The Speech Eisenhower Wrote In The Event That D-Day Failed
And what can be learned from such a speech
Today marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, also known as Operation Overlord. D-Day marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany as it opened up the dreaded “second front” that Stalin had been clamoring for for months. D-Day saw tens of thousands of soldiers and thousands of tons of supplies dropped on the beaches of Normandy, over 50 miles of coastline, in a matter of hours. It was a heroic effort that is still admired to this day. The plan was bold and tenacious and came with considerable risk. What if D-Day had failed? What if the Allied armies were thrown into the sea, as Hitler had ordered his generals to do? Thankfully, we don’t have to dwell too much on such grim what-ifs. But someone had to at the time.
The idea of failure loomed heavily over the head of Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. While unlikely, there was always the potential for the operation to collapse. Similar efforts in Italy and in the Pacific had run up against unforeseen difficulties.
Just months earlier, landings at Anzio in Italy were successfully bottled up and contained by German forces for months. Instead of bursting into the Italian interior, the Allied armies were stuck on the beach, leading to 43,000 casualties with little to…
