Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Prayer For Allied Soldiers Landing on the Beaches of Normandy
We now assume that our victory over the Nazis in this invasion of France was inevitable, but like many military battles, the battle could have gone either way. How were the Allies able to land enough troops and tanks, plus sufficient food, water, gasoline, and ammunition, on the Normandy beaches to overwhelm the German forces and push forward, first to Paris, and then to Germany itself? Why were the Allied forces not thrown back into the sea?
The historian William Manchester tells us that “Hitler’s intuition had told him from the first that the landings would come in Normandy. Then he listened to his advisors and changed his mind.” They advised him that the Allies would land in Calais in Northern France, which was a short distance from Dover in England. “The main force will land near Calais; Normandy was just a feint.” […]
