'Kill or Die' – Who and Why: D-Day at 75

Review by Bill Doughty

So many were teenagers. On both sides.

Most of the individual stories of that day will never be told, but historian Giles Milton tells the tales of hundreds of individuals involved in the liberation of Europe 75 years ago in his compelling depiction, "Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die: How the Allies Won on D-Day" by Giles Milton (Henry Holt, 2015).

Milton takes us underwater to disable mines, into German strongholds and pillboxes where fear reigns, and into the sky in parachutes as part of the airborne attack. We go aboard Navy ships and landing craft, in the surf, on the beach and above the skies in bombers and gliders.

"In the lead glider, the two pilots were preparing for a dangerous and most unpleasant manoeuvre. In order to avoid a slow descent that involved endless circling, they would tip the Horsa's nose into a sickening dive. Once done, there was no turning back. The glider would hurtle to earth at a speed in excess of 100 mph and only their skill would prevent it from smashing into the ground. The men clutched their bellies as they were pitched forward, with only their harnesses keeping them strapped to their seats. 'We plummeted earthwards at what felt to us like breakneck speed until we were within 1,000 feet of the ground.' There was a horrendous judder as Wallwork and Ainsworth fought hard to lift the nose back into a sweeping glide, instead of a dive. In the mottled moonlight, Wallwork could see the bridge, the village and the landing zone."

Milton is British, but his perspective is international, and he gives balanced coverage from all angles. 

Allies, he notes, included fighters from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and France. The German defenders at Normandy in the early morning of June 6, 1944, included unwilling conscripts and German boys in uniform, many as young as 14. Others were experienced fighters from the Russian front.

Luck and some strategic failures by the enemy played a key role in the Allies' success. The Nazis failed to deploy their Panzer divisions and the Luftwaffe in time.

On the Allies side, there were failures, as well, due to fog of war, weather, tactical miscalculations or planning mistakes or a combination of factors.

"Two Allied planes could be seen approaching from the north and as they passed over USS Corry's accompanying vessels, USS Fitch and USS Hobson, they laid a thick smokescreen by spraying a chemical mixture into the air. This made them invisible to the German gunners. Beeman was expecting them to do the same for his own vessel, but to his dismay the planes headed back out towards the Channel. USS Corry was left 'in plain view of the Germans.' When this news reached the men below decks, a terrible doom fell over the ship. The chief radio technician, Francis McKernon, turned to the radar man, Pete McHugh. 'Without smoke cover, we can't last much longer.' Just three days earlier, in a moment of black humour, McKernon had played devil's advocate by betting ten dollars that the Corry would get hit. Now, he regretted such flippancy, especially when he learned that the sea temperature was just 13 degrees centigrade. 'Man alive,' he said, 'someone's gonna have a cold swim.'The big German guns opened up a few minutes later."

Carefully sourced, noted and indexed, Martin's accounts are sometimes hard to read. He does not shy away from brutal, sometimes horrifying, accounts of the warfare. Yet there are moments of humor in the brief tales he tells, such as that of the amphibious tank operated by Corporal Patrick Hennessey and his comrades-in-arms.

"Hennessey was nineteen, but looked scarcely older than fifteen, a chirpy young boy with big dimples and an even bigger smile. Like every other tank crew, his team had forged a corps d'espirit over their long months of training. They were an eclectic bunch with equally eclectic surnames: there was Corporal Gammon, Corporal Bone, Lieutenant Garlicke and Corporal Sweetapple. They sounded more like a regiment heading to the kitchen than one heading to war. The men had lived together, worked together and knew they would quite possibly die together."

We see General Eisenhower's torment and Field Marshal Rommel's frustration as D-Day unfolded. And we read great descriptions that paint color into black-and-white history:

Col. von Oppeln-Bronikowski

• Commander Rupert Curtis, S9 captain, "had a bosun's legs and anchors for feet, yet even he was finding it hard to stay upright."
• "It was a pig of a night, with rain lashing down and a brisk sea gale that was strengthening with every hour that passed. 'The great Allied fleet assembling ten miles offshore from Utah (Beach) had pulled off the most spectacular conjuring trick in history. Force U's 865 vessels had got within striking distance of Rommel's Atlantic Wall seemingly without raising any suspicions.'"
• "The young Allied fighter pilots fought with cocksure audacity and on this particular day they showcased their brio with a mastery that bordered on arrogance..."
• "...A Mercedes Phaeton was traveling at high speed through the gloom. In the back seat sat Lieutenant General Wilhelm Falley, commander of the 91st Airlanding Division, crisply dressed in military uniform and with the Iron Cross dangling from his neck. Beside him sat Major Joachim Bartuzat, his supply officer, a sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed Nazi with more than a hint of menace in his thin upper lip."
• "Colonel von Oppeln-Bronikowski (a Panzer leader of Nazi Germany) was known by everyone for his 'well-chiselled features, black hair, keen eyes and, frankly, enjoying their war for the thrills he got.' He certainly looked the part, with impeccably oiled har and an engaging smile."

Among the ships mentioned are USS Texas, USS Harding, USS Satterlee, USS McCook, USS Shubrick, HMS Empire Javelin, HMS Ramillies, HMS Warspite, and Norwegian destroyer Svenner, among others.



Milton notes, "Success on D-Day was dependent on Omaha Beach being seized by the Americans." Also, the Allies had to seize and hold key bridges and take the high ground.  Among the factors in the liberators' favor were surprise, diversity, training, empowerment, ruthless daring of some "lone-wolf fighters," and improvisation.

1st Lt. Turner B. Turnbull

"As confusion spiraled into catastrophe, improvisation alone would save the day," Milton writes. "Individual bravery counted for everything that morning."

Among the numerous individuals spotlighted is Turner "Chief" Turnbull, "a hardened combat veteran" of "half-Choctaw, half-Scottish ancestry." "His distinguished great-grandparents had been forced to walk the infamous Trail of Tears when evicted from their ancestral lands." Milton describes him as stubborn, proud and independent.

"He had been orphaned at the age of fifteen, a blow that required resilience and courage for him to survive the harsh world of adolescence. He grew into adulthood with a rod-like backbone, enabling him to fight with distinction in Sicily, where he was shot in the abdomen and hospitalized for months. It could have been his ticket out of the army; instead, he volunteered for the D-Day invasion. And now he was being sent to its outer fringes, to the lonely hamlet of Neuville-au-Plain that lay one and a half miles to the north of Sainte-Mere-Église. His role, and that of the forty-three men with him, was to block any German advance."

What makes this book such a compelling read is the way the hundreds of characters come alive to tell the story of D-Day. We read about French civilians caught in bombardment, brave paratroopers landing in darkness, and scared soldiers fighting for their lives. But always in the background is the cold fact that for every person's story told there are thousands that will never be revealed.



"Not for the first time in war, and not for the last, many in the lower ranks were deprived of richly deserved medals. Only the dead got their name on a public memorial."

Milton concludes with what war reporter Ernie Pyle saw on Omaha Beach, a stark temporary monument in the "drifting sands of Normandy" to the heroism and tragedy of that day.

We are reminded of the sacrifice of young lives to turn the world away from Fascism and hate toward democracy and hope. "No definitive roster of the dead and wounded was ever compiled for 6 June itself, but subsequent research suggests that there were approximately 8,200 casualties on the right flank – Omaha, Utah and the Cotentin peninsula – and a further 3,000 British and Canadian casualties on the three other beaches," Milton writes.

In his afterward he makes clear that D-Day was just the precarious beginning of the end, requiring nearly a year of fighting until Germany's unconditional surrender, May 7, 1945.

U.S. President Barack Obama and WWII veterans render honors as U.S. Army color guard presents the colors at the Normandy American Cemetery during a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France, June 6, 2014. (Defense.gov)