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The Debt Owed to the Heroes of D-Day
The Debt Owed To The Heroes Of D-Day
By PAUL WOLFOWITZ
Updated June 6, 2014 12:19 p.m. ET
Seventy years ago, on June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in Operation Overlord, the largest seaborne invasion in history and a decisive battle in the defeat of Nazi Germany. In the battle known as D-Day, some 2,500 Americans died, and almost 2,000 from the other Allied nations. Total casualties, dead and wounded, were more than 10,000.
"Veterans who were here then . . . will surely all agree that it was the longest day of our lives," said Walter Ehlers, the last surviving recipient of the Medal of Honor among the D-Day veterans, who was speaking at the 50th anniversary in Normandy. How different that "peaceful, pleasant place" had become from the battlefield a half-century earlier: "The dead and wounded soldiers, the wreckage, the ability of the enemy to cause so much damage, made us realize that this war was far from over."
"Sadly," continued Ehlers, who was an Army staff sergeant that fateful day, soon promoted to second lieutenant, "it was the end of the war for a great many brave men who died here that day. But it was also the beginning of the end for Hitler. The world changed June 6, 1944, the day the good guys took charge again."
Ehlers died this past February at the age of 92. But his remarkable deeds in Normandy and his eloquence 50 years later deserve to be remembered today.
D-day, he once said, was "60 times worse than 'Saving Private Ryan. ' " Fortunately, Ehlers's training and experience in previous landings in North Africa and Sicily taught him to advance right into the enemy fire and avoid becoming pinned down. As a result, his entire 12-man squad made it ashore without anyone wounded.
Enlarge Image
Second Lt. Walter Ehlers receives the Medal of Honor, Nov. 11, 1944, in Paris from Lt. Gen. John C.H. Lee. McCormick Research Center
Yet he received the Medal of Honor not for his heroism on the beaches but for the subsequent fighting in the Normandy hedgerows. The landings themselves, despite the carnage, were one of the best planned and executed military operations in history. But with all the attention focused on establishing a beachhead, little thought was given to the hedgerows, just a short distance beyond. These thick barriers, which had grown up over centuries to separate farmers' fields, gave the German defenders a great advantage and produced the worst American casualties of the Normandy campaign. Ehlers's troops had received six months of amphibious training before the landings, but no preparation for the ferocious resistance they were to encounter in the hedgerows beyond the beaches.
On June 9, 1944, near Goville, France, Staff Sgt. Ehlers led his squad in taking out multiple German machine guns and mortars, sometimes single-handed. The next day his squad covered the withdrawal of their platoon and then, to cover his own men, Ehlers, in the words of his Medal of Honor citation, "stood up and by continuous fire at the semicircle of enemy placements, diverted the bulk of the heavy hostile fire on himself, thus permitting the members of his own squad to withdraw." Shot through the back, Ehlers carried his severely wounded automatic rifleman to safety and then insisted on returning to his squad when his own wound was treated.
Like so many other Medal of Honor recipients, for a long time Ehlers didn't talk about his actions. For 16 years his co-workers at the Veterans Administration, where he worked as a benefits counselor, didn't know about his medal. They only learned of it because the White House called Ehlers at work one day and invited him to an event hosted by then-President Lyndon Johnson.
So many recipients of this country's highest award for heroism say that they simply did what anyone would have done. And they all seem to mean it. "Many others," Ehlers said, "were just as brave. I know my brother, Roland, was one of them. He was the bravest man I ever knew. My hero. Not a day goes by I don't think about him."
Like the fictional Private Ryan of the movie, Ehlers and his brother were separated for the D-Day landings, so as not to repeat the tragedy of the Sullivan family from Iowa, which lost five sons in the sinking of a single ship. Roland Ehlers never made it ashore. His landing craft was struck by a German shell and the entire squad was killed.
From the day he first learned of his brother's death, Ehlers had nightmares. They ended when he spoke about his brother in public for the first time at the 50th anniversary of D-Day, with Queen Elizabeth and President Clinton listening. After that day, according to Ehlers, "the nightmares went away. I came to grips with his death."
Ehlers's whole speech is remarkable, but particularly these words:
"While we braved these then-fortified beaches to beat back Hitler and to liberate Europe . . . we fought for much more than that. We fought to preserve what our forefathers had died for . . . to protect our faith, to preserve our liberty. . . . I pray that the price we paid on this beach will never be mortgaged, that my grandsons and granddaughters will never face the terror and horror that we faced here. But they must know that without freedom, there is no life and, that the things most worth living for, may sometimes demand dying for."
We can best honor the veterans of D-Day and of all America's wars by remembering the sacrifices they made and by recognizing the debt that we owe them. Walter Ehlers —and all who fight and die for freedom—must rest assured "that the price we paid on this beach will never be mortgaged."
Mr. Wolfowitz, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has served as deputy U.S. secretary of defense and U.S. ambassador to Indonesia.
The Debt Owed To The Heroes Of D-Day
By PAUL WOLFOWITZ
Updated June 6, 2014 12:19 p.m. ET
Seventy years ago, on June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in Operation Overlord, the largest seaborne invasion in history and a decisive battle in the defeat of Nazi Germany. In the battle known as D-Day, some 2,500 Americans died, and almost 2,000 from the other Allied nations. Total casualties, dead and wounded, were more than 10,000.
"Veterans who were here then . . . will surely all agree that it was the longest day of our lives," said Walter Ehlers, the last surviving recipient of the Medal of Honor among the D-Day veterans, who was speaking at the 50th anniversary in Normandy. How different that "peaceful, pleasant place" had become from the battlefield a half-century earlier: "The dead and wounded soldiers, the wreckage, the ability of the enemy to cause so much damage, made us realize that this war was far from over."
"Sadly," continued Ehlers, who was an Army staff sergeant that fateful day, soon promoted to second lieutenant, "it was the end of the war for a great many brave men who died here that day. But it was also the beginning of the end for Hitler. The world changed June 6, 1944, the day the good guys took charge again."
Ehlers died this past February at the age of 92. But his remarkable deeds in Normandy and his eloquence 50 years later deserve to be remembered today.
D-day, he once said, was "60 times worse than 'Saving Private Ryan. ' " Fortunately, Ehlers's training and experience in previous landings in North Africa and Sicily taught him to advance right into the enemy fire and avoid becoming pinned down. As a result, his entire 12-man squad made it ashore without anyone wounded.
Enlarge Image
Second Lt. Walter Ehlers receives the Medal of Honor, Nov. 11, 1944, in Paris from Lt. Gen. John C.H. Lee. McCormick Research Center
Yet he received the Medal of Honor not for his heroism on the beaches but for the subsequent fighting in the Normandy hedgerows. The landings themselves, despite the carnage, were one of the best planned and executed military operations in history. But with all the attention focused on establishing a beachhead, little thought was given to the hedgerows, just a short distance beyond. These thick barriers, which had grown up over centuries to separate farmers' fields, gave the German defenders a great advantage and produced the worst American casualties of the Normandy campaign. Ehlers's troops had received six months of amphibious training before the landings, but no preparation for the ferocious resistance they were to encounter in the hedgerows beyond the beaches.
On June 9, 1944, near Goville, France, Staff Sgt. Ehlers led his squad in taking out multiple German machine guns and mortars, sometimes single-handed. The next day his squad covered the withdrawal of their platoon and then, to cover his own men, Ehlers, in the words of his Medal of Honor citation, "stood up and by continuous fire at the semicircle of enemy placements, diverted the bulk of the heavy hostile fire on himself, thus permitting the members of his own squad to withdraw." Shot through the back, Ehlers carried his severely wounded automatic rifleman to safety and then insisted on returning to his squad when his own wound was treated.
Like so many other Medal of Honor recipients, for a long time Ehlers didn't talk about his actions. For 16 years his co-workers at the Veterans Administration, where he worked as a benefits counselor, didn't know about his medal. They only learned of it because the White House called Ehlers at work one day and invited him to an event hosted by then-President Lyndon Johnson.
So many recipients of this country's highest award for heroism say that they simply did what anyone would have done. And they all seem to mean it. "Many others," Ehlers said, "were just as brave. I know my brother, Roland, was one of them. He was the bravest man I ever knew. My hero. Not a day goes by I don't think about him."
Like the fictional Private Ryan of the movie, Ehlers and his brother were separated for the D-Day landings, so as not to repeat the tragedy of the Sullivan family from Iowa, which lost five sons in the sinking of a single ship. Roland Ehlers never made it ashore. His landing craft was struck by a German shell and the entire squad was killed.
From the day he first learned of his brother's death, Ehlers had nightmares. They ended when he spoke about his brother in public for the first time at the 50th anniversary of D-Day, with Queen Elizabeth and President Clinton listening. After that day, according to Ehlers, "the nightmares went away. I came to grips with his death."
Ehlers's whole speech is remarkable, but particularly these words:
"While we braved these then-fortified beaches to beat back Hitler and to liberate Europe . . . we fought for much more than that. We fought to preserve what our forefathers had died for . . . to protect our faith, to preserve our liberty. . . . I pray that the price we paid on this beach will never be mortgaged, that my grandsons and granddaughters will never face the terror and horror that we faced here. But they must know that without freedom, there is no life and, that the things most worth living for, may sometimes demand dying for."
We can best honor the veterans of D-Day and of all America's wars by remembering the sacrifices they made and by recognizing the debt that we owe them. Walter Ehlers —and all who fight and die for freedom—must rest assured "that the price we paid on this beach will never be mortgaged."
Mr. Wolfowitz, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has served as deputy U.S. secretary of defense and U.S. ambassador to Indonesia.