Essay 24-A: D-Day: The American Soldiers And The People

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

The general and the paratrooper spoke to each other for the first and only time on the most important night of their respective lives.  

The photograph of their encounter remains one of the most compelling and classic images from World War II (in the mid-1990s, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp of the historic moment), both for its timing and the presence of one of its participants–General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.  In the picture, taken at around 8:30 p.m. on the night of June 5, 1944–the eve of the Allied D-Day invasion of France–Ike is speaking to Lieutenant Wallace C. “Wally” Strobel of the storied 101st Airborne Division. It was Strobel’s 22nd birthday.  

The photo captures Eisenhower in an animated moment, an intense expression on his face.  His right hand is raised, his fist slightly closed, and he is speaking directly to Strobel, whose blackened face and jumpmaster’s No. 23 group identification hanging from a string around his neck, foretold the risks and dangers to come.  

Strobel and his fellow Screaming Eagles at Greenham Common Airfield in England were awaiting orders. Once the invasion began, they were to be dropped in the pre-dawn hours behind the Normandy beach code-named “Utah.” Eisenhower had been advised by his tactical air commander that 50 percent of the paratroopers would be dead before they hit the ground.  Though Eisenhower agonized over the projected heavy casualties, he decided to go ahead with the air drop that would spearhead and precede the massive amphibious invasion. 

On June 5, General Eisenhower left his forward command post near Portsmouth, England, and drove to Greenham Common along roads that were choked with military vehicles. He wanted to spend the final evening before D-Day visiting the men of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.  The photograph of Ike and Strobel, which appeared in Life and Time magazines, countless newsreels and newspapers, and in hundreds of World War II books through the years, prompted historians to speculate on the topic of Eisenhower’s remarks; some suggesting that he stressed “total victory and nothing else” to Strobel and his fellow paratroopers. 

Actually, the conversation was about fishing. “He [Eisenhower] asked Wally where he was from, and he told him Michigan,” said Wally’s wife, Josephine Strobel, a high-school sweetheart he married in 1946. “He said, ‘How’s the fishing in Michigan?’ and Wally replied, ‘It’s great, sir.'”  Ike replied that Michigan was a “beautiful state” and that he had been fishing there several times.  After reminiscing about fishing in Michigan for a few minutes, Ike asked Lieutenant Strobel if he was ready and had been briefed properly. Jumpmaster Strobel replied, ‘Yes, Sir, we’ve been well-briefed, and we are ready.’ Then Eisenhower said, ‘Good,’ and moved on.” 

Wally Strobel survived D-Day, the march across Europe, the Battle of the Bulge, and the war.  Eisenhower’s son, John, met Strobel in London in 1990.  John Eisenhower said he wasn’t surprised at the subject matter of his late father’s casual conversation.  “He always tried to talk to troops about things back home, things that were familiar to them.”  It was Ike’s way of putting his troops at ease and demonstrating quiet leadership.  

If Eisenhower’s quiet leadership was one crucial component leading to the success of the massive D-Day invasion, it was the quiet courage exhibited by Strobel and thousands of young men like him – citizen soldiers who just a few years earlier were, for the most part, living ordinary lives – who provided the sinew and tenacity to successfully carry out the largest and most audacious amphibious assault in history, one that changed the course of World War II.

Casualties would be high.  No one knew exactly how extensive they would be–the Allies hoped to avoid outright catastrophe–but every military planner knew that the dead and wounded would number in the thousands.  

On the morning of June 6, the roiling surf off Normandy, France, ran red with blood spilt by Allied troops who were carved up by withering German machine gun fire, blown apart by enemy artillery, and even pounded by friendly fire when shells from the big guns of the Navy ships in the Channel landed short of German bunker emplacements on the ridge. More than 4,400 men died on that fateful day, including 2,500 Americans.  Many U.S. troops would suffer ghastly wounds on the beaches and during the push inland, mile by mile, on their inexorable mission to claw Europe free from the vice-grip of Nazi tyranny; many drowned or were mowed down as they clumsily waded ashore, laden-down with gear, defenseless once they exited their landing craft.  Hundreds never made it off the beach.

U.S. troops consisted primarily of men whose backgrounds and experiences, while varied, were close to Wally Strobel’s. As a first lieutenant, Wally was well-trained, but his youth alone would disqualify him from being described as “seasoned” (he enlisted in the National Guard right out of high school).  Other senior officers had more experience, but the vast majority of the men who stormed the beaches on D-Day–who faced a nightmare once their landing-craft gates slammed down in the rough surf–were, just months earlier, farm boys and ranch hands, shopkeepers and saloon workers, carpenters and cobblers, tailors and taxi-drivers, barbers and bookkeepers, watchmakers and welders, machinists, miners, mailmen, and mechanics.  Prior to their basic training, these young men who worked in coal mines, steel factories, feed stores, machine shops, and sawmills knew little about combat tactics.  For most, when they shipped out to Europe, it was their first time away from home.

And yet, when these mostly untested troops descended upon the beaches of France’s Normandy coastline, they fought with the fierceness of warriors, their courage and perseverance unmatched and indomitable, their sacrifice unparalleled.  The righteousness of their cause, a desire to make it off the beach alive, their love of country, and their unwavering loyalty to their buddies imbued them with a wellspring of courage, a relentless drive that perhaps did not conquer their fear, but drove them forward in spite of it.  

So gallant were their efforts that by the end of the hellish day, the “Longest Day” as June 6, 1944 is often called, U.S. citizen-soldiers had secured the beachheads and were beginning their move inland to liberate a continent that had been occupied and enslaved for more than four years.  Beleaguered, bloody, but unbowed, they fought their way across Europe; humble but confident, they sought no glory but covered themselves in it with memorable acts of bravery. Men whose whole lives lay ahead of them risked it all–and many paid the ultimate price–for a cause greater than themselves.  In so doing, they ensconced themselves in the history books and took their place at the vanguard of the Greatest Generation.

And for those U.S. troops who never made it off the beach on D-Day, General George S. Patton Jr. described how we all should feel about their spirit and sacrifice: “It is sad and wrong to mourn the men who have died,” Patton said, “rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

After Normandy, Wally Strobel and thousands of U.S. troops continued to fight their way across Europe. After the war, he returned to Saginaw, Michigan and became president of the Central Warehouse Company, a position he held until his death in 1999 at the age of 77.  He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

But like so many in his generation, like so many whose accomplishments won a war and saved the world, Wally’s humility was one of his most notable qualities.  He was shocked when he saw the picture of him and Ike on the cover of Time Magazine’s servicemen’s edition a few weeks after the meeting. And in 1989, Strobel told the Saginaw News that the “fuss was a little embarrassing.”  

Wally Strobel of the proud 101st was an emblematic and worthy representative of all the courageous men who landed on D-Day and the sixteen million strong who wore the uniform of the United States in World War II.

Stephen Puleo is an author, historian, teacher, and public speaker. He is the author of eight books, including his most recent, THE GREAT ABOLITIONIST: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union, published by St. Martin’s Press in 2024. His other books include VOYAGE OF MERCY, DARK TIDE, AMERICAN TREASURES, and THE CANING. He has made more than 740 appearances before thousands of readers, and is currently at work on his ninth book. He holds a master’s degree in history and has taught at the University of Massachusetts – Boston and Suffolk University. He and his wife, Kate, live South of Boston.

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