our community who ever wound up living in public housing. [applause] by the way, you got lot of friends here tonight. white house press corps who will be served their favorite meal leak soup. >> beginning at 5:30, a three-part program looking at the house judiciary committee debate and the senate trial of the impeachment of bill clinton. this weekend explore our nation's past on american history tv on c-span 3.

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