JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Eighty years ago today, the largest sea-to-land invasion in history took place, as Allied troops from Great Britain, the United State, and the governments-in-exile of France and Norway waded through salt water, sand, and a deadly barrage from fortified pillboxes on the cliffs above the beaches of Normandy.
Over 150,000 men were involved in the meticulously planned assault; more than 4,400 died. The carnage was worst on the beach code-named 'Omaha;' the landing crafts missed their marks and were difficult to unload due to the strong wind, while soldiers and engineers struggled to clear the beach's defensive obstacles and mines. Over 5,000 men were dead, missing, or wounded by the time fighters secured a handful of positions past the bluffs that night.
It's almost impossible to imagine any military force today carrying off a daring scheme like Operation Overlord. The planning took almost a full year, with British and American top brass and men and officers from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Rhodesia, as well as European soldiers eager to liberate their homelands. Which they did: 336 days after the blood-soaked landing in Normandy, the Allies accepted Germany's unconditional surrender.
It's also hard to fathom the extent of the trickery, misinformation campaigns, misdirection and code-breaking that went into keeping an assault of this scale hidden. Impossible today, but with camouflage netting, papier-mâché tanks and fake secret papers, the British Security Service carried off what is undoubtedly the greatest intelligence coup in history.
Some three months after D-Day, a young Englishman named Victor Wakefield turned eighteen. The need for manpower was so great, he was given his fitness and aptitude tests and inducted into the British Army that same day. His lungs were weak, but his brain was sharp, and he was shuttled into intelligence, where he would serve in England, India and Kenya. Today he lives in Maine with his wife Celia, one of the estimated 1% of WWII veterans still with us.
We all live mostly comfortable lives in the here and now; sacrifice isn't a common concept. Please, dear readers, take a moment today to reflect on the sacrifices that made this day possible eighty year ago: time and treasure and the fountain-gush of young lives pouring themselves out into salt water and sand.
