The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys : The Men of World War II by Stephen Ambrose

paper, to be used if necessary. “Our landings . . .  have failed . . . and I have withdrawn the troops,” he began. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do.  If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” At the quays, in Portsmouth, Southampton, Poole, and the smaller harbors, the men from the U.S. 1st, 29th, and 4th Divisions, the rangers, and assorted other units, along with the Canadian and British divisions, began to load up.  As the troops filed onto their transports and landing craft, they were handed an order of the day from General Eisenhower. It began, “Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force:
    “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. . . .  “You task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
    “But this is the year 1944! . . . The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
    “I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.
    We will accept nothing less than full victory!
    “Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”
    Sgt. John Slaughter of the 29th Infantry Division had his buddies sign his copy.  He wrapped it in plastic, put it in his wallet, and carried it through Normandy all the way to the Elbe River in eastern Germany. “I still have that document framed hanging over my writing desk,” Slaughter said. “It is my most treasured souvenir of the war.”
    Thousands of those who received Eisenhower’s order of the day saved it. I cannot count the number of times I’ve gone into the den of a veteran of D-Day to do an interview and seen it framed and hanging in a prominent place. I have one on my office wall.
    Pvt. Felix Branham of the 116th Infantry got everyone on his ship to sign a 500-franc note he had won in a poker game. “One guy asked, ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘Fellows, some of us are never getting out of this alive. We may never see each other again. We may be crippled, or whatever. So sign this.’ I have that hanging on my wall in a frame. I wouldn’t takeanything for it.” On the afternoon of June 5 the Allied airborne troopers began dressing for battle. Each rifleman carried his M-1 (either broken down in a padded case called a Griswold container or already assembled), 160 rounds of ammunition, two fragmentation hand grenades, a white phosphorus and an orange-colored smoke grenade, and a Gammon grenade. Most carried a pistol-the paratroopers’ greatest fear was getting shot out of the sky, next was being caught on the ground at the moment of landing, before they could put their rifles into operation-plus a knife and a bayonet. An unwelcome surprise was an order to carry a Mark IV antitank mine, weighing about ten pounds. The only place to fit it was in the musette bag, which led to considerable bitching and rearrangement of loads.  Machine gunners carried their weapons broken down, and extra belts of ammunition. Mortars, bazookas, and radios were rolled into A-5 equipment bundles with cargo chutes attached. Every man carried three days’ worth of field rations and, of course, two or three cartons of cigarettes. One sergeant carried along a baseball. He wrote on it “To hell with you, Hitler,” and said he intended to drop it when his plane got over France (he did). There were gas masks, an ideal place to carry an extra carton of cigarettes (Capt. Sam Gibbons of the 501st PIR stuck two cans of Schlitz beer in his). The men had first-aid kits with bandages, sulfa tablets, and two morphine Syrettes, “one for pain and two for eternity.” They