American History

Many men, the mighty thousands,
Many men, to victory
Marching on, right into battle,
In the longest day in history

-Paul Anka
 The Longest Day

Cornelius Ryans 1959 book, The Longest Day, is a historical narrative on the greatest and most daring military operation conceived by the Allied forces and also the largest seaborne invasion in (military) history   the landings at Normandy, more popularly known as D-Day on June 6, 1944.  It was made into a movie three years later with an ensemble cast and the story based on this book. The title did not actually come from Paul Ankas song that served as the movies theme but rather came from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who oversaw the construction of the defenses along the Normandy coast.  Rommel was quoted as saying to his aide, Captain Helmut Lang (in German), The first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive...the fate of Germany depends on the outcome...for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.

Ryan was a war correspondent during the war and he was actually there during the D-Day landings.  Besides his personal observations, he spoke to the troops who were involved.  Even after the war, he continued doing research on the subject by interviewing more than 700 veterans from the four countries involved, including Germany.  His subjects ranged from the highest to the lowest such as United States Army General Maxwell Taylor who was then the commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division and Lieutenant General  Jumpin  James Gavin, the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.  These units were among the first to land in France to prepare for the invasion by conducting ambush operations and to tie down reinforcements that would be moved to the front once the battle commences.  From the German side, he interviewed General Franz Halder who was the chief of the German High Command back then who proposed the construction of defenses along Normandy following the abortive assault in Dieppe two years earlier.  Rommel did not live to see the outcome of the war as he took his own life rather than face the indignity of an inquisition before the Nazis and insights on how he prepared the defenses were obtained from his surviving subordinates.  He also got to get the insights of then major Werner Pluskat, the first one to sight the Allied invasion force and bore the brunt of the bombardment from his observation bunker .  Ryan also got the side of the French from the Resistance fighters who helped pave the way to the liberation forces who landed alongside their foreign allies and were driven by great ardor to free their homeland from the Nazis, as well as civilians who had the proverbial front-row seat in the action taking place around them.

He also interviewed the men who did the actual fighting on the ground such as Privates Arthur  Dutch  Schultz and John Steele of the 82nd Airborne.  Steele became  famous  for landing right in the middle of the town of Ste.-Mere-Eglise which was not their actual drop zone but drifted there.  It is in this town where his parachute was caught in the church tower while his comrades were mowed down while landing in other parts of town.  He survived by playing dead and had to endure the incessant ringing of the bells that made him deaf.  He would later be immortalized by the townspeople who placed a dummy in the same spot where he dangled.

From the British side, he interviewed men like Colonel John Howard of the  Ox and Bucks  regiment whose men were the first to land in France via gliders as they had the vital mission of securing a bridge code-named Pegasus which they secured, held until they were relieved by elements from the Special Service Brigade commanded by Lord Lovat whom Ryan also interviewed.  One interesting footnote here was when Lord Lovat led his men to the bridge to relieve the paras, he had his personal bagpiper play a tune to rally the men forward and later brought a sense of relief to the paras holding the bridge knowing that reinforcements had finally arrived.  This was something rarely seen or heard in modern warfare.

The Longest Day is not a dry history book of mainly facts though Ryan did supply important ones such as maps of the invasion route as well as the landing areas which have designated codenames   Gold, Juno and Sword for the British and Canadian forces Utah and Omaha for the American forces.  The bulk of the story rests on the people who were there, including the author.  It could be said Ryan has the authority to write this story since he was there and has experienced the sights, sounds and smells of battle and even though he could not be everywhere in the front, he could relate to his other subjects as they told their stories.  One example would be the airborne operations of the Allies which was risky during the time as they landed in the dark and worst of all, poor coordination and enemy resistance thwarted their plans to land in their designated drop zones and as a result, there were instances when men of the 101st and 82nd would meet up.  For communication, they relied on a simple clacker to identify each other in the dark since they could not give away their positions to the enemy lurking nearby and as a matter of fact, they were even so close enough to touch yet not see each other.  This would be corroborated in Stephen Ambroses book, Band of Brothers which tells the same story though from the perspective of the paratroopers of Easy Company of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.

The second phase of the invasion was the amphibious landings.  There was relatively less intensive resistance in most of the beach heads as opposed to the heavier resistance faced by the American forces at Omaha Beach where the landing force was held up both by obstacles and and German defenses which appeared to be intact after hours of constant naval bombardment and air strikes.  Ryan highlighted the immense fortitude and resolve of the men despite being under heavy fire, notably by the gutsy leadership of men like Brigadier General Norman Cota, assistant division commander of the 29th Infantry Division who was a real leader when he personally led his men forward under heavy fire until they managed to breach the defenses and surge forward.  A similar situation was faced by men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion that scaled the heavily defended cliffs at Point du Hoc.  Under heavy fire, the Rangers climbed the cliffs until several of them managed to make it to the top only to find out the the fortifications they were tasked to eliminate were already deserted.  A similar scene would also be depicted in the 1998 Steven Spielberg movie, Saving Private Ryan.

Ryan also tells the story of the British and Canadian landings at Gold, Sword and Juno and though the resistance was not as intense as it was at Omaha, the Allied forces still bore the brunt of the fighting as they pushed forward.  Even though they had managed to break through the beach head, their advance to Caen, their objective, was checked by a German panzer division that was resting in the region.  It would take them five weeks to finally make it to Caen.  One light moment in the story is about the Royal Navy  beachmaster  at Juno Beach, Captain Colin Maude who was directing traffic on the beach with his pet bulldog Winston.  What was amazing and amusing about this story is that he seemed to be taking things in stride despite enemy fire as though nothing would harm him.

Ryan also gives a narrative on what had happened behind the scenes in the centers of commnd.  On the German side, it was revealed that there was apparently poor coordination of German forces between Normandy and Berchtesgaden, where Hitler and the rest of the German leadership was on a retreat.  It turned out that the German High Command neglected to deploy what could have been the reinforcements for the Normandy front and they later realized that it was too late now to do anything.  Ryan also revealed a very colorful character among the Germans in Colonel Josef  Pips  Priller, a fighter ace and commander of a fighter unit that was already understrength and yet ordered by higher headquarters to attack the invasion force against his better judgment.  On the Allied side, Ryan also got to show what it was like to be in the place of General Dwight Eisenhower who was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.  It was his decision to push through that spelled the difference.  He took a big gamble committing his forces and it paid off handsomely.  It was also shown that he was prepared to take full responsibility should the operation fail disastrously but it did not come to it.

Overall, Cornelius Ryan wrote a masterful work as he succeeded in seamlessly weaving the stories together which was quite a feat to come up with a very comprehensive and interesting story to read that would interest and appeal student and scholars of (military) history.  It would appear as though Ryan had not left anything out in this attempt to write such a comprehensive book.  He would duplicate the same feat in A Bridge too Far which would talk about the Allied operations around Arnhem in Holland. The movie that followed should serve as the perfect supplement to the book, along with the offshoot movies as Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, and it all started with Cornelius Ryans The Longest Day that has set a standard on how accounts of war are written for historians and the casual reader alike.