The Virtue Behind D-Day

townhall.com ^ | 5/31/2014 | Ed Feulner

[rktman]

If I asked you, as we mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day, to sum up that battle in one word, what would it be? For me, it would be “courage.”

Courage means going forward, into the unknown, with no guarantee of success. It means moving out of your comfort zone and being willing to act boldly when the situation requires it. Without it, you couldn’t storm the beaches in France, or accomplish your mission in the face of terrorist attacks.

Courage is built into the DNA of the American character.

[ansel12]

The Army has always done amphibious operations, long before the doctrine that emerged in the 20s and 30s.

[dcwusmc]

Ahhh... No. The Navy and Marine Corps did, from Revolutionary days. We embarked with the Navy and went off to sieze advanced NAVAL bases, swarming ashore alongside bluejackets wielding cutlasses. The first MODERN amphib operation was at Gallipoli, Turkey, during WWI. It was a fiasco and Winston Churchill, who authorized it, was forced to resign as First Sea Lord, which is kinda like our SecNav. Until the US MARINE CORPS proved it possible, ALL the sea powers (maybe excepting Japan) had given up on the notion, not the least including the US ARMY. We did proof of concept testing when no one else thought it feasible, just like Marine Major Earl “Pete” Ellis wrote the war plans, in 1919, or so, THAT WE USED SUCCESSFULLY AGAINST JAPAN! He vanished while “touring” many of the Japanese-held Pacific islands in the late 20s.

The army learned the game pretty well, but IT WAS MARINES WHO TAUGHT them, primarily General H. M. Smith, USMC, the godfather of amphibious warfare.

D. C. Wright
USMC Retired
III/OK

[21twelve]

I just inherited my Dad’s box of WWII letters (he was on a minesweeper in the Pacific. I need to figure out how to create a website for them. But - the one that is on my desk at the moment has the following (written to my mom, Sept. 1, 1944):

“A small speed boat came out to us with a passenger - a Marine that was the brother to one of our signal men. His ship had come in from Guam the day before and he saw our number on our bow and immediately knew his brother was on it.... These two brothers were sure happy guys. The Marine stayed aboard all that night and we took him to his ship yesterday morning. His ship pulled out last night. Where I can’t tell you - but you’ll be reading about it by the time you get this!”

“The night he was aboard, his brother had the 8-12 signal watch together with me so I had a good chance to talk a little to this Marine. He had a lot of experiences - said he had killed 8 Japs that he was sure of. Two of them with a knife after they rolled into his fox hole at night. He sure thought we had a PLEASURE CRUISE! Could hardly believe anyone could have such soft duty as we have. He was right....

I may not get back until the war is over - but at least I’m pretty sure I WILL get back.”

[21twelve]

from the net; Sept. 15: American Marines land on Peleliu in the Palau Islands; a bloody battle of attrition continues for two and a half months. In total, the 1st Marine Division suffered over 6,500 casualties during their month on Peleliu, over 1/3 of their entire division. The 81st Infantry Division suffered nearly 3,300 casualties during their tenure on the island.

I wonder if the brother ever made it back home?

[ansel12]

The Army was conducting operations in the Civil war.

Their, and America’s first major amphibious landing was in 1847.

[ansel12]

That was also our largest amphibious operation until the US Army attacked in North Africa in 1942.

[ansel12]

You have to remember that much of your Marine history taught to you, was fake, from “Devil Dogs” to thinking the Marines invented the Indian code talkers.

[Pelham]

Some of our invasion troops already had experience fighting in North Africa, Italy and Sicily. Those campaigns had been going since the Spring of 1942.

My dad was part of 7th Army in the Med. They landed in southern France on August 15, 1944 and drove north until they linked up with the Normandy forces and then on into Germany.

He grumbles about June 6, 1944 being known as D-Day- he likes to point out that every military operation has a D-Day and an H-Hour when you’re writing an Op order. I guess you have to be an old soldier for that to get under your skin.

[dcwusmc]

Thanks for your posts. That was some great information. Let me know when you get your site set up!

[dcwusmc]

Your lies are starting to become a bit threadbare. The War between the States was 1861-65. 1847 is about the time of our war with Mexico, and WE WERE THERE. “From the Halls of Montezuma...” and all... We and the Navy were the experts on amphibious landings. We were part of the Naval Establishment and had access to there ships ALL the time, not just when we needed transport somewhere.

And riddle me THIS... WHO ELSE had code talkers? Not the army, certainly, nor the Navy, or it would have been braodcast round the world when the program was declassified in the mid60s. So try another lie. Or try calling me a pedophile as you do on the other threads you stalk me on.

[ansel12]

I haven’t “lied’ about anything, and I have no idea who you are, I have never Stalked you or anyone, and I have never called you a pedophile, so you can stop the wild lying.

“During the Mexican-American War, U.S. forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico three miles south of Vera Cruz. Encountering little resistance from the Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Vera Cruz, by nightfall the last of Scott’s 10,000 men came ashore without the loss of a single life. It was the largest amphibious landing in U.S. history and not surpassed until World War II.”

The largest American and US Army amphibious landing until the Army landed in North Africa in 1942.

In the Civil War, the US Army conducted many major amphibious operations.

In WWII, the Army, who did most of the fighting and dying in the Pacific, conducted over 100 Amphibious assaults just in the Pacific theater, without getting into Africa and Europe.

[ansel12]

As far as the Army's code talkers, they began in WWI, and the US Army used them in the Pacific, Africa, and Europe in WWII.

“The first known use of Native Americans in the American military to transmit messages under fire was a group of Cherokee troops utilized by the American 30th Infantry Division serving alongside the British during the Second Battle of the Somme.”

"In the days of World War I, company commander Captain Lawrence of the U.S. Army overheard Solomon Louis and Mitchell Bobb conversing in the Choctaw language. He found eight Choctaw men in the battalion. Eventually, fourteen Choctaw men in the Army's 36th Infantry Division trained to use their language in code. They helped the American Expeditionary Forces win several key battles in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France".

U.S Army Choctaw Codetalkers. Image created before 1918.

""The name code talkers is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theater. Code talking, however, was pioneered by Choctaw Indians serving in the U.S. Army during World War I. These soldiers are referred to as Choctaw code talkers.

Other Native American code talkers were deployed by the United States Army during World War II, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Lakota Meskwaki, and Comanche soldiers. Soldiers of Basque ancestry were used for code talking by the U.S. Marines during World War II in areas where other Basque speakers were not expected to be operating.""

World War I

In France during World War I, the 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, had a company of Indians who spoke 26 languages and dialects. Two Indian officers were selected to supervise a communications system staffed by 18 Choctaw. The team transmitted messages relating to troop movements and their own tactical plans in their native tongue. Soldiers from other tribes, including the Cheyenne, Comanche, Cherokee, Osage and Yankton Sioux also were enlisted to communicate as code talkers. Previous to their arrival in France, the Germans had broken every American code used, resulting in the deaths of many Soldiers. However, the Germans never broke the Indians’ “code,” and these Soldiers became affectionately known as “code talkers.”

World War II

During World War II, the Army used Indians in its signal communications operations in both the European and Pacific theaters of operations. Student code talkers were instructed in basic military communications techniques. The code talkers then developed their own words for military terms that never existed in their own native tongue. For instance, the world for “colonel” was translated to “silver eagle,” “fighter plane” became “hummingbird,” “minesweeper” became “beaver,” “half-track” became “race track,” and “pyrotechnic” became “fancy fire.”

The Army and Marine Corps used a group of 24 Navajo code talkers in the Pacific Theater, who fought in the many bloody island campaigns. In North Africa, eight Soldiers from the Meskwaki tribe in Iowa served as code talkers in the 168th Infantry Regiment, 34th Division. In Europe, the 4th Signal Company, 4th Infantry Division, was assigned 17 Comanche code talkers. From the D-Day landings at Normandy in June 1944, to the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge, they kept the lines of communications secure.

Soldiers from other tribes, including the Kiowa, Winnebago, Chippewa, Creek, Seminole, Hopi, Lakota, Dakota, Menominee, Oneida, Pawnee, Sac, Fox and Choctaw served during the war. Some were killed and wounded and at least one was taken prisoner. As a testament to their professionalism, the enemy was never able to break the code talkers’ communications.