History Lessons

There is a very important anniversary coming up this weekend, one which marks one of the seminal events of the 20th Century, a tipping point where, quite literally, the world as we know it hung in the balance. Pity we don't really teach History in this country any more, because I'm willing to bet that few of you have any idea what I'm talking about, and even fewer of you understand just how vital the event in question was to shaping the world we live in now.

This Saturday marks the 65th anniversary of Operation Overlord, more popularly known as D-Day. From the Second World War. You know, the one that was fought in black-and-white.

In military terminology, the phrase "D-Day" really has no meaning other than being the day on which any given operation begins, just like "H-Hour" simply designates the time at which it begins. There were a lot of D-Days in the Second World War, both in the European Theatre of Operations and in the Pacific Theatre of Operations. But the one that happened on 6 June 1944 has a special significance attached to it, and so we know it simply as D-Day. The D-Day.

There was a lot riding on Operation Overlord. Not just the effort of the Allies on the Western Front - which, really, did not exist until Overlord - but the entire war in Europe hinged on that invasion. Had it not succeeded, it is entirely likely that Europe would still be in the throes of a new dark age, with Hitler's Third Reich still extant. Had there been a Cold War, it would not have been with the Soviet Union, but with a Germany in control of the European continent.

Imagine what would have happened had D-Day failed. There would have been no lodgement in France, from which the Allies could liberate Western Europe. There would have been no way for the Allies to mount another invasion attempt before 1947, at the earliest. By 1944, the British had reached a manpower crisis; part of the reason for Montgomery's slow movements after the invasion was because the British couldn't afford to take massive casualties. They simply couldn't replace them. Had the invasion failed, the loss of troops involved would have weakened the British to the point that they might have been knocked out of the war.

The Americans, too, faced a manpower crisis in 1944. The U.S. Army only fielded 89 Divisions in the war, and from 1944 on there was a severe shortage of men at the cutting edge - tankers, artillerymen, and particularly riflemen. Casualty rates and the under-estimation of personnel needed for the USAAF strained the system to its limits. Divisions in combat were maintained at something approaching their authorized Infantry strength only by ruthlessly stripping training Divisions and forcibly transferring personnel from the Army Air Forces. Had Overlord failed, the U.S. wouldn't have been knocked out of the war, but it would have been rendered incapable of conducting ground operations in Europe until the Army had been rebuilt.

If Overlord had failed, then Germany's western flank would have been secure for at least two years. Which means that many of the Divisions stationed there would have been unneeded, and could be transferred elsewhere. In other words, they could have been sent to the Eastern Front to face the Russians.

Infused with fresh Divisions, German strength on the Eastern Front would, at the least, have been doubled. That would have given them an essential parity with the Russians. Even with Hitler's notoriously stupid direction, that would have been enough to stabilize the Eastern Front. No Russians smashing their way across Poland, no Russians crossing the Oder, no Russians taking Berlin. Not a very pretty picture, is it?

So June 6 is, indeed, a very important day. The day, if you will. A day when the world hung in the balance, and didn't fall off the knife's edge. But for most of us, it will be just another day, and we will think nothing of those young men who sleep peacefully, at last, in foreign lands. Nothing that those men did, after all, who gave all of their tomorrows for our today, affects us, right?

We really do owe a debt we can never repay to those young men who parachuted into the Norman fields, who waded ashore at Utah Beach, and at Gold Beach, Juno Beach, and Sword Beach, who bled at Omaha Beach, where the waters turned red. There aren't very many of them left, for we have reached that point in time where they are departing us swiftly, to join those who never left those places. Soon enough, the men who gave us these gifts we have will all be gone.

Really, Saturday is not just another day. It is one of those days that we should never forget.