By the end of 1943, Allied forces had succeeded in stopping the Axis powers’ advancement both in Europe and in the Pacific. Over the next two years, Allied forces seized the offensive and launched a series of powerful drives that helped them defeat the Axis powers.
Early in 1944, United States and British bombers began attacking German industrial installations and other targets almost round the clock. These attacks hampered German production and transportation. In addition, the massive bombing campaigns of the Allied forces devastated German cities such as Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin. For example, a February 1945 incendiary raid on Dresden created an immense firestorm that destroyed three-fourths of the previously undamaged city. The Dresden bombing killed approximately 135,00 people, almost all civilians.
Almost two years before the Dresden bombing, an enormous invasion force had started to gather in England. This force consisted of almost 3 million troops and a great array of naval vessels and armaments. On June 6, 1944, D-Day, General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, sent this vast armada into action. The invasion force included British, American, and Canadian troops and they landed not at the narrowest part of the English Channel, where the Germans had prepared for them, but along sixty miles of the Cotentin Peninsula on the Coast of Normandy.
Even though airplanes and battleships offshore bombarded the German defenses, the fight to take Normandy was not easy. The beaches were overrun with barbed wire and booby traps, and the German soldiers launched their counterattacks from concrete bunkers. By the end of the first day, the Allies had failed to achieve their ultimate goal; to this point, they had only taken control of two beaches, Juno and Gold. Nonetheless, the Allied forces gradually prevailed over the coming months, as they eventually dislodged the German forces from the entire Normandy Coast.
Allied causalities on D-day are estimated to be at least 12,000, with over 4,000 confirmed dead. German causalities were about 1,000 men.
While D-Day is a time of immense national pride for most Americans, historians often wrestle with how to discuss the implications of the event. For example, John Grigg contends that D-Day could have taken place earlier, which would have ended the war sooner and ultimately saved more lives.
On the other hand, the works of Stephen Ambrose and Ronald Drez present D-Day as the emblematic example of what they understand to be a good war. For these scholars, D-Day symbolizes the virtue and bravery of American soldiers who would go on to liberate a grateful population and win unconditional surrender from the evil enemies that were the Axis powers. Still, Theodore Wilson cautions that while sentimentality will naturally creep into our historical memory of D-Day, we should avoid discussions that lead to the glorification of war.
Moreover, J.T. Hansen criticizes the works of Ambrose and Drez for their uncritical acceptance of what he identifies as “the good war myth.” As Hansen explains, the narrative of the good war celebrates the contributions of American soldiers at the expense of oversimplifying and distorting a complex historical period. For example, the narrative largely ignores the crucial part that Russians played in defeating Nazi forces and ending the war. As well, the narrative tends to overlook the D-Day contributions of British and Canadian troops during the airborne and gilders assaults and at Juno and Sword beaches.
As Hansen contends, it does not sully the memories of the war dead or detract from the memories of living veterans to recognize the limitations of the good war myth. Rather, it acknowledges that war is a horribly dreadful experience that blurs our moral lines and our concepts of right and wrong. As Hansen concludes, “If there is a glory in war, then it exists in the ironic, paradoxical, ambiguous experience of war, and war is diminished when these features are slighted.”
–Rebecca DeWolf, Ph.D.
Citations
Ambrose, Stephen E. D-Day, June 6 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Drez, Ronald. Voices of D-Day: The Story of the Allied Invasion Told by Those Who Were There. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.
Grigg, John. “The Liberation of Europe: A Bridgehead Too Late?” History Today 34, no. 6 (1984).
Hansen, J.T. Review of D-Day, June 6 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II,by Stephen E. Ambrose and Voices of D-Day: The Story of the Allied Invasion Told by Those Who Were There, by Ronald Drez. Journal of American History 82, no. 1 (June 1995): 338-339.
Wilson, Theodore ed. D-Day, 1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994.