Among the eloquent oratory attending the any D-Day anniversary
is a frequent refrain: “The Greatest Generation” preserved America’s freedom. It is, however, a gross overstatement. The plain fact is that neither Germany nor
Japan ever had the ability to conquer America.
By June 1944, both Axis powers had lost control of the sea,
besides which they lacked the ships and manpower to occupy North America. (If
Hitler was unable to invade Britain in 1940, how could he occupy America?) In fact, the Axis already was fatally
overextended on the Eurasian landmass and in China.
Even today, orators continue overstating the threat to America’s
freedom. While our security may be at
risk in the war on terror, our freedom is as secure as We The People will
tolerate. Not even during the height (or
depth) of the Cold War was American freedom at stake. The Soviet Union had the
power to destroy us, but never could have enslaved us. Only Americans have the
ability to deprive Americans of their freedom.
What, then, was America’s stake on Norman beaches?
The question answers
itself. At stake was Western Civilization, and the freedom of most of Europe.
France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway
and other nations awaited liberation. In fact, so did Germany and its European
allies: Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Sadly, many of them merely exchanged one
oppressor for another: Nazism for Communism.
In June 1944 a celestial observer in low orbit
would have marveled at the immense breadth and variety of violence on Planet
Earth. It was a watershed period in
World War II, and not only Operation Overlord in Normandy on June 6. That month truly defined the phrase “world
war.”
On the fourth Allied forces entered Rome,
liberating the Eternal City after nine months of muddy, bloody slogging up the
Italian boot. The U.S. Fifth Army gained
the credit but the victory also belonged to Britons, New Zealanders, South
Africans, Frenchmen, Poles, Indians and Gurkhas; even some Brazilians. But at the end of the war in May 1945, enemy
forces still owned northern Italy. In fact, the Axis-- outnumbered six to one
and out-produced beyond computing--tied the rest of the world in knots for six
years, including America, the British Empire, China, and the Soviet Union.
Also in Italy, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force
flew its first shuttle mission to Russia.
Between June 2 and 11, nearly 200 bombers and fighters attacked German
targets in Romania while staging out of Soviet bases.
Meanwhile on the Eurasian landmass, Russia
prepared a massive blow. Along the
Donets the Wehrmacht still occupied land several hundred miles
east of Kiev. Four Soviet army
groups--124 divisions with 1.2 million men--were poised to strike, a cocked
fist with an armored avalanche of 5,200 tanks and massive artillery on a scale
that only Russians have ever managed.
Half a million Germans awaited the blow on Army Group Center.
In
northeastern India, British Empire forces shot it out with determined Japanese
attackers (the only kind the Emperor possessed) at a place called Imphal. It was valuable more for its position than
anything intrinsic: Imphal controlled the only all-weather highway on the
Burmese frontier. In a dank, jungly
world perennially wet, soldiers on both sides watched their uniforms mold and
weapons rust almost before their eyes. Tokyo's hope of
seizing the crown colony died in the rot and decay of Manipur Province.
Meanwhile, American power also projected westward that
June. On the opposite side of the globe,
Operation Forager smashed Japanese defenses in the strategic Mariana Islands,
1,500 miles south of Tokyo. Conquest of
Saipan, Guam, and Tinian involved the greatest aircraft carrier battle of all
time, and put B-29 bombers within range of Japan itself. Significantly, 80 percent of the ships in the
Fifth Fleet had been commissioned in the two and a half years since Pearl
Harbor.
Federal spending reached $91.3
billion in 1944, raising the national debt to $204 billion. But unemployment ran merely 1.2 percent, and
more than a few servicemen reckoned that at least one percent of the population
was unemployable.
Like every other operation, Overlord turned on logistics. The
vital aspect of D-Day that’s usually overlooked was the tremendous task of
moving men and materiel from the New World to the Old. Thanks to the U.S., British, and Canadian
navies, defeat of the U-boats by May 1943 cleared a transatlantic path to Omaha
and Utah Beaches.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt already had proclaimed America
the arsenal of democracy, and however undemocratic some of FDR’s allies proved,
the U.S. became a global Vulcan’s forge.
Consequently, the supply war was fought and won at home, in
factories and farms. Among other things,
America manufactured 79,000 landing craft; 297,000 airplanes; 2.5 million
trucks; 12.8 million rifles; and 190 million pair of boots and shoes.
For
American servicemen one of the greatest events that month was passage of the GI
Bill of Rights. It provided for postwar
education loans plus additional discharge pay, unemployment benefits, and
social security credit for time in uniform.
So
when you think of the WWII veteran, don’t allow your mental computer to default
to the traditional recruiting-poster image.
The vet may have wielded a bazooka, piloted a bomber, skinned a
bulldozer or a pounded a typewriter. Additionally
he—or she—may have welded steel plates in Norfolk or riveted airframes in
Seattle. But Rosie the Riveter and GI
Joe formed an unbeatable team. Between
them, they helped win the war. And in
doing so, they shaped our world.
