Reprise: A Day That Changed The World

Soldiers Storm OMAHA Beach

I originally planned to write about another subject today, but the significance of June 6th led me to change my mind. What happened on the coast of France seventy-two years ago today was one of the turning points of history. Here is a reprise of the thoughts I expressed on the subject a few years ago.

June 6, 2016:  Seventy-two years ago today, the greatest fleet ever assembled in history launched the largest amphibious invasion ever undertaken.  Over 100,000 American, British, Canadian, French, and other Allied troops stormed ashore on five beaches in Normandy.  American and British airborne divisions preceded the landings by a few hours to disrupt the German lines-of-communications.

On some beaches, the invasion plan worked smoothly despite opposition from the defending German. But the American beach called OMAHA became a slaughterhouse. The defending positions were formidable, and German resistance proved almost fanatical. The beach became littered with dead and wounded attackers and destroyed equipment. The filmmakers of Saving Private Ryan vividly captured what these men endured. The situation seemed so dire that General Omar Bradley, the American commander, considered evacuating the beach entirely.  Then American leadership, training, initiative, and ingenuity turned the tide.

One on-site commander told his soldiers that there were two types of men on the beach: those who were already dead and those who were going to die. He admonished them  “Let’s take that hill and die inland.” Then he rose and led his men from the front. Engineers breached barriers holding up the troops, and the few tanks that made it ashore surged forward. Hundreds of soldiers overcame their terror and braved fierce fire to attack the defenders. They took the high ground, and the crisis was overcome.  By nightfall, all the landings were securely established.  Although much hard fighting still lay ahead, the fate of Nazi Germany was sealed.

D-Day occurred ten days before my eighth birthday. I still recall President Franklin Roosevelt’s somber radio announcement of the event to the American public and his solemn prayer for the success and safety of our fighting men. As I recall, the mood of the country was grim but determined.  The Axis had started this war, and they deserved whatever they were getting. We were damned well going to finish the war with total victory.

Almost every family in the United States had someone directly involved in World War II. Although my father was too old to serve, I had uncles and many cousins in the armed forces.  Some served in the Army, others in the Navy. Several served in the Army Air Forces. My close relatives endured combat in North Africa, Italy, Northwest Europe, New Guinea, the China-Burma-India Theater, and in the Pacific. One helped sink Japanese carriers at Midway to turn the tide of war in that region. He was one of the few torpedo plane pilots who made it back to his carrier. He remained on the USS Enterprise for the remainder of the war and fought in almost every major battle in the Pacific. My oldest brother-in-law flew 8th Air Force heavy bombers over Germany. It seemed that everyone studied world geography. Our family experience was typical of the entire country. We were a united nation, focused on the single purpose of victory. As I said in a previous blog post, we would not be so united again until the days immediately following September 11, 2001.

The Normandy landings cost the Allies over 9,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen killed or wounded. Those of us in succeeding generations owe these men an enormous debt of gratitude. Their sacrifice in lives lost or maimed freed the world of the gruesome specter of Nazi conquest. Western Europe and the Americas remain free today as a result of their efforts.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on September 15, 2015.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure the Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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The Nature of War

I write historical novels about war. My first book, Fall Eagle One, is about World War II in Europe. My second novel, Hold Back the Sun, is set in the opening months of the Pacific War in the Western Pacific. Asphalt and Blood, which is at the copy edit phase, tells the story of U.S. Navy Seabees in the Vietnam Battle for Hue City.

In order to write about war, one must understand it. I spent over 29 years in the U.S. Navy, of which seventeen months were in Vietnam. I hold the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon. An amateur historian all my life, I have concentrated my studies on WW2. From personal experience and rigorous study, I believe that I have an understanding of modern warfare.

War is, by its very nature, barbaric and horrific. The purpose of war is to impose one’s will on the enemy through the use of military force. War is not a duel, with rules to assure that one opponent has no advantage over the other. War is successful only when the enemy loses the will to resist.

In today’s Washington Post, Eliot A. Cohen, former Counselor of the U.S. State Department, argues persuasively that many in today’s Washington, D.C., do not understand the nature of war. He points out that President Abraham Lincoln hated war as much as anyone on earth, yet he understood that winning the American Civil War required his generals to break the will of the Confederate population to continue the struggle. I assert in Fall Eagle One that Union generals invented the modern concept of Total War as it was practiced in WW2. The “scorched earth” campaigns carried out by General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and General Sherman’s March to the Sea in Georgia speak for themselves. Photographs of Richmond, Virginia, after its surrender look much like those of Berlin in 1945.

Only rigorous application of force makes possible a rapid conclusion of hostilities and a minimization of total casualties. Following the suicide bombing of U.S. Marines in Lebanon early in his administration, President Reagan ordered Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, to develop a new doctrine for the use of military force. The resulting “Weinberger Doctrine,” sometimes called the “Weinberger/Powell Doctrine,” espoused the following: 

1. military force should only be used as a last resort in situations where key national interests are involved, 
2. military force should only be used in situations where a large majority of the U.S. public supports its use, and 
3. when military action is taken, it should be in such overwhelming force that the ensuing conflict is concluded quickly, thereby minimizing overall casualties. 

This doctrine governed U.S. military involvements through the NATO actions in the Balkans during the Clinton Administration. 

Unfortunately, sometime during the run-up to the Vietnam War, the competing doctrines of “Just Enough Force” and “Proportionality” crept into the conduct of war. For years, the U.S. attempted to apply just enough military pressure to force the North Vietnamese to give up their conquest of the South. When Moshe Dayan, the former Defense Minister of Israel, visited Vietnam in the 1960s, he was asked how the U.S. could end the war. His answer was direct: take the war to the enemy’s homeland. Because obliterating North Vietnam’s capacity to continue fighting was not even being considered, the Vietnam War dragged on for years.

“Proportionality” implies that, when attacked, the response should be no more severe than the attack. This doctrine seems especially attractive to reporters in the news media, who ask about it continually when interviewing combatants. “Proportionality” calls for a “leveling of the playing field,” a minimization of one side’s military advantages. In the context of warfare, “proportionality” guarantees prolonged conflict, which in turn maximizes total casualties. Pursuing this course is anathema to any competent military commander.

War is not some game. People suffer and die in war. It is not, as Chancellor Bismarck argued, simply “Diplomacy by other means.” As I said earlier, war is both barbaric and horrific. I believe that Secretary Weinberger and General Powell got it right on the use of military force.  Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Harry Truman all understood the nature of war and applied overwhelming force to end WW2. Current world leaders could emulate their wisdom.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com. Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sunset in the war in the Pacific.  

My Lifelong Fascination With Franklin Roosevelt

My debut World War II novel, Fall Eagle One, is about a fictional German Luftwaffe mission to assassinate President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) with early “smart” bombs. FDR is, of course, a major character in the book. I enjoyed researching his life in 1943-44 as background for my writing. I have been fascinated with Franklin Roosevelt all my life.

I was born in 1936, the fourth year of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. The United States was well into clawing its way out of the depths of the Great Depression. The best word to describe the attitude of working class Americans like my parents toward FDR during my early childhood is “reverence.” Tales of the hardships and privations undergone during the preceding years came readily to everyone’s lips. While the “reforms” of the New Deal were not making the country instantly prosperous again, FDR’s confident handling of our problems brought hope and promise. He was as close to a Messiah as people could imagine.

The conditions in which most Americans lived in the late 1930s would be considered abject poverty today. Only in cities did one find running water, indoor plumbing, central heating, and electricity.  Cash was a scarce commodity.  Food was often limited to bare staples. The New Deal tried to address all these problems, sometimes with a scalpel, often with a sledgehammer. To the majority of Americans, the important thing was that FDR was doing something.

In today’s technology-rich world, it is hard to imagine the importance we attached to huddling around a battery-powered radio in a wood fire heated house to listen to FDR’s “Fireside Chats.” FDR’s fatherly voice spoke to the American people in direct language that all could understand. He told us that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He gave us hope. Eventually, the country recovered, but not only as a result of the New Deal. FDR’s farsighted decisions on international affairs had a great deal to do with America regaining prosperity.

Franklin Roosevelt recognized early on that Adolf Hitler was evil incarnate. He concluded, long before the rest of Americans, that preventing a Nazi takeover of the western world would eventually require the intervention of U.S. armed forces. But there was no appetite among the populous for entering another European war. Isolationism was the order of the day. Organizations such as “America First” actively opposed all foreign wars. There was even an active and vocal American Nazi Party that supported Fascism. Most politicians would have bowed to the inevitable and done nothing to alienate so many voters. FDR was made of sterner stuff.

Beginning with his 1938 meeting with King George VI of England, FDR slowly forged a “Special Relationship” with the United Kingdom. When war broke out in 1939, FDR wrangled changes to neutrality laws to allow “cash and carry” sales to belligerents. Given the dominance of Britain’s Royal Navy, the only practical purchasers were the Western Allies. Of course, large purchases of American weapons and equipment helped revive the U.S. manufacturing sector.  When France fell in 1940, many of his advisors argued that there was no way to stop Hitler, that we should come to terms with him. Instead, FDR stuck with support of Britain.

Winston Churchill took the reins in the UK and swore to never surrender. Roosevelt had begun developing a friendship with the new Prime Minister while he was First Lord of the Admiralty. The relationship blossomed into a full if unofficial partnership. When Britain ran out of money, FDR conceived the “Lend Lease” program to keep up the flow of weapons. When U-boats threatened to cut the Brits’ seaborne lifeline, FDR swapped 50 old destroyers for valuable bases in the British Empire. Rommel’s victories in North Africa brought the occupation of Iceland by U.S. Marines to free British troops for the fighting. Extending the American Defense Zone to Iceland allowed the U.S. Navy to escort convoys halfway across the Atlantic, relieving the strain on the Royal Navy.  All the while, American industry expanded to become the “arsenal of democracy.”

In 1941, FDR held a shipboard meeting off Newfoundland and negotiated the Atlantic Charter, the foundation of what later became the United Nations.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese relieved FDR from having to move behind the scenes to battle the Axis powers.  Unwisely, Hitler declared war on the U.S. a few days later. It remains arguable whether Congress would have declared war on Germany. The fury of the nation was focused on Japan. Before the beginning of the new year, America was embroiled in a world war for which we had no option but to win.

Roosevelt showed great wisdom in managing the war that future presidents would have done well to emulate. Confining himself (and Churchill) to setting broad policy and overall strategy, he left the details of running the war to his generals and admirals. The results speak for themselves. Entering the war with an already mobilized weapons industry, the U.S. out-produced the Axis into extinction. We flooded the battlefields and the skies with numbers far beyond what the enemy could field. Unfortunately, FDR did not live to see final victory.

The U.S. had not experienced such collective grief as it did over FDR’s passing since Lincoln was killed. I’ll admit that children my age at the time were not certain that it was possible to have someone else as president. Fortunately, Roosevelt’s choice of Harry Truman as his successor proved a good fit for the situation.

In the years after WW2, FDR’s crucial achievements were recognized and celebrated. Some later historians have focused on his faults.  Some claimed for a time that FDR knew that Pearl Harbor was to be attacked, that we had been able to read Japanese naval codes and had followed the task force across the Pacific by ship-to-ship radio signals.  Declassification of the 1941 Navy Intelligence files in this century proved that we could NOT read the codes before spring 1942. All Japanese accounts of the Pearl Harbor voyage state that absolute radio silence was maintained throughout. Ship-to-ship communications was limited to signal flags and lights.

Much has been made in recent years of FDR’s purported relationships with various women.  There is no doubt that he had an affair with Lucy Mercer, his wife’s social secretary, in 1918. This was shortly after Eleanor had left his bed to prevent further pregnancies.  Questions remain on whether and/or how many of his female acolytes he enjoyed affairs with. Polio had consigned him to a wheelchair since the 1920s, but it was his legs that were useless. He was not paralyzed.

My answer to all these critics is the old Toastmasters question, “So what?” Most great presidents have had active libidos, beginning with the Founding Fathers. FDR literally “saved the world for democracy.” He bore burdens of leadership that are unimaginable to most of us. The fact that he liked to relax with a cocktail or that he occasionally craved female companionship only proves that he was human. He will always be one of the giants of the 20^th Century. We could use some giants today.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com. Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun set in the war in the Pacific.  

Last Minute Books

Welcome to 'Last Minute Books' - a blog tour featuring a number of authors who would like to check that you've thought of absolutely everything for your holidays. Suitcase packed? Shoes, sandals, trainers, jeans, shorts, dresses, trousers, blouses, shirts......... sunglasses.... suntan lotion....  best smile? And, of course, forgive us do..... But your holiday reads too? Don't forget your reading device. You might prefer printed books but don't forget to pack that kindle or kobo - if that's what you prefer.

Sit back, rest, relax, enjoy the sunshine and let your mind slip away. It's holiday time. 

Let's see what questions the tour master has for our favourite authors and we'll try and find some book recommendations for you. Indeed, all our author friends have the same questions - But are their books the same? Let's see what Warren Bell has to say about holidays.

Q. Where would you recommend for a holiday, Warren?

A. Of all the holidays I’ve enjoyed, I think that the ten-day tour of Provence that my wife and I took in Southern France was my favorite. The people were warm and friendly. Highlights included everything from Roman amphitheaters built B.C. to museums housing the works of Picasso and Van Gogh.  We climbed mountains with medieval fortresses, toured five-story castles, viewed sweeping fields of Lavender, and toured vineyards and wineries. My favorite thing about Provence was the wonderful food and Rose wine. Every meal became a culinary delight. Happy waiters kept replenishing the fabulous baguettes and wine as long as we sat at the table. Unfortunately, I brought home several more pounds around my waist than I had on the trip over.

Q. What kind of a holiday do you particularly enjoy?

A.  My wife and I like to take organized tours where a skilled planner does all the work of organizing the sites, food, etc., leaving us to just enjoy our time. We especially like tours in Europe. We have been to London, Scotland, Bavaria, Switzerland, and of course Provence.  Trips with a central base hotel with day trips around the country are our favorites.

Q. If you could pack someone special in your suitcase, who would it be and why?

A. I think Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  I believe that he was one of the most indispensable men of the Twentieth Century, and I have many questions I would like to ask him. He also knew how to have a really good time.

Q. How do you relax on holiday, or you one for rushing around seeing the sights?

A. I certainly enjoy seeing the sights. Being an amateur historian, there are many places in the world I want to view first-hand. I also love to relax over a superb meal with fine wines. In my experience, nowhere are these better than in Provence.  

Q. What books would you recommend for this years holiday and why?

1.  I would recommend anything by either Bernard Cornwell or Wilbur Smith. Of course, I would be pleased if some chose one of my novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun. Details and ordering information are included on my webpage. For myself, I’m currently reading Zoe Saadia’s excellent series on the Rise of the Aztecs in Mesoamerica. I’ll probably take along a couple on my laptop.

              

           

Thanks for taking part in this chat. Have a great holiday everyone. Now don't forget your last minute books. But why don't you take a short trip with me through cyber space and visit the following AUTHORS ON TOUR to see what they recommend for a good holiday read.

Jerrie Alexander http://www.jerriealexander.com/

Warren Bell http://warrenbellauthor.blogspot.co.uk/

Joan Fallon http://www.joanfallon.co.uk/blog.html
J G Harlond http://www.jgharlond.name/

Khalid Muhammad http://www.agencyrules.com/

Corinne Champagne http://paulanthonys.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/corinnes-last-minute-books.html

Paul Anthony  http://paulanthonys.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/last-minute-books.html