D-Day

Churchill’s role in D-Day is a matter of some controversy. This book looks at the great invasion in its context, the culmination of years of planning and preparation, as the decision-makers saw it amidst the challenges of their time. The first chapter is titled “Hindsight is a Wonderful Thing.” Happily, hindsight is avoided here. This approach mirrors that of Churchill himself, as explained in his memoirs of the Second World War. Churchill’s method reminds us that human beings must make their way the best they can with limited knowledge in an uncertain world.

“I have also 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.... An immense armada crossed the Channel...and landings on the beaches are proceeding at various points at the present time.” —WSC, House of Commons, 6 June 1944

There was nothing like the titanic Normandy invasion on D-Day, 6 June 1944. Although it took almost another year, Hitler’s downfall was now certain. Montgomery predicted that future generations would speak with pride of those who undertook that effort, and he was right. How can we not, reading of their actions that Longest Day, hold our manhoods cheap when we contemplate what they attempted and achieved?

At Kasserine Pass in 1943, Eisenhower realized the critical importance of air power—and the need to avoid parceling out control to different commanders. Eisenhower declared that the invasion of Europe could not come “until we had established ourselves so firmly that danger of defeat was eliminated—all air forces in Britain, excepting only the Coastal Command, should come under my control....”

“Empire First” argues that Churchill was dragged into D-Day by his U.S. and Russian allies: Right to the last, Churchill supposedly preferred the “soft underbelly” route to Germany through Italy. This is not a new charge. What is new is the argument that Churchill was motivated by ignoble self-interest: securing the Mediterranean, Suez and Britain’s Eastern empire.

Churchill, who won a Nobel Prize, and did a few other things, cannot reply. He lies at Bladon in English earth, “which in his finest hour he held inviolate.” He’d love the controversy he stirs, on media he never dreamed of. He once said the vision “of middle-aged gentlemen who are my political opponents being in a state of uproar and fury is really quite exhilarating to me.”

Why would Hamilton raise the inconsequential to the significant? With admirers like this, Churchill’s memory needs no enemies.