![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2018\/06\/800px-M%C3%A9morial_omaha_beach_plage_de_normandie.jpg\")
A couple years ago, I wrote about the event from a different perspective<\/a>, that, having read Stephen Ambrose\u2019s\u00a0D-Day<\/em>, I was struck by the fact that those soldiers tasked with taking Omaha Beach indeed suffered horrendous casualties, but that the remaining beaches \u2014\u00a0Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword \u2014 were taken in a much more \u201ctextbook\u201d fashion.\u00a0 To cite my prior post:<\/p>\n at Omaha Beach, due to winds and tide, the units landed in unplanned locations, and companies were split up and had to, in some fashion, re-form. Intelligence was faulty and there were more German troops, and the troops were more highly trained, than expected, and the pre-landing bombardment failed to soften up the targets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What\u2019s more, in a recent Facebook conversation, I learned that Omaha\u2019s geography meant that it was always expected to be much harder to take than the other beaches.\u00a0 And the point of my prior post was that I was astounded at the level of planning, the sheer quantities of equipment \u2014 landing craft, tanks, munitions, and even the counterintelligence efforts (there was a whole \u2018nother\u00a0book about the effort in convincing Hitler and Rommel that the attack would come from Calais, not just the Potemkin village of tanks but the fact that all of the Nazi\u2019s spies had been unmasked and were serving as double-agents sending reports that they were very certain that Normandy was just a feint), and the joining of forces with the British and Canadians, that made the landings a success.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the other thing that struck me:\u00a0 what the event says about leadership.<\/p>\n Ambrose titles his chapter on Omaha, \u201cVisitors to Hell,\u201d based on a quote from an interview with a Pvt. Harry Parley, \u201cI became a visitor to hell.\u201d\u00a0 He describes the men, having landed at the beach, in the wrong sector and separated from their units, and having left their landing craft not because of extraordinary bravery but because, well, what choice was there?,\u00a0simply trying to find cover and stay alive, at the \u201cshingle,\u201d a hilly, gravel area that provided some modest protection.<\/p>\n But then he profiles the actions of Maj. Sidney Bingham, who survived the landing but whose company commanders were dead and whose group saw terrible casualties.\u00a0 Ambrose writes:<\/p>\n He set out to organize a leaderless group from F Company and get it moving up the bluff.<\/p>\n By this time, around 0745, unknown others were doing the same, whether NCOs or junior officers or, in some cases, privates.\u00a0 Staying on the beach meant certain death; retreat was not possible; someone had to lead; men took the burden on themselves and did.\u00a0 (p. 342).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here are two other excerpts that I want to quote in detail:<\/p>\n All across Omaha, the men who had made it to the shingle hid behind it.\u00a0 Then Cota, or Canham, or a captain here, a lieutenant there, a sergeant someplace else, began to lead.\u00a0 They would cry out, \u201cFollow me!\u201d and start moving up the bluff.<\/p>\n In Sergeant Lewis\u2019s case, \u201cLt. Leo Van de Voort said, \u2018Let\u2019s go, goddamn, there ain\u2019t\u00a0 no use staying here, we\u2019re all going to get killed!\u2019\u00a0 \u2018The first thing he did was to run up a gun emplacement and throw a grenade in the embrasure.\u00a0 He returned with five or six prisoners.\u00a0 So we thought, hell, if he can do that, why can\u2019t we.\u00a0 That\u2019s how we got off the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n That was how most men got off the beach.\u00a0 Pvt. Raymond Howell, an engineer attached to D Company, described his thought process.\u00a0 He took some shrapnel in helmet and hand.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s when I said, bullshit, if I\u2019m going to die, to hell with it I\u2019m not going to die here.\u00a0 The next bunch of guys that go over that goddam wall, I\u2019m going to go with them.\u00a0 If I\u2019m gonna be infantry, I\u2019m gonna be infantry.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t know who else, I guess all of us decided well, it is time to start.\u00a0 (p. 344 \u2013 345.)<\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n . . . the plan had failed, utterly and completely failed. . . .<\/p>\n Exhortation and example, backed by two years of training, got hte GIs from the 16th Regiment to overcome their exhaustion, confusion, and fear and get out from behind the shingle and start up the bluff. . .<\/p>\n Captain Dawson, Lieutenants Spaulding and Dillon, and many others provided the example; their actions proved that it was possible to cross the swamp, the antitank ditch, the minefields, and find paths to the top of the bluff.<\/p>\n As they came onto the beach, the junior officers and NCOs saw at once that the intricate plan, the one they had studied so hard and committed to memory, bore no relationship whatsoever to the tactical problems they faced. . . .<\/p>\n Yet their training had prepared them for this challenge.\u00a0 They sized up the situation, saw what had to be done, and did it.\u00a0 This was leadership of the highest order.\u00a0 It came from men who had been civilians three or even two year earlier.<\/p>\n Sgt. John Ellery of the 16th Regiment was one of those leaders.\u00a0 When he reached the shingle, \u201cI had to peer through a haze of sweat, smoke, dust, and mist.\u201d\u00a0 There was a dead man beside him, another behind him.\u00a0 Survivors gathered around him; \u201cI told them that we had to get off the beach and that I\u2019d lead the way.\u201d\u00a0 He did.\u00a0 Whenhe got to the base of the bluff, he started up, four or five men following.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Quoting Ellery himself:<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t see any generals in my area of the beach, but I did see a captain and two lieutenants who demonstrated courage beyond belief as they struggled to bring order to the chaos around them.\u201d\u00a0 Those officers managed to get some men organized and moving up the bluff.\u00a0 One of the lieutenants had a broken arm that hung limply at his side, but he led a group of seven to the top, even though he got hit again on the way.\u00a0 Another lieutenant carried one of his wounded men thirty meters before getting hit himself.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen\u00a0 you talk about combat leadership under fire on the beach at Normandy,\u201d Ellery concluded, \u201cI don\u2019t see how the credit can go to anyone other than the company-grade officers and senior NCOs who led the way.\u00a0 It is good to be reminded that there are such men, that there always have been and always will be.\u00a0 We sometimes forget, I think, that you can manufacture weapons, and you can purchase ammunition, but you can\u2019t buy valor and you can\u2019t pull heroes off an assembly line.\u201d\u00a0 (p. 358 \u2013 359).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s the end of my quotes.\u00a0 Now, a few words of comment:<\/p>\n We have, indeed, cheapened leadership.\u00a0 Every high school student\u2019s resume, as they apply for college, is expected to be full of examples of leadership, and I recall a piece of advice that seems to be ubiquitous: \u201cdon\u2019t list every activity you participated in; just give the ones in which you had a leadership role.\u201d\u00a0 But not everyone is cut out to be a leader, as properly defined, which is why \u201cleadership\u201d gets watered down, to holding a \u201cleadership job\u201d such as treasurer or secretary, or even just, in my son\u2019s National Honor Society application instructions, \u201cleadership by participation,\u201d which, whatever it might mean in someone\u2019s formal \u201cleadership theories\u201d (e.g., this internet search result<\/a>), meant in this case that they credited volunteer activities as \u201cleadership\u201d simply because they had defined NHS eligibility as requiring \u201cleadership\u201d and needed to enable non-leaders who were active participants, to be able to join.<\/p>\n And at our college visits, the student tour guides extolled how easy it was to get a new student club started \u2014 find a very small number of students who share this interest, apply, and get funding.\u00a0 And the websites loved to say just how many student clubs they had \u2014 and I wonder to what extent students were eager to start their own clubs, however few activities they may have engaged in, rather than participate in others which, by having greater numbers, could be more effective, because\u00a0small student clubs offered more opportunities for claiming \u201cleadership roles\u201d on resumes.<\/p>\n But, when I think of my own role as Cub Scout Committee Chair, I am, on paper, a leader.\u00a0 In practice, I have done a fair amount of planning \u2014 scheduling out the scouting year, reserving outings at the nature\u00a0center, the Lego Discovery Center, and so on.\u00a0 But I hide behind the Scoutbook e-mail system, and the fact that we don\u2019t have a replacement Committee Chair could be laid at the feet of my lack of actual in-person leadership.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s OK.\u00a0 Because the notion that everyone should be a Leader is also mistaken.\u00a0 These men were, in part, selected for their promise, but also were trained to be leaders, and with a degree of training that we would hardly expect in our civilian lives.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s OK to be a follower \u2014 as long as one makes the right decisions about who one is to follow, of course.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n