‘NEVER AGAIN’: US ARMY CAN’T AFFORD TO FORGET THE LONGEST DAY
COL. COLE C. KINGSEED, U.S. ARMY RETIRED
Friday, May 24, 2024
Eighty years on, whether you call it the “Longest Day” or the “Mighty Endeavor,” D-Day on June 6, 1944, remains perhaps the most significant day for Western civilization in the 20th century.
As outlined by a February 1944 directive from the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, led the largest amphibious force in history as it embarked on a mission to “enter the continent of Europe and, … undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.”
When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described the invasion of German-occupied France in June 1944, code-named Operation Overlord, as “the greatest thing we have ever attempted,” he hardly understated the scope of the invasion force. On D-Day alone, Eisenhower deployed 175,000 fighting men and their equipment, 5,333 ships and craft, and almost 11,000 airplanes.
As the United States and the U.S. Army now ponder that historic day, several questions remain: Why were the amphibious forces able to secure a lodgment on France’s Normandy coast against such determined resistance? Did D-Day’s outcome justify the immense sacrifice of lives that occurred on those beaches? Eighty years after the war, why do we remember and commemorate this specific day?
https://www.ausa.org/articles/never-again-us-army-cant-afford-forget-longest-day
