[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
       THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF ASTOUNDING EVENTS IN WORLD WAR II

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I wish I had an hour special order tonight. 
I may get a chance to do one tomorrow to talk about some of the 50th 
anniversary of just astounding events in World War II that will be 
coming up during this district work period break when there will be no 
one on the floor to just cause a moment of pause and reflection to 
think about the age of heroes that I experienced from my 8th to, well, 
through my 12th year as a young person.
  Like many Americans of my generation and teenagers, older than I, and 
even people like my younger brother, younger than I, we had maps on the 
walls; in my case, my brothers and I had a map of the Pacific area on 
one wall and the North Africa-Mediterranean-Italian-Europe theater on 
another wall, and we followed the course of the war.
  And to show you how we have gone all through 1992 and 1993 with 
hardly a moment's pause here to reflect on the dark years for America 
and for our European allies in World War II, 1942 when we were not sure 
at all we could beat the axis powers, Japan, the Fascist forces of 
Mussolini and the Nazi forces of Hitler, and then the turnaround year 
of 1943.
  Just today, for example, just today, 50 years ago, Allied troops, 
Polish forces, American forces, Canadian, British, particularly the 
Americans at the Anzio bridgehead where we had been stuck for 4 months 
and 3 days, we broke out of Anzio, and 10 days later, almost eclipsed 
by the incredible landings on the beaches of Normandy, the enternal 
city of Rome was liberated by Allied forces June 4, 1944.
  And this House Chamber will be dark on that 50th anniversary. Two 
days later the Normandy invasion.
  My first 15 years here, 15\1/2\ years, I had a living, breathing 
reminder of that incredible event sitting right here in this chair, a 
good pal of my colleague here, Chris Heil used to sit there, looking 
for all the world like a gentle leprechaun, taking down our words, and 
yet Chris had been one of the engineers that had defied belief when 
trying to comprehend heroics.
  People often say when they see these incredible black-and-white 
newsreel shoots of the first ramps dropping on the very First British, 
Canadian, or United States little small landing craft, and you could 
see the waterspouts of machine gun fire just popping up all in front. 
You would read the accounts of men hearing the bullets hitting the 
ramp, the face of the ramp door before it would drop, and you would 
charge out into this hail of fire.
  Over the next 2 weeks, we will see over and over again those tragic 
shots of four or five Americans coming up the beach, one drops, two, 
then three, then four, and then only one is standing.

                              {time}  2220

  What could be worse than being the first one or two men off of the 
landing barges at the British and Canadian beaches of Gold and Soar and 
Juneau, the beaches that ring with the historical name Omaha, Utah, 
where the American 1st and 29th, our divisions went in hitting those 
beaches? And yet there is a tougher job. Chris Heil, who sat here for 
decades, was one of the engineers who went in in the dead of night 
before the dawn and tried to make the beach safer for landing by 
swimming from tank trap to tank trap and cutting the barbed wire, 
trying to make the beach more safe for men just his age, young men in 
their late teens, early 20's, who would come after him. Chris was 
wounded that day, later in the day, an Army engineer. He went to a 
hospital, recovered, went back into the fighting, wounded again, back 
to the hospital, recovered, wounded again in the Ardennes/German 
offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, in December. We will not be in 
during December, the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. What 
I would like to put in the record today in just these short moments is 
an article from Newsweek magazine that describes the unthinkable, 
``What if our allied forces had been thrown off the beaches?'' One of 
the most poignant stories is the message that President Eisenhower 
prewrote, carried in his pocket, that he would read to the press if we 
failed and were pushed off in what would have been a near-massacre, 
back into the water. Why the allies won and what would have happened if 
we had been repulsed on those beaches in that tremendous battle which 
Rommel himself called the longest day of the war.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit these for the Record.

       First, ``What if D-Day had failed:''
       Adolph Hitler could have used the time gained to continue 
     development and use of his ``Vengeance'' weapons--V-1 and V-2 
     ballistic missile and just contemplate, we still have no 
     defense today against a modern V-2 ICBM. We should not wait 
     for another Hitler to use similar weapons. Instead we should 
     immediately develop near-term, a low cost ballistic missile 
     defense (BMD) systems such as Navy upper-tier the LEAP 
     option, which could provide wide-area BMD coverage to our 
     allies and forward deployed forces using existing Aegis 
     cruisers and destroyers, an improved ``Standard'' air defense 
     missile and the LEAP kinetic energy interceptor.
       Second, the crucial role of intelligence:
       British intelligence controlled all information going to 
     Hitler from German spies around the world. This is why it is 
     so important to prevent treason within our own intelligence 
     community such as the Ames case which could have cost the 
     lives of over ten foreign agents. Such intelligence was vital 
     then and remains so today in the post-Cold War ear.
       Third, importance of bombers:
       Frontline Panzer divisions recall the carpet-bombing of 
     American B-17s and B-24s during the invasion. Had we been 
     unable to quickly deploy ground forces to Saudi Arabia during 
     Desert Shield, bombers would have been our only option to 
     stop the advancing armor formations of the Iraqi military. 
     This is why we need to maintain a modern, capable bomber 
     force and that means B-1 lancers and B-2 spirits with 
     conventional enhancements including precision guided bombs 
     and weapons.
       Fourth, Germans had better weapons but Allies had more 
     mobility:
       Despite outstanding German weapons, the Allies were able to 
     outmaneuver the Germans because of systems such as the C-47 
     transport aircraft which could ``land almost anywhere'' and 
     the 2\1/2\ ton truck which could literally smash through 
     small trees.
       The C-17, like the C-47, can really land U.S. troops almost 
     anywhere in the world (10,000 more runways, unimproved, than 
     a normal airlift aircraft).
       The V-22, ``Osprey'' like the 2\1/2\ ton truck, can 
     overcome nearly any obstacle in the delivery of troops and 
     supplies.
       Mobility is a direct function of technology, this is why we 
     must develop systems such as the C-17 and V-22
       Fifth, overwhelming superiority of firepower and forces:
       D-Day did not take place until we knew we had overwhelming 
     superiority as the attacker to invade an area with superbly 
     built up fortifications.
       Today, civilian ``Armchair Generals'' in this 
     Administration talk about ``Desert Storm Equivalents'' and 
     forces required for two ``nearly simultaneous conflicts'' 
     believing we need only the bare minimum of force to achieve 
     victory. The ``arsenal of democracy'' which won World War II 
     did so with overwhelming American force, not ``equivalents.'' 
     Let's not risk more American lives through senseless cuts to 
     a strong U.S. military.
       Sixth, personal valor:
       Some claim that individual bravery did not carry the day 
     during the invasion. I must disagree. The one consent 
     throughout the history of the U.S. military has been the 
     courage and innovation of our soldiers, sailors, pilots, 
     aircrewmen, and marines who sometimes despite inferior 
     numbers, inferior training, and inferior weapons, always 
     prevailed. We cannot guarantee such courage. Even with modest 
     pay increases deleted by the administration but restored by 
     Congress morale is going down. But we can make sure that our 
     military has the number of forces, the proper training, and 
     the most modern technology to deter, and if necessary fight 
     and win the wars of the future. Let us never forget the 
     victory of D-Day, and why allied forces prevailed that day.

                           Why the Allies Won

                            (By John Barry)

       H-Hour on D-Day, The Hour on The Day. Every one of the 
     370,000 soldiers and sailors aboard the 5,300 Allied vessels 
     steaming toward the Normandy beaches on the morning of June 
     6, 1944, was carrying a mimeographed piece of paper, the 
     ``order of the day'' from Allied commander Dwight Eisenhower: 
     they were, he told them, embarked on ``the Great Crusade.'' 
     Churchill called D-Day ``the most difficult and complicated 
     operation ever to take place.'' With British phlegm, the 
     chief of naval operations for the invasion, Adm. Sir Bertram 
     Ramsay, felt obliged to apologize to his staff a few days 
     before the landings: he was sorry about all the superlatives, 
     he said, but this time they were true.
       How important was Operation Overlord? Had it failed, the 
     map of Europe might look quite different today. Mounting a 
     second try would have taken a year--``at least another year, 
     if you take account of the psychological impact of such a 
     disaster,'' says Martin Blumenson, the author of the U.S. 
     Army's official history of the Normandy campaign. While the 
     shattered armada regrouped, Hitler would have time to 
     complete the Atlantic Wall, to rain V-1 and V-2 missiles on 
     London and to finish off the Final Solution. Meanwhile, 
     Stalin's Red Army would have pushed on to the West--perhaps, 
     in time, right across Germany. ``It's not too far-fetched to 
     wonder if the Iron Curtain might have been on the Rhine,'' 
     says D-Day historian Carlo D'Este.
       That is, unless the Western Allies struck first with 
     nuclear weapons. ``If D-Day had failed, then by August 1945 
     America would have been dropping the atomic bomb on 
     Germany,'' says William O'Neill, professor of history at 
     Rutgers and a World War II authority. ``Instead of Hiroshima 
     and Nagasaki, we'd remember, say, Berlin and Frankfurt.''
       The prospect of risking so much on a single battle--a 
     single day--gave real pause to Allied leaders. Remembering 
     the carnage of World War I, Churchill muttered morosely about 
     ``Channel tides running red with Allied blood'' and 
     ``beaches choked with bodies of the flower of American and 
     British manhood.'' The Americans were more confident, but 
     not without their private qualms. In mid-May, with the 
     invasion only three weeks away. Eisenhower's chief of 
     staff, the choleric W. Bedell Smith, had ``premonitions of 
     disaster.'' He put the chances of success at 50-50.
       Such fears seem exaggerated, in retrospect. Consider the 
     odds: the Allies could put more than 10,000 warplanes over 
     France that day; the Luftwaffe had 890. Allied naval forces 
     included five battleships and 23 cruisers: the German Navy in 
     the Channel was reduced to a few light E-boats and 
     submarines. In two months the Allies put more than 8,000 
     tanks into Normandy; the Germans could muster only 1,350. 
     Still, victory was not a sure thing. The weather was the main 
     element of uncertainty. Eisenhower's meteorologist gave him a 
     36-hour window between Channel storms. Had he guessed wrong, 
     the fragile landing craft would have foundered in the gale. 
     (As it was, 10 troop craft launched off Omaha Beach were 
     swamped instantly, drowning perhaps, 1,000 men.)
       It would be romantic to think that bravery carried the day, 
     and the green and seasick young men dodging bullets in the 
     surf along 59 miles of Normandy beach were brave indeed. But 
     in reality D-Day was won far from the beaches of Normandy, by 
     forces larger than courage. The decisive factors:
       The Russians: If the Red Army had not tied down--and chewed 
     up--the Wehrmacht, the Longest Day would have been longer 
     still. The Allies faced 56 depleted German divisions; in 
     Russia. Hitler had 157. Two weeks after Operation Overlord, 
     Stalin launched an offensive that dwarfed D-Day. In 10 days, 
     130 Russian divisions destroyed three entire German armies, 
     killing, wounding or capturing 350,000 men.
       Hitler: The fuhrer was obsessed with defeating Bolshevism 
     and never grasped the peril of a second front. He rejected 
     the pleas of his top generals in the West, von Rundstedt and 
     Rommel, to smash the Allies by consolidating in the East and 
     shifting divisions to France. Nor would he resolve the 
     dispute between them on how best to deploy the tanks they did 
     have. Von Rundstedt wanted to hold the Panzer tank 
     divisions in the rear, for massed counterattack; Rommel 
     believed the invaders had to be driven into the sea in the 
     first hours of battle. Hitler's indecision was fatal; the 
     Panzers came too late. ``I'd like to shake him by the 
     hand,'' Britain's chief of staff, Gen. Alan Brooke, 
     remarked later to a startled group of generals. ``He was 
     worth 40 divisions to us.''
       Deception: The Germans were crucially delayed by the most 
     successful intelligence operation in history. The Allies 
     created two phony armies under Gen. George S. Patton 
     (temporarily in purdah for slapping a soldier) to con the 
     German General Staff into believing that they were crossing 
     the Channel closer to Germany, at the Pas de Calais. Under 
     ``Double Cross,'' British intelligence controlled all German 
     spies in England and had them sending false reports about 
     Patton back to the Reich. The Allies were able to tell the 
     ruse was working through the supersecret Ultra operation, 
     which broke German codes.
       Detroit: ``They can make cars and refrigerators, but not 
     aircraft,'' scoffed Hermann Goring, the chief of Hitler's air 
     force, the Luftwaffe, in August 1941. He found out 
     differently by 1943, when the American Eighth Air Force began 
     daring daylight raids deep into Germany. A hundred miles from 
     the Normandy beaches. Edward R. Murrow, the CBS newsman, 
     could hear the engines of the Allied bomber fleet as H-Hour 
     approached. ``It was the sound of a giant factory in the 
     sky,'' said Murrow. For all the individual heroics. D-Day is 
     ultimately the story of how Roosevelt's ``arsenal of 
     democracy'' simply overwhelmed all opposition. ``In the East, 
     we were fighting men against men.'' said one of the German 
     soldiers caught in the Normandy firestorm. ``Here it is men 
     against machine.'' Rommel despondently told his son a few 
     weeks after D-Day, ``All the courage didn't help. It was a 
     terrible bloodletting. . . Every shot we fire now is 
     harming ourselves, for it will be returned a 
     hundredfold.''
       The Wehrmacht by 1944 may have been exhausted and 
     outgunned, but the Germans still had nearly a year of bitter 
     fight left in them. There dramatic breakouts and sweeping 
     envelopment by the Allies, but most of the fighting was a 
     hard slog, from the hedgerows of Normandy to the banks of the 
     Elbe. ``For the ordinary rifleman in the infantry divisions, 
     life expectancy at the front was no better than that of the 
     Tommies and the Doughboys of the First World War,'' wrote 
     historian John Ellis. The average casualty rate for 11 
     American divisions cited by Ellis was 76 percent. In one 
     division, the Fourth, which fought for the full 11 months, 83 
     percent were killed or wounded.
       German casualties were beyond belief. Most German units 
     suffered more than 100 percent casualties over 11 months: in 
     other words, they were wiped out. The most formidable force 
     facing the Allies on D-Day was the crack 21st Panzer 
     Division, which began the day with 127 tanks, 350 officers 
     and 12,000 men. When the remnants of the 21st straggled 
     across the Seine 10 weeks later, it consisted of 300 men and 
     just 10 tanks. The commander of another frontline division 
     the Panzer Lehr, recalled being carpet-bombed by American B-
     17s: ``It was hell . . . the planes kept coming overhead like 
     a conveyer belt . . . the fields were burning and smoldering 
     . . . My front lines looked like a landscape on the moon, and 
     at least 70 percent of my personnel were out of action--dead, 
     wounded, crazed or numbed.'' After one battle in Normandy, 
     the German dead lay so thick in the summer sun that pilots of 
     the light-artillery observation aircraft flying overhead 
     could smell the stench below.
       After the war, the commanders of the NATO forces allied 
     against the Soviet Union were almost all veterans of D-Day 
     and the battle for Europe. Until the fall of the Berlin wall. 
     NATO relied for its defense on the threat of nuclear weapons, 
     for a simple reason: no one wanted to fight D-Day again--
     ever.

                          ____________________