The Meaning of D-Day After 80 Years: Dr. Mackubin Owens

The Meaning of D-Day After 80 Years: Dr. Mackubin Owens

On June 6 of this year, we celebrate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings on the Normandy coast of France that would culminate 11 months later in the defeat of Nazi Germany. Operation Neptune (the amphibious phase of Operation Overlord, the liberation of Europe) was the largest seaborne invasion in history. It was not predestined to succeed. Indeed, it was an extraordinarily risky undertaking. And for an extended period of time on that day the outcome was in doubt.

Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian “philosopher of war,” observed that war is characterized by “friction” and the “fog of uncertainty.” He wrote: “Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war.” Moreover, this “tremendous friction, which cannot, as in mechanics, be reduced to a few points, is everywhere in contact with chance, and brings about effects that cannot be measured, just because they are largely due to chance.”

The events of D-Day confirm these insights. All military operations are complicated but none more than an amphibious assault against a defended beach, especially when it is coupled with an airborne operation to secure objectives behind the German defenses.

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Clausewitz’s friction set in almost at once. Although the British 6th Airborne Division successfully secured the Orne River crossing and the large German artillery complex at Merville, thick clouds obscured the drop zones for the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. Only 20 percent of the drop zones were marked, leading to the dispersion of American paratroopers. Nonetheless, they were able to reassemble and seize most of their objectives.

On the beaches, the situation on Omaha Beach was especially perilous. Because the pre-invasion bombardment had failed to destroy the German fortifications on commanding the landing beaches, soldiers of the 1st and 29th Divisions were soon pinned down by heavy fire.

The chaos on Omaha Beach generated by the interplay of Clausewitz’s friction and the fog of uncertainty was captured brilliantly in the opening scenes of the movie, Saving Private Ryan. Many of the landing craft did not reach the beach, taking direct hits as they approached the shore. Those that did reach the beach were subjected to murderous fire as the ramps dropped. Soldiers who went over the sides of the landing craft were dragged down by the weight of their gear. Entire units were wiped out before they were able to fire a shot.

Most of the amphibious tanks that were supposed to provide cover for the Omaha Beach landing sank before reaching shore. Combat engineers in the initial assault wave were supposed to destroy the obstacles that the German defenders had arrayed on the beach and mark the approaches for the landing craft carrying the subsequent assault waves. But strong currents carried the landing craft of the first wave off course by as much as 1,000 yards. Thus most of the obstacles were not destroyed, and as the follow-on waves approached the beach, men began to use the obstacles as cover from the withering German defensive fire. The cumulative ill-effects: landing craft began to stack up, men wading ashore were mowed down, and others, paralyzed by fear, drowned as the tide came in. Nonetheless, after suffering 2,400 casualties, the most of any beach on D-Day, small groups of U.S. soldiers were able to break through the defenses opening the way for successive waves.

The landings at Normandy on that Tuesday morning in the spring of 1944, and the campaign to liberate Europe that followed, are among the great enterprises in human history. For Americans, Operation Neptune, and especially D-Day, ranks among the country’s most epic campaigns and battles, alongside Gettysburg, St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, and Iwo Jima. It deserves to be studied—and remembered—by generations. 
When we look back on great events, there is a tendency to assume that success was somehow preordained. But as the example of D-Day shows, the actors in this great drama had to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

The invasion’s failure was a distinct possibility. Indeed, General Eisenhower had prepared a message to be broadcast had the landings been repelled. What would have been the consequences? It would certainly have changed the course of history. To begin with, the war would have been lengthened and the strategic position of the United States and Great Britain in Europe weakened vis a vis the Soviet Union, which might well have ended up dominating not only Eastern and Central Europe at war’s end but also Western Europe. Even a stalemate between Germany and the Soviet Union would have meant a whole Continent condemned to live under totalitarianism. A lengthier war would have given Nazi Germany more time to carry out its policy of destroying European Jewry.

D-Day can be understood on several levels. At the operational level, the Allied plan had to adapt to Clausewitz’s friction. The commanders and fighters discovered anew what is always true of war: The only way forward is to adapt to unseen and changing circumstances—or die.

Of course, it is at the visceral human level that D-Day speaks to us 80 years later. When we watch the early scenes of Saving Private Ryan and see the carnage and confusion on the beaches, we wonder: what makes men charge into a hail of bullets and explosives as the soldiers of the 1st and 29th U.S. Divisions did on Omaha Beach? In his 1959 book, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle, J. Glenn Gray provides part of the answer: “Numberless soldiers have died, more or less willingly, not for country or honor or religious faith or for any other abstract good, but because they realized that by fleeing their posts and rescuing themselves, they would expose their companions to greater danger. Such loyalty to the group is the essence of fighting morale.” But it is also the case that these men advanced against fire to ensure the survival of the American Republic in its struggle against an ideology inimical to liberal republicanism.

No matter how good a plan might be, it still must be executed by people. As a 19th century Chief of the Prussian General Staff, Count Helmuth von Moltke (the Elder), observed:  “No plan of operation extends with any certainty beyond first contact with the main hostile force.” To succeed in war requires a fighting force that can operate in the face of mortal peril. Such a force depends on the military virtues of leadership, physical bravery, and commitment to duty. These are some of the human factors that permit men to confront and adapt to the sort of friction and chaos that prevailed on 6 June. As a U.S. Army historian, S.L.A. Marshall, wrote:  “Thousands of Americans were spilled onto Omaha Beach. The high ground was won by a handful of men . . . who on that day burned with a flame bright beyond common understanding.”

Fortunately for the United States, the valor of the soldiers who waded ashore against overwhelming odds on D-Day was not an isolated affair. We have seen it again and again in such places as the Chosin Reservoir, Hue City, Fallujah, and Helmand Province. Americans should thank God that the United States is able to produce such men.