D-Day. 6 June. 0430 hours
Zulu. As I write 61,715 British troops alongside 57,500 Americans and some
21,500 Canadians supported by 6939 ships and craft of various sorts together with some
11,600 aircraft are three hours off the Normandy beaches. They are together with the air, sea and land forces
of many free nations – Australian, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, Greek, New Zealand,
Norwegian, Polish and, of course, the Free French on their long, dangerous and
distinguished way home.
Just over four hours ago at
0015 hours 6 platoons of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire
Light Infantry attacked and took the critical bridge (Pegasus Bridge) over the
Caen Canal that protects the eastern flank of the five landing beaches Gold, Juno, Sword, Omaha and Utah. The
glider-borne force landed less than 100 metres/150 yards from their target and
by 0026 hours had sent the coded success signal “ham and jam”.
At 0058 hours the 7th
(light infantry) Parachute Battalion of the British Army began the first of the
massed American, British and Canadian drops of some 13000 paratroopers behind
enemy defences to help secure the landing beaches. And, in just over an hour at 0545
hours a massive naval bombardment will begin from the huge fleets off the beaches, which includes seven battleships 4 of which are British and 3 American.
At 0725 hours troops of the
50th Northumbrian Division, 69th and 231st
Brigades and the 8th Armoured Brigade will be the first of the six
American, British and Canadian infantry divisions to set foot on the beaches. They are being preceded by Special
Forces of the Special Boat Service and Royal Marine Commandos.
Later today Prime Minister Winston
Churchill will rise to speak in the House of Commons. “I have…to announce to the House
that during the night and the early hours of this morning the first of the
series of landings in force upon the European Continent has taken place. In
this case the liberating assault fell upon the coast of France. An immense armada
of upwards of 4,000 ships, together with several thousand smaller craft,
crossed the Channel. Massed airborne landings have been successfully effected
behind the enemy lines, and landings on the beaches are proceeding at various
points at the present time”.
Under the ‘Supreme’ command
of US General Dwight D, Eisenhower Operation Overlord is a truly multinational
effort. The Allied Expeditionary Naval
Forces is led by Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay of the Royal Navy, the air forces
by RAF Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory and 21st Army Group by
General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, victor of El Alamein.
Seventy years on I had the
honour Tuesday to watch Beating the
Retreat on Horseguards Parade in central London as a guest of the First Sea
Lord. This is an ancient British
military parade that was performed meticulously by the massed bands of Her
Majesty’s Royal Marines, the band of the Royal Netherlands Navy and the band of
the United States Marine Corps. As I
watched I reflected that my life today would not be possible without D-Day – I
am a Brit, I am married to and live with the Dutch, I am a passionate believer
in the United States and the continuing need for American leadership, I am soon
off to Ottawa and I am a European. To
that end, the precision of the military bandsmen of three great democracies marching
and wheeling around Horseguards reminded me of the enduring importance of the military
alliance of the Western democracies forged on those magnificent but bloodied beaches. Indeed, both NATO and the EU were born in Normandy.
Later, as I looked down on
Horseguards from the Duke of Wellington’s famous office with a nice glass
of Royal Naval Chablis in my hand I was also struck by the enduring need for democratic
values and liberties to be underpinned by hard military power in an unforgiving
world. Indeed, if there is one testament
to the men who put their lives on the line on Normandy’s beaches it is that the
West is no longer a place but an idea – a global idea that must be defended
globally. However, today as then sound
defence means hard-nosed political realism and on occasions the same sad sacrifice
by the same sort of young citizen-soldiers the bodies of whom could be seen strewn
sadly across the D-Day beaches by the end of that fateful day.
D-Day also holds a
mirror up to today’s European leaders. They should take a long, hard look into it as not a few of them
gathering in Normandy today should do so in chagrin if not a little shame. This week President Obama came to Europe to pledge
yet more American money in defence of Europe.
America’s $1 billion European Reassurance Initiative will enhance the
training, exercising and (vitally) education of NATO European forces whilst the
67,000 US military personnel currently stationed in Europe will be reinforced. Frankly, as a European I felt a little
ashamed by the President’s announcement.
Indeed, with only three Europeans currently spending the agreed NATO
target of 2% GDP on defence (Britain, Greece and Estonia) it is shocking that in
2014 an American president should be giving American money to relatively rich Europe
in pursuit of its own defence. Echoes of the 1930s.
D-Day also reminds all of us
engaged in security and defence of another strategic verity – the
importance of the sea to our collective defence. After a decade of land-centric operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq it would be easy for military planners to try and fight
the last war better. That would be a
mistake. There will be no more Afghanistan-type
operations in which small forces are sent into distant places at great expense
for long periods in pursuit of uncertain political and social ends. Indeed, with much of the world’s population
moving ever closer to the sea and congregating in huge cities in the littoral
much of future security will come ‘from the sea’.
Therefore, D-Day is not some
relic of irrelevant history but the marker for future coalitions of free peoples and a beacon of
excellence (in spite of its many problems) for future operations. However, such lessons will resonate only so long as political and military leaders have the
political courage and strategic vision to confront the many lessons D-day still
has to teach us about will, intent, cohesion and innovation.
Above all, D-Day reminds of
the need to stand up for what is right. Clausewitz
said that “War is the continuation of policy (politics) by other means”. The presence of Germany’s Chancellor Merkel today
on the Normandy beaches is testament to that.
Indeed, D-Day was about the liberation of all Europe including Germany
from Nazism. Dr Merkel’s presence today
not only graces the commemoration but is powerful proof of a Germany that
stands at the heart of Europe and the heart of freedom as a model
democracy - friend Germany, not enemy Germany.
And, for all the current
turbulence in the West’s relations with Russia and whatever one’s views on
President Putin and his Machiavellian machinations one must never forget that
the defeat of Nazism owes much to the sacrifice and suffering of the Russian
and other peoples in Eastern Europe.
What a shame Moscow simply fails to grasp the possibilities for great
(not Greater) Russia in a free Europe. Apparently
preferring instead to live in fear of freedom in a strange, new Cold World War
in which no-one will win least of all Russia.
In his D-Day message to the
troops General Eisenhower wrote, “The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving
people everywhere march with you. In
company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will
bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of the
Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves
in a free world”.
As the boots of those first
American, British, Canadian and other troops set foot ashore on Normandy’s
long, golden beaches democracy, liberty and security came with them. It is therefore incumbent on the rest of us
to ensure that neither democracy nor security is frittered away by those who
too often seem to have forgotten that liberty can never be
taken for granted and must be invested in then as now.
Operation Overlord was quite
simply stunning both in vision and commission.
A few years ago I stood on the cliffs above Arromanches looking down on
Gold Beach where the famed British XXX Corps came ashore. To my right lay Juno and Sword beaches and to
my left the American beaches Omaha and Utah.
The sheer length of the front was stunning - some 100kms/60 miles in
length. However, D-day was not without
cost and although by the end of D-Day
the beaches were secured and the bridgehead on French soil established some
9000 Allied personnel lay dead killed-in-action. Therefore, today must be seen for what it is;
a day of remembrance for the American, British, Canadian and other forces that began
Europe’s long journey back to democracy many never to return.
How can we honour these
brave, ordinary men and the veterans who still honour us and remind us with
their presence? We must complete a
Europe whole and free and reinvest in the defence of liberty and democracy for
which my grandfather and my great-uncle (killed) fought.
In November 1942 speaking of
the British Commonwealth’s victory at El Alamein in Egypt Winston Churchill said,
“This is not the end. It is not even the
beginning of the end. It is, however,
the end of the beginning”. D-Day was the
beginning of the end of World War Two in the European theatre of operations.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning we will remember them.
Thank you, Gentlemen.
