April 12, 2019
D-Day ‘75
At invitation of the Eisenhower Institute, I came to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – site of a pivotal 1863 American Civil War battle, later immortalized by Lincoln’s address there – to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the largest amphibious military operation in history, the Allied invasion of Normandy in German-occupied France, on June 6, 1944.
The moving spirit of the D-Day symposium was Susan Eisenhower, a granddaughter of the 34th US President, General Dwight D Eisenhower, who was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe in World War II. It was a remarkable recollection of a historic day that changed the war’s trajectory. About 4,400 Allied soldiers died that day; German losses are estimated between 4,000 to 9,000 men.
An historian cited the American propensity to overestimate its role while mentioning the enormous sacrifice of Russians during the 1941 German invasion, where reportedly the then USSR suffered 50 million casualties.
An audience member alluded to her visit to a German war cemetery in Normandy, France, where she was horrified to see the ages of the German fallen, including teenage boys as young as 13, who got annihilated. In mid-1944, Germany was fast running out of fighting manpower. It is not fashionable yet to talk of what Germany endured.
Luck played a huge factor on D-Day – some soldiers were killed just at the moment of landing and some went on to live long lives, including one survivor who attended the symposium.
There was ample discussion about the Anglo-American rivalry within the Allied Command. British General Field Marshal Montgomery – who, incidentally, served as an instructor at the Command and Staff College, Quetta – was skeptical of Eisenhower, popularly known as “Ike,” because of his lack of combat experience.
Susan Eisenhower was particularly struck when I pointed out to discussants Eisenhower’s bold step in pressing Israel, Britain, and France to pull out of Egyptian soil during the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. I brought out Ike’s Suez role as a striking contrast to the last 50 years of White House missteps in the Middle East.
On June 28, 1957, accompanied by his wife, Mamie, President Eisenhower inaugurated the iconic Islamic Center of Washington, noting at the occasion: “civilization owes to the Islamic world some of its most important tools and achievements. The Muslim genius has added much to the culture of all peoples and has provided for all of us many lessons in courage and in hospitality.”
The audience was intrigued when I mentioned a fact hitherto unknown to all, that Eisenhower, accompanied by Ayub Khan, became the first US president to witness a cricket Test Match on December 8, 1959, between Australia and Pakistan in Karachi.
A highlight of Eisenhower’s administration – which also had a Pakistan connection – was the May 1960 U-2 crisis wherein the downed spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, flew from Badaber US base near Peshawar, putting Pakistan in the crosshairs of an enraged Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Participants later were bused to Ike’s farmhouse in Gettysburg where he once feted Indian PM Nehru in 1956.
Eisenhower had anticipatory attributes in that, in his farewell address of January 17, 1961, when he was relinquishing the US presidency, he warned about the dangers to America of its military-industrial complex, which had a vested stake and a profit motive in keeping the cauldron boiling, in pushing America into unwanted wars. American students today have little historic memory.
60 years after Ike’s presidency have vindicated what was forewarned but not heeded.
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