Seventy four years ago
Published: Wed, 05/23/18
In two weeks time, the 6th of June, it will be the 74th anniversary of D day. D day referring to the to launch of operation Overlord, its mission, to establish a beachhead on the coast of Normandy and thus begin driving the forces of Nazi Germany out of the countries they had occupied since the summer of 1940. Such an assault was always going to be a massive, and very dangerous, enterprise for the allies. A huge army had been established in the South of the UK including 1,600,000 US service personnel. Many other countries contributed substantial forces too, including Canada and other commonwealth countries. The British army was at its peak too after four years of conscription, training and preparation.
However, on D day itself only just over 4000 landing craft were available. So, it was a remarkable feat to land over 100,000 troops at 5 separate landing sites. Around 10,000 allied troops were casualties of which about 4,400 were confirmed as killed. A lot of troops were drowned as they tried to make it too the shore. As we know, the bridgeheads were established and held against German counter attacks, and within five days over 320,000 troops had been landed in Normandy along with over 54,000 vehicles. The battle to free Western Europe from Nazi occupation had begun.
One curious aspect of the whole operation was the lack of experience of combat amongst the troops that took part. A few British troops may have been veterans of Dunkirk, 4 years previously. There had been operations in North Africa and other theaters of combat involving a few more. But most UK servicemen had been recruited and trained for the invasion of Normandy and had not seen action anywhere else. The same applied to the Americans, their army too had been assembled for operation Overlord and the beaches on Normandy would be their baptism of fire.
Was this a problem for the Allied commanders? Normally, having experienced and battle hardened troops is a major advantage in a military operation. Overlord was a little different in that no one had ever launched an operation quite like it before, so experience hardly came into it, everyone involved was going to be ‘learning on the job’ to some degree anyway. Also, Overlord was so inherently risky, crossing 100 miles of sea and then confronting an enemy as determined, well prepared and skilled as the Axis forces, that having no idea what to expect could only be an advantage. Of course it was obviously dangerous, no one doubted that, but young men of 24 (the average age of D day troops) have a curious sense of their own immortality, at least until the bullets start to fly. In his book ‘D Day’, Steven E. Ambrose quotes a Charles East. Private East reported that their company commander talked to his troops on the eve of D Day. The
officer warned he men that 9 out of 10 of them were likely to become casualties during the coming operation. Private East looked to the man on his right, then the man on his left, and thought to himself, ‘you poor bastards’. Once on the beach there was no option of running away, so, within minutes, the soldiers who survived became the hardened veterans who would go on to fight the war to its bitter end.
The second module of my Self-protection Programme goes out today, the subject is fear. Hopefully no one reading this will ever experience anything quite like the Normandy landings 74 years ago. But we still have to confront the experience of fear on a regular basis. Fear is not a bad thing, in fact normally fear is essential for our own protection. What matters is that we see fear, not as a problem to be avoided, but a process of self-education. I also highlight the story from the Norse mythology which shows us what happens in the absense of healthy fear.
Details of the programme here https://iceandfire.org.uk/martial01.html
regards
Graham
PS It is going to take until around the second week of July to complete the trial of the Self-protection programme. I will then do a final edit and automate the delivery, as with the Foundation Programme.
I have decided that the next programme will be the advanced runelore programme which will run over 24 weeks. I have just realised that I will have to start that programme by the middle of July to complete the trial before the the end of 2018. (the year is certainly moving on.) I also rather like the idea of doing a retreat associated with the advanced programme sometime in the summer of 2019. I will get a page up soon inviting people to participate in the trial, as a member you will be welcome to participate anyway. I would also suggest that having completed the Foundation programme before doing the Advanced Programme would be a very good idea. Let me know if you would be interested in participating in the trial and I will let you know as soon as the details are posted.