June 6 is D-Day: quotes (Shakespeare, Eisenhower, Churchill), lots of links

There's so much available on this subject - the information below consists of things I found of particular interest.

It's hard to think of D-Day without thinking of Henry V's speech on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt - the source of the famous Band of Brothers line:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember, with advantages,

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words-

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-

Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

~ William Shakespeare (King Henry V, Act IV, Sc. 3)

via Wikimedia Commons - embiggen here.

You will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world … Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely… Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men …  The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle… We will accept nothing less than full victory.

Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

~ General Dwight D. Eisenhower (wiki) (Order of the Day for 6 June 1944, excerpts)

And here's the story of The Speech Eisenhower Never Gave On The Normandy Invasion - he had prepared it in case the mission failed:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone. 

This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. It involves tides, wind, waves, visibility, both from the air and the sea standpoint, and the combined employment of land, air and sea forces in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen.

~ Winston S. Churchill (wiki) (in announcing the Normandy invasion to the House of Commons, 6 June 1944)

Then darkness enveloped the whole American armada. Not a pinpoint of light showed from those hundred of ships as they surged through the night toward their destiny, carrying across the ageless and indifferent sea tens of thousands of young men, fighting for ... for ... well, at least for each other.

~ Ernie Pyle (wiki) (of the Normandy invasion, in Brave Men)

June 6 is anniversary of D-Day (wiki) in 1944, the date of the long-awaited allied invasion of Europe, on the Normandy coast of France. Preparations for Operation OVERLORD had been underway for over a year, but because of exemplary allied operational security and several elaborate deception schemes, the German high command remained unsure of the time and location of the actual landings and as a result found themselves unexpectedly back-footed in organizing an effective defense.

Thus, in the largest military operation in history, the Allies were able to land 160,000 troops in France on the first day, and by the end of August, three million – 47 divisions – were ashore. Organized under the aegis of OVERLORD’s naval element, Operation NEPTUNE, more than 4,100 landing craft and transports supported the crossing, and these were protected by more than 1,200 warships, including 200 destroyers, destroyer escorts, frigates, corvettes and sloops. By 25 August, Paris had been liberated, and Germany surrendered early the following May. 

Over 4,400 Allied servicemen died in the assault, and 7,500 more were wounded or went missing. Americans made up almost two-thirds of the overall casualties (over 6,600). The German casualty figures were never known, but estimates range from 4,000 to 9,000. That was just the first day of the Battle of Normandy, though: by the time Normandy was secured, over 425,000 casualties had been inflicted on both sides, 209,000 by Allied forces. Another 200,000 troops were captured by the allies, and over 15,000 French civilians were killed.

German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) - in charge of the Normandy defenses - is widely quoted as having observed before the event,

"Glauben Sie mir, meine Herren, die ersten vierundzwanzig Stunden dieser Invasion werden entscheidend sein! Das wird für die Alliierten, aber auch für die Deutschen, der längste Tag werden - der längste Tag."

(Believe me, gentlemen, the first twenty-four hours of this invasion will be decisive! It will become for the Allies, as well as for the Germans, the longest day - the longest day.) This quote is the source of the classic John Wayne D-Day epic The Longest Day.

The Atlantic has an excellent set of Scenes From D-Day, Then And Now, and here are Life Magazine's archives of photos from before and after D-Day in England and France, and their collection of color photos of the ruins of Normandy.

The British D-Day museum has a roundup of information, including this explanation of why the expression "D-Day" was used:

When a military operation is being planned, its actual date and time is not always known exactly. The term "D-Day" was therefore used to mean the date on which operations would begin, whenever that was to be. The day before D-Day was known as "D-1", while the day after D-Day was "D+1", and so on. This meant that if the projected date of an operation changed, all the dates in the plan did not also need to be changed. This actually happened in the case of the Normandy Landings. D-Day in Normandy was originally intended to be on 5 June 1944, but at the last minute bad weather delayed it until the following day. The armed forces also used the expression "H-Hour" for the time during the day at which operations were to begin.

Forecasting The Weather For D-Day - not an easy task in those days.

From 2014 - D-Day Ceremony Includes 'Interpretive Dance' of the Battle.

And od course there's a Lego re-enancment.

It's the anniversary of the 20th of July plot, the unsuccessful bomb attempt to kill Hitler in 1944

Unhappy German nation, how do you like the Messianic role allotted to you, not by God, nor by destiny, but by a handful of perverted and bloody-minded men? 

~ Thomas Mann (Order of the Day, "This War")

A few days before the attempt: Stauffenberg standing 

to attention, left, as Hitler visits the Wolf's Lair. To 

the right is Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, later 

executed as a war criminal

In Germany, they came first for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak up. 

~ Pastor Martin Niemöller (attributed, in the Congressional Record of 14 June 1968) 

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist that doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed. 

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Blithedale Romance, Ch. 2) 

Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!

(Long live our sacred Germany!)

~ Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (wiki) (last words before a firing squad, 21 July 1944) 

Stauffenberg's bomb failed to kill Hitler after a general moved 

the briefcase containing the device; as a result the Nazi leader 

was shielded by a heavy oak table

Today is the anniversary of the denouement of the nearly-forgotten "20th of July" plot (wiki) in 1944, when a courageous, but incredibly quixotic, group of old-fashioned German patriots under the leadership of Army officer Count Claus von Stauffenberg (wiki) (1907-1944)* sought to achieve a compromise end to World War II in Europe by assassinating Adolf Hitler in his headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia, preparatory to opening peace negotiations with the western allies (i.e., excluding Russia). The conspiracy involved a number of high-ranking officers, including Generals Ludwig Beck and Friedrich Obert, but collapsed when a bomb placed by Stauffenberg himself failed to kill Hitler, and plans to seize Berlin fell through.  

Within a day Stauffenberg and the other ringleaders had been executed, but thousands of known opponents of the regime were killed also, and Field Marshals Erwin Rommel, Erwin von Witzleben, and Günther von Kluge were implicated and forced to commit suicide**. Ironically, within a year, the Third Reich had collapsed and Hitler was dead. English writer G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) once wrote,

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die."

* N.B. Stauffenberg, a devout Roman Catholic, was born to a Bavarian noble family, entered a traditional cavalry regiment in 1926, and became an officer in the German Army in 1930. Despite growing misgivings about Nazi policies, he fought loyally in Poland, France, Russia, and Tunisia until he was seriously wounded in the latter, losing an eye, his right hand, and two fingers on his left hand. Subsequently, he served in several staff positions. Throughout his career, Stauffenberg seems to have been drawn to various anti-Nazi movements, and his war experiences, especially in Russia, intensified his feelings of unease with the regime. The 2008 motion picture Valkyrie presents a somewhat fictionalized version of the 20 July plot. 

** Stauffenberg got off easy. Eight of those executed were hanged with piano wire from meat-hooks and their executions filmed and shown to senior members of the Nazi Party and the armed forces.

British Pathe has a newsreel which includes footage of the aftermath of the bomb:

And an additional newsreel, apparently from shortly after the end of the war:

Related posts:

June 30, 1934 was the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler's purge of those standing in his way.

The Herd Reich? Brit farmer turned Nazi super cows into sausage because they were too aggressive.

January 27, 1945 - the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz

Nazis with cats.

Hitler’s Last Surviving Food Taster.

Further reading:

The definitive source: Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich.

Parts of the text above are adapted from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email - leave your email address in the comments if you'd like to be added to his list. Ed is the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943.

Friday links

V.E. Day: 75 years ago, on May 8, 1945, World War II ended in Europe.

Nature’s best toilet paper substitutes.

James Barrie was born on May 9, 1860 - here's the Dark Side of Peter Pan.

Sword-Wielding Scientists Show How Ancient Fighting Techniques Spread Across Bronze Age Europe.

Roundup of Mother's Day links.

Quarantine in the 19th Century: Some Vignettes.

The 1918 Parade That Spread Death in Philadelphia - in six weeks, 12,000 were dead of influenza.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include tax day quotes, cartoons, and history and links, stopping the spread of disease during and after the American Revolution, the lost state of Franklin, the anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, and the history of pizza.

Wednesday links

Tax day quotes, cartoons, history and links, including the 1967 cartoon version of The Beatles "Taxman"

A Look Back at Franklin, America's Lost State.

How computational power—or its absence—shaped World War naval battles.

Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865 and died the morning of the 15th - here's history, contemporaneous articles and illustrations, and an eyewitness report from 1956.

Stopping the spread of disease during and after the American Revolution - fumigating people with smoke was thought to neutralize smallpox: “a judicious and proper application of fire and smoke is the true means appropriated for the destruction and utter extinction of the most malignant sources of disease.”

A History of Pizza - Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph, described pizza in 1831 - "it altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out of the sewer’.

And in the animals are just like humans category, Elephants Console One Another By Genital Touching and Sympathetic Noises.

Friday links

June 30, 1934 was the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler's purge of those standing in his way.

How the Second World War Made America Literate.

News you can use: How To Tell If You've Been Abducted By Aliens.

How tree trunks are cut to produce lumber with different shapes, grains, and uses.

The Uniquely Texan Origins of the Frozen Margarita.

Dancing at the Lunatic’s Ball at the  New York City Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include DARPA's re-invention of the wheel, DIY V-steaming instructions, chocolate chip cookie science, and the anniversary of both the event that started World War One and the treaty that ended it.

Wednesday links

June 27 is Helen Keller's birthday: here are quotes, links, some history, and a selection of (non-PC) jokes.

The taxpayer funding behind Domino's Extra Cheesy Pizza. Kind of related: How Domino's Pizza Lost Its Mascot.

Synthetic Street USA was a fake, part of the camouflage that covered the B17 Bomber factory in Seattle during WWII.

Anoint the gums with the brains of a hare: advice from c. 1450 on soothing a teething baby. Apparently dog milk works, too.

Science: Why Are Monkey Butts So Colorful? Includes a gallery of colorful monkey butts.

A new supervolcano is brewing under Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include the survival uses for tampons and condoms, that time the U.S. Navy built a battleship in New York City's Union Square, a supercut of movie characters getting angry and flipping over tables, and an interactive map showing where your house would have been 750 million years ago.

Wednesday links

June 6 is D-Day: quotes (Shakespeare, Eisenhower, Churchill), videos (footage, FDR's and Reagan's speeches, a Lego re-enactment), lots of links.

Birds Travel Thousands of Miles to Save Energy.

What Was the Point of Elevator Music?

"Your smile is a naughty goblin": foolproof pick up lines, per Chinese scientists

Thai military called in to halt garlic smuggling.

Neuroscience: several possible reasons why we can't remember dreams. 

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include a 1985 list of Western musical groups banned on Soviet radio, the strange history of the “King-Pine” (aka the pineapple), that time Thomas Jefferson sent a moose to Paris, and transmitting data through lamps and streetlights.

"Women are teachable": 1940's booklet to “assist male bosses in supervising their new female employees"

The subject has always interested me, because my mom was one of them - the women who went to work during World War II while the men were off fighting, then gave up their jobs and paychecks once those men came back.

You've come a long way, baby. From the National Archives:

By 1944, over half of American adult women were employed outside the home, making invaluable contributions to the war effort. As women went about their duties, supervisors often worried about effectively assimilating them into the workforce. This publication from the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) awkwardly attempted to assist supervisors with managing their new female employees.

Text:

When you supervise a woman…

Make clear her part in the process or product on which she works.

Allow for her lack of familiarity with machine processes.

See that her working set-up is comfortable, safe and convenient.

Start her right by kindly and careful supervision.

Avoid horseplay or “kidding”; she may resent it.

Suggest rather than reprimand.

When she does a good job, tell her so.

Listen to and aid her in her work problems. 

Text:

When you put a woman to work…

Have a job breakdown for her job.

Consider her education, work experience and temperament in assigning her to that job.

Have the necessary equipment, tools and supplies ready for her.

Try out her capacity for and familiarity with the work.

Assign her to a shift in accordance with health, home obligations and transportation arrangements.

Place her in a group of workers with similar backgrounds and interests.

Inform her fully on health and safety rules, company policies, company objectives.

Be sure she knows the location of rest-rooms, lunch facilities, dispensaries.

Don’t change her shift too often and never without notice.

Text:

Whenever you employ a woman...

Limit her hours to 8 a day, and 48 a week, if possible.

Arrange brief rest periods in the middle of each shift. 

Try to make nourishing foods available during lunch periods.

Try to provide a clean place to eat lunch, away from her workplace.

Make cool and pure drinking water accessible.

See that the toilet and restrooms are clean and adequate.

Watch work hazards - moving machinery; dust and fumes; improper lifting; careless housekeeping.

Provide properly adjusted work seats; good ventilation and lighting.

Recommend proper clothing for each job; safe, comfortable shoes; try to provide lockers and a place to change work clothes.

Relieve a monotonous job with rest periods. If possible, use music during fatigue periods.

Text:

Finally–call on a trained woman counselor in your personnel department…

To find out what women workers think and want.

To discover personal causes of poor work, absenteeism, turnover.

To assist women workers in solving personal difficulties.

To interpret women’s attitudes and actions.

To assist in adjusting women to their jobs.

The same group of documents in the Archives also has a booklet called ""Womanpower" Campaign". See the whole thing there:

Thursday links

Beware - It's the Ides of March. Related: when Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates, he insisted on a higher ransom.

A brief history of hair transplants.

The Hidden History of Bathing in Soup Broth.

RIP Stephen Hawking: a brief bio and the Hawking vs Einstein rap battle.

What Are Antibiotics Made Of?

These Photos Captured What Happened When the United States Started to Ration Shoes During WWII.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include the woman who thought she was married to Napoleon, finding a universal translator for old computer files, and, for Albert Einstein's birthday, the story of the strange post-mortem travels of his brain.

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz

On this date (January 27) in 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz (wiki). Below are two documentaries (one short, one full length) and links to a few articles. Do the world a favor and educate your kids and grandkids about this - the schools don't do much with it anymore.

Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps (wiki). Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79). During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz. In January 1945, with the Soviet army approaching, Nazi officials ordered the camp abandoned and sent an estimated 60,000 prisoners on a forced march to other locations. When the Soviets entered Auschwitz, they found thousands of emaciated detainees and piles of corpses left behind.

How do you describe the sorting out on arriving at Auschwitz, the separation of children who see a father or mother going away, never to be seen again? How do you express the dumb grief of a little girl and the endless lines of women, children, and rabbis being driven across the Polish or Ukrainian landscapes to their deaths? No, I can't do it. And because I'm a writer and a teacher, I don't understand how Europe's most cultured nation could have done that. For these men who killed with submachine-guns in the Ukraine were university graduates. Afterwards they would go home and read a poem by Heine. So what happened?

~  Elie Wiesel (wiki) (b. 1928) (quoted in Le Monde, Paris, 4 June 1987)

Further reading:

I highly recommend the 2015 KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (KL is the Nazi abbreviation of Konzentrationslager, or concentration camp) by Nikolaus Wachsmann.

For an exhaustive and comprehensive account of the Third Reich that explores in depth the questions raised by Elie Wiesel above, read Richard J. Evans' masterful three-volume history, completed in 2009 with The Third Reich at War. 

Disturbing content warning for these videos:

A short documentary about the liberation:

CONTENT WARNING: This longer (21 minute) documentary

"contains all of the film footage of Auschwitz which was filmed by Soviet camermen between January 27 and February 28, 1945, shortly after the camp was liberated.

In the interest of preserving the original character of the material, even the most shocking pictures have been left unedited, and neither sound nor music has been added."

Related posts and links:

Tales from Auschwitz: survivor stories

Powerful Portraits Of Auschwitz Survivors Mark Anniversary Of Their Liberation.

Auschwitz Survivor Gena Turgel Walked Out of Gas Chamber Alive.

Spielberg highlights anniversary of Auschwitz liberation.

History.com's Auschwitz page has links to stories, videos, and more.

Anne Frank's birthday.

Additional Nazi-related posts are here.

Friday links

Director John Ford's WWII-era movies made for the pre-CIA OSS How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines and Sex Hygiene.

Why Can't I Take an Orange Through Customs?

A Victorian dinosaur park.

Sunday, January 14: Happy Feast of the Ass.

People Walked Differently in Medieval Times.

Thomas Edison's sci-fi novel.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include an $800 belt with airbags to protect your hips, the anniversary of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River, how illegal shipping containers reshaped the world economy, and (via video x-ray camera) how hamsters fit so much in their cheeks.

Director John Ford's WWII movies How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines and Sex Hygiene

Via Dangerous Minds:

During World War II, director John Ford (wiki) worked* as chief of the Field Photographic Branch of the OSS, the intelligence agency that preceded the CIA (wiki). 

Wikipedia: 

John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American film director. He is renowned both for Westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), as well as adaptations of classic 20th-century American novels such as the film The Grapes of Wrath (1940). His four Academy Awards for Best Director (in 1935, 1940, 1941, and 1952) remain a record. One of the films for which he won the award, How Green Was My Valley, also won Best Picture.

Some of Ford’s wartime movies were exclusively for OSS consumption, such as 1943’s How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines, a/k/a Undercover, an instructional film about how to be a spy. Like most movies of its kind, it teaches by illustrating dos and don’ts—Ford appears in the only speaking role of his career as the pipe-smoking case officer assigned to the “don’t” agent—and lays heavy emphasis on a single lesson, here the supreme importance of maintaining a believable cover story. Agonizing sequences depict spies blowing their cover through inattention to detail: anything from paying the bar tab with bills no longer in circulation to using “hair grease” they can’t get in Enemytown since hostilities began.

I'm going to call this one NSFW because I can't imagine an employer would want it played at work:

When he went on active duty, Ford had already directed 1941’s Sex Hygiene, an Army training film with tips for avoiding the clap and syphilis while on leave (“I looked at it and threw up,” was the review Ford later gave Peter Bogdanovich). Youtube comment:

Several servicemen relax by playing pool, but one of them goes off to spend time with a prostitute. Later, he discovers he has contracted a venereal disease. A graphic and frank presentation of the types and treatment of venereal disease follows.

The CIA's page on John Ford's war movies.

A day that will live in infamy: December 7 is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor

The Island of Oahu, with its military depots, both naval and land, its airdromes, water supplies, the city of Honolulu with its wharves and supply points, forms an easy, compact, and convenient object for air attack... I believe therefore, that should Japan decide upon the reduction and seizure of the Hawaiian Islands... [an] attack will be launched at Ford's Island at 7:30 A.M. 

~ General William ("Billy") Mitchell (1879-1936) (memorandum for the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, 1924) 

I can run wild for six months... after that, I have no expectation of success.* 

~ Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (wiki) (1884-1943) (to the Japanese cabinet, circa 1940) 

December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. 

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt (wiki) (1882-1945) (to Congress, 8 December 1941) 

Throughout the action, there was never the slightest sign of faltering or cowardice. The actions of the officers and men were wholly commendable; there was no panic, no shirking or flinching, and words fail to describe the truly magnificent display of courage, discipline, and devotion of duty of all. 

~ Report by the Executive Officer of USS West Virginia after Pearl Harbor

Today is the anniversary of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (wiki) on 7 December 1941, which brought the United States into World War II. The meticulously planned and devastatingly successful operation was launched from six aircraft carriers and their escorts, which had managed to penetrate to within 200 miles of Oahu without being discovered. 

Of the eight American battleships in port that day, four were sunk or destroyed, and nine other warships were sunk or severely damaged. Over 2,400 U.S. servicemen lost their lives, including 2.000 sailors, most of whom perished on the USS Arizona (BB-39). The only bright spots were the absence of the three U.S. aircraft carriers from Pearl Harbor that day and the strange failure of the Japanese to destroy the Pacific Fleet's enormous fuel supplies, which would have been an easy target. Japan's attack on Oahu put an abrupt end to pre-war American isolationism and united the nation as it had never been before. But as Napoleon Bonaparte (wiki) noted in his Maxims of War,

"To be defeated is pardonable; to be surprised - never!" 

* N.B. Yamamoto is often quoted as having said, "I fear we have only awakened a sleeping giant, and his reaction will be terrible," but this appears to be apocryphal.

** Quoted in this form in Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two Ocean War, Ch. 3.

Here's a contemporaneous newsreel of the Pearl Harbor attack:

I realize that Pearl Harbor is a significant and serious event, but this reenactment by Monty Python, from Flying Circus: is a hoot, and much too good to pass up:

The stuff of history is indeed woven in the woof. Pearl Harbour. There are pages in history's book which are written on the grand scale. Events so momentous that they dwarf man and time alike. And such is the Battle of Pearl Harbour, re-enacted for us now by the women of Barley Townswomen's Guild (script available at the link):

Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was born on November 15, 1891

In a man to man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.

~ Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (wiki) (Infanterie greift an ("Infantry Attacks," 1937))

Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.

~ Rommel (letter, 9 November 1942)

Self-restraint, even chivalry... distinguished the combatants on both sides throughout the North Africa campaign... The leading exemplar of this code was Rommel himself. When orders from Hitler mandated the execution of captured British commandos, Rommel tossed the document in the trash. He insisted that the Allied prisoners receive the same rations he was given. He even wrote a book about the conflict called Krieg ohne Hass ("War Without Hate"). Memoirs of the North Africa campaign attest that, fierce and brutal as much of the fighting was, relations between individual enemies retained a quality of forbearance that seems, today, almost impossible to imagine.

~ Steven Pressfield, (Killing Rommel, 2009)

He was a splendid military gambler, dominating the problems of supply and scornful of opposition ... His ardor and daring inflicted grievous disasters upon us, but he deserves the salute which I made him - and not without some reproaches from the public - in the House of Commons in January 1942, when I said of him, "We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general." 

He also deserves our respect because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by displacing the maniac and tyrant. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life. In the somber wars of modern democracy, chivalry finds no place ... Still, I do not regret or retract the tribute I paid to Rommel, unfashionable though it was judged.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-1965) (The Second World War, Vol. 3, The Grand Alliance)

November 15 is the anniversary of the birth of legendary German general Field Marshall Erwin (Johannes Eugen) Rommel (wiki) (1891-1944), who became known as Der Wüstenfuchs ("the Desert Fox") as commander of the Afrika Korps in World War II. Born in Württemberg the son of a schoolmaster, Rommel joined the Imperial German Army in 1910 and served in France, Italy, and Romania during World War I, receiving the highest decorations for bravery. 

Between the wars, he rose steadily in the army hierarchy, becoming well known as a military educator and writer of textbooks during the early Nazi years. At the time World War II began, he was serving as the commander of Hitler's headquarters troops but was assigned command of a panzer division during the invasion of France and established a reputation for aggressive and innovative leadership. 

In early 1941, after Italy's failed attempt to invade Egypt from Libya, Hitler sent him to retrieve the deteriorating situation as head of the Afrika Korps, and in a series of see-saw battles which only ended in March 1943, he alternately threatened Egypt and fought a series of defensive actions while retreating toward Tunisia. 

Related: It's the anniversary of the 20th of July plot, the unsuccessful bomb attempt to kill Hitler in 1944.

In November 1943, Rommel was placed in charge of defending the French coast against the anticipated Allied invasion, and he held that command until after D-day (4 June 1944). Increasingly disillusioned with Nazism, Rommel became peripherally involved with the 20 July 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, and when his connection was discovered, he was forced to commit suicide in October 1944, although for political reasons his death was attributed to war wounds and he was given a hero's funeral. The real cause of his death did not emerge until after Germany's defeat. 

A brief biography:



The text above is adapted from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email - leave your email address in the comments if you'd like to be added to his list. Ed is the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943.

October 25 is the anniversary of 3 major battles: Agincourt, the charge of the Light Brigade and Leyte Gulf

A day for battles: 

Battle of Agincourt

He which hath no stomach for this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made

And crowns for convoy put into his purse:

We would not die in that man's company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the feast of Crispin:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see his old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,

And say "Tomorrow is Saint Crispin":

Then he will strip his sleeve and show his scars

And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."

Henry at Agincourt

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names

Familiar in his mouth as household words:

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us on Saint Crispin's day.* 

~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616)  (King Henry V, Act 4, Sc. 3) 

Light Brigade battle map: Click here to embiggen

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

"Forward the Light Brigade!"

"Charge for the gund!" he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

"Forward the Light Brigade!"

Was there a man dismay'd?

Not tho' the soldier knew

Someone had blunder'd

Their's not to make reply,

Their's not to reason why,

Their's but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Light Brigade at Balaclava

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley'd and thunder;d.

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honor the charge they made,

Honor the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred.

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson (wiki) (1809-1892) ("The Charge of the Light Brigade," stanzas 1, 2, 3, and 6) **

Our ships have been salvaged and are retiring at high speed toward the Japanese fleet. 

~ Admiral William Halsey (1882-1959) (remark, 26 October 1944, in response to an enemy report that his 3rd Fleet had been sunk or was fleeing Leyte Gulf.) 

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (wiki) in 1415, when the English under King Henry V defeated the French on St. Crispin's Day (25 October) of that year. Henry (1387-1422) followed his father King Henry IV to the throne in 1413 and two years later announced his claim to the French throne and rekindled the Hundred Years War by invading Normandy. 

In a post-battle compromise, Henry later married Catherine of Valois and was named by France's Charles VI as his successor, but Henry's untimely death to illness in 1422 prevented him from assuming the French kingship. In Shakespeare's famous passage above, Henry rouses his troops for the conflict the night before Agincourt. 

Light Brigade

This is also the anniversary of the "the charge of the Light Brigade" (wiki) at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854. Although of relatively little importance in the larger context of the Crimean War, Balaclava has emerged as its most famous encounter because of Tennyson's poem, which immortalizes the brave, but foolhardy, British light cavalry assault on massed Russian guns and infantry at the end of a shallow valley near Sevastapol. Of the 673 men who started out, 118 were killed outright, and only 195 remained on horseback at the end of the encounter. French Marshall Pierre Bosquet, who observed the action, famously remarked, 

"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le guerre." 

(It is magnificent, but it is not war.)

Map of the Leyte Gulf battle (source) - click here to embiggen.

And finally, today is the anniversary of the largest naval encounter of World War II in the Pacific, the Battle of Leyte Gulf (wiki) (which actually lasted from 23 to 26 October 1944), in which the U.S. Third and Seventh Fleets decisively defeated the Japanese Combined Fleet after the latter sortied in an attempt to destroy the forces supporting the ongoing Allied invasion of the Philippine Islands. The U.S. victory at Leyte Gulf essentially destroyed the Japanese Navy as a fighting force, and its remnants posed little threat for the remaining months of the war.

* N.B. Saint Crispin's day honors the memory of two Christian twins - Crispin and Crispinian - who were martyred by the Romans in Britain, ca. A.D. 286.

I'm a HUGE fan of Kenneth Branagh's Henry V - here's the speech quoted above (watch full screen):

The rather fascinating story of Henry V's injury at the age of 16 - he took an arrow to the face in the battle of Shrewsbury - and the surgical treatment that saved his life, are recounted in the video below and in this excellent article: Prince Hal’s Head-Wound: Cause and Effect.

** This Documentary on the Charge of the Light Brigade includes graphic quotes from survivors, and includes the original 1890 recording (made by Thomas Edison) of Alfred Tennyson reading part of his famous poem:

And here's a brief documentary on Leyte Gulf:

The text above is adapted from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email - leave your email address in the comments if you'd like to be added to his list. Ed is the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943.