Join us for an engaging episode of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson as we relive the harrowing events of D-Day. Through the eyes of author and Vietnam veteran Dennis Bush, who details the courageous acts of General Norman Cota and his undaunted Brigade as they navigated the perilous Omaha Beach. Learn about the strategic turns that ensured success, the brave leadership that turned tides, and the untold narratives of silent heroes who shaped history.
SPEAKER 03 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. The show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings and returned stateside realizing we’ve got to have these stories told. We’ve got to record them and broadcast them and archive them. And so hence America’s Veterans Stories. I am so honored to have in studio with me Dennis Bush. He is a Vietnam veteran. He was a pilot fixed in a rotor wing. He was in project management in the aerospace industry for many, many years. And he grew up with a military background, attended the Air Force Academy. And Dennis Bush, you said that even when you took the uniform off, You were still a soldier.
SPEAKER 05 :
You can’t take – it’s in you. It’s in your soul. I mean, that’s one of the ways I finally figured it out is why am I still – I’m no longer in the military, but yet you still are a soldier at heart. And when I say soldier, that’s anyone who fights to defend their country. Mm-hmm. It includes airmen, Navy, you know, it’s not a slight to the other services. It’s just to me as a soldier is kind of a generic term for people who fight for their country.
SPEAKER 09 :
Or could you also interchange warrior for that, Daisy? Sure. So you knew that you wanted to do something, and it ended up in researching and writing.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Well, I just asked myself, you know, I was reading these books and stories about all of this. There’s a lot of good information, actually, on the web, on the Internet. And I was reading all this, and I thought, why? I never, you know, I had a fairly extensive military background. I didn’t know any of it. And I thought, why hasn’t somebody taken the time to write these stories? I mean, if you think about the movies that are done today, who are the heroes? They’re comic book characters. They’re not even real. They’re somebody’s imagination. Yet we have these kinds of men in our heritage who were real and what they did is fact. And yet they’re ignored.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that’s a whole other question. But these books are The Real Heroes of Omaha Beach, Soldiers Lost to History, which was book number one. We’ve done an interview on that. We’re now in book number two, and it’s taking two interviews on that. And one is An Old Man Shall Lead Them to Victory, More Real Heroes of Omaha Beach. So where do you want to start?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, who is the old man? that I’m talking about is. His name was Norman Coda, nicknamed Dutch by his friends at the point, and at 50 years old was probably the oldest man to land on Omaha Beach on the morning of 6 June. He was a brigadier general and assistant commander of the 29th Infantry Division. Cota asked but was denied landing with the men in the very first wave. That was probably because it would look bad for a brigadier general to die in the first hour of the invasion. Nevertheless, he wasn’t to be deterred doing what he saw as his job. Ignoring orders, he and the commander of the 116th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Charles Canham, landed at 0730 hours along with their staff members and several NCOs loaded down with many radios. So tell me what that looked like. Did he defy orders, or what happened exactly? Well, they just commandeered a boat, got some Navy guy to drive it, and they just packed up a bunch of radios and sergeants and went to shore. Honestly, wow. And, of course, this is an hour after H-Hour. So there’s already been an hour of battle going on, and it is horrendous. The bodies everywhere. And H-Hour, what does that stand for? it’s just a term it means the hour the initiate when you’re planning an operation okay you don’t know exactly when the date or the time is going to be okay and so like d-day was supposed to occur on 5 June right weather permitted it but so but everything was planned off of that point And so you back off your plans so many hours, days, weeks, months prior to that point. And each hour is the initiation time. Well, because of the obstacles, they actually had to switch from landing at high tide to But when they discovered that the Germans put all these beach obstacles, they had to switch it to low tide. Well, each hour then switched from 1,400 hours or whatever it was. Or, you know, it would have probably been on a different day, so they could still land early. So all that had to adjust, but the relativity to that point was how your plan was based. Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. And the tide was so important. I hadn’t really thought about, for the engineers, they had to be able to see those.
SPEAKER 05 :
obstacles that they were taking out yeah you can’t it’s very difficult to blow stuff up underwater yeah and especially when there’s hundreds of them and you’re being shot at too okay so coda and uh canham is that him yeah they called him old hatchet face is any reason why it’s because he was a colonel
SPEAKER 09 :
And so they commandeer a boat, and they go on with their staff, go on to the beaches, and there are radios. So what happens when they get there?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, they get on this. It’s H hour plus one, 730. H hour was 630, and so they landed at 730. So after surveying the horrific situation on the beach, the two men realized that unless immediate action was taken to drastically reverse the course, the battle was lost. So they both stepped into the fray without hesitation. Canham went east to try and rally his men. He took about two steps, and he was shot in the arm. So he had to – and he called – they were going to take him out, and he said, no, just put a sling on him. And he was walking around trying to rally his men. But Cota went west to see what he could do to help turn the tide of the battle in that direction. And as such, it wasn’t long before he ran into the Rangers. You mentioned John Rand. He wasn’t the first Ranger he ran into, but Rand ran up to him. Ron, yeah. Ron, yeah. He ran up to him and saluted, which you don’t do in combat because that lets the enemy know you got – Somebody important there. So anyway, he kind of just bypasses him. He asks where his commander is. He says, who’s running this outfit? And it was Colonel Schneider, right? We already talked about him. And he goes and these two men are standing. They’re not laying down. They’re standing and having this conversation right out in the open. And He was trying to encourage the Rangers to attack, but Schneider already had decided they were going to attack. But he listened to the general rant and rave, you know, knowing that he was going to do what he ordered anyway. So he briefly met with Schneider, urging him to make the attack. And as he left, he shouted out to the Rangers, Rangers, lead the way. Now that’s the motto of the Rangers to this day, fitting battle cry forged in combat. He went on to lead remnants of the 116th Regiment up the steep slope with Schneider’s Rangers to his right. As such, they tore a massive hole in the German lines. Then along with many rangers he led his band now called Coda’s Bastard Brigade went on to capture the village of Vereville one of the first to fall into American hands. Once the village had been secured, he turned his small army over to the command of Colonel Canham, who then established the American front lines to the south and west of the village. Cota left to go back down to the beach to organize, push, cajole, shame more men to the front. That’s what he assessed was needed. They did not have enough men at the point of attack. And so he went down to try to rally more in the process.
SPEAKER 09 :
And we should just realize that these guys, some of them have just gone through horrific things. Yeah. And a lot of them are young guys. They’re scared. They don’t know what’s going on. But probably what Coda realizes, if we don’t do something, all this is in vain, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, well, the most significant word in the outcome of the battle is leadership. And generals are supposed to lead. Now, not many do on the battlefield, but these guys were actually at the tip of the spear. And they saw that as their job. And so they naturally had to be, you know, it was a lot of bravado. They were, you know, Cotto was running around with a .45 in one hand and waving a cigar in the other with a big, bright general star on the side of his helmet, mainly to show his men that he was there to lead them. And it inspired tremendous, you know, respect. And they did. They followed.
SPEAKER 09 :
So we talked in between breaks that I had interviewed – General John Rahn, who at the time was a captain. And he said that they’d come in on that part of the beach and were relatively intact. And his men, they’re up against the wall, I think, and his men said, Hey, Captain, who’s that crazy guy down there? They saw Koda. He’s in like an overcoat, walking back and forth with a cigar. And General Rahn said, Well… He’s either a crazy reporter or he’s somebody really important. So he says, I’ll go down and find out. And that’s when he said, I saluted him and realized, oh, that’s probably not something you should do on a battlefield.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I mean, the last person he expected to see on the battlefield was a general. I mean, they typically aren’t – I mean, at least since the Civil War, they weren’t typically in the fray of the battle. They were behind the lines directing things. But there are still generals like Cota who believed you had to lead from the front.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and the fact that he survived – I go back to George Washington and some of the battles that – he was at the front, and he – divine providence was protecting him, we think. So continue on.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, he left to go back down to get more men, because he could tell that that’s what they needed. They needed simply more men to wage the battle. And so he notices the Vierville draw as he’s going back through the town, and nothing’s coming up. There’s no tanks, there’s no trucks, there’s no Jeeps. So he asked this lieutenant who’s an engineer, he said, why isn’t that open? And the lieutenant shrugs his shoulders because he didn’t expect to be talking to a general. And he said, I don’t know. And so he says, well, why don’t you go find out? So he sends. And then he said, wait a minute, I’ll join you. And he gabbed two Army infantry guys. And he said, you know, and then, of course, he had ran with him. And he said, we’re going to go down and get, you know, see what’s going on at the Vierville draw. So he leads this patrol down the draw, and in the process, they end up capturing like 15 Germans. And he’s got seven guys, right? If you do the math, they’re outnumbered. Not only with people, but bullets. So anyway, he’s leading this armada. They go down, and the wall that the Germans had built had a very narrow opening that you could get out. And he started to head for it, and one of the German captives yells out, So he stops, phrases, and tells the German to get up there and lead the way. And he comes out onto the beach.
SPEAKER 09 :
So did they mean that there was a mine there?
SPEAKER 05 :
What was that? There were mines all over the place. Was he warning him? Yeah. Well, he would have probably been blown up, too. Okay, got it, got it. But anyway… He gets out, and he sees this total confusion still on the beach, and he starts organizing the engineers and the infantry who were wandering aimlessly around to blow up the wall, which they did, secure the draw, and prepare it for tracked and wheeled vehicles. And then he made his way down east down the beach and met with his division commander along with the commander of the 1st Infantry Division and was instrumental in coordinating their follow-on attacks. So you can hopefully see how his contributions to the battle were significant.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Let’s go to break. I’m talking with Dennis Bush about General Norman Cota and what he did on D-Day. And these are such remarkable stories. They come to you because of our sponsors. One of those is Hooters Restaurants. They have three locations, Loveland, Westminster, and in Aurora. And the owners, they are truly patriots. They love our country, and that’s one of the reasons why they sponsor this show. And they do have great specials at Hooters restaurants for lunch and for happy hour, so be sure and check that out. We’ll be right back with author Dennis Bush.
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SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. Also check out the website for the USMC Memorial Foundation, which is a nonprofit that I dearly love. And it is so important as we hear these stories to remember and honor those that have given their lives, been willing to give their lives for our freedom. And one of the great ways to support that and let them know your appreciation is to contribute to the USMC Memorial Foundation website. That website is usmcmemorialfoundation.org. And we are talking with author Dennis Bush, and he has written a trilogy regarding the real heroes of Omaha Beach. The first two books have been published, and the first is The Real Heroes of Omaha Beach, Soldiers Lost to History. The second is An Old Man Shall Lead Them to Victory, More Real Heroes of Omaha Beach. And so we’re talking about the old man, General Kodak.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, if you had to choose one person who was most instrumental in the victory on Omaha Beach, it would be the Dutchman. And today, no one even knows his name. General Cota had a fairly undistinguished career prior to D-Day and afterwards led a fairly undistinguished career as well. It was as if he was born for one day of his life to literally save the world. Some see the presence of God in the distant vistas of snow-capped mountain range, and some see God in the birth of a child. I also see God in critical interventions such as this that have occurred all too often throughout history. The right person at the right place at the right time in a moment of destiny. They just can’t all be coincidence or accidents of nature.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s a remarkable story, and I didn’t realize – As I mentioned, I’ve done two or three interviews with General John Rahn, at the time captain, and you’ve said that he was instrumental with CODA on the beaches of Omaha.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, he was the head of the headquarters company of the 5th Ranger Battalion, led by Schneider. And so in Schneider’s absence, he was kind of the commander. And as the battle ensues and they get more and more involved, their job is to go down and rescue the guys down on Pointe du Hoc. And he gets heavily involved in that, which you’ll find in Book 3, because it not only is about what happened at Pointe du Hoc, but the efforts to rescue them. And they needed rescue because they were too small a force to hold out against the huge preponderance of German forces they were facing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and we’ll talk about Pointe du Hoc, but I was there and looked down. And you just look at that. I’m a civilian, but I look at that and think it’s remarkable what they did. Just absolutely remarkable. But let’s talk about we talked about the Rangers or the engineers, which have gone much unnoticed in history. But also you mentioned the Navy destroyers.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, the Army commanders on the ships in the Channel were almost totally ignorant of the true situation on Omaha Beach as the day and battle progressed. But they could tell that the infantry was having a tough go of it. One of the critical factors was that in the first day of the battle, there was no appreciable artillery support, which was desperately needed. So generals reached out to admirals to see if the Navy could help. They certainly would have liked to, but the big ships, the battleships and the cruisers, couldn’t do much because they didn’t have onshore or airborne spotters to sort out friend from foe.
SPEAKER 09 :
So, Dennis, explain to people that don’t understand what a spotter is exactly.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, this is all before GPS, right? This is where, you know, you got a gun and you got to hit something. Well, what they do typically in artillery is you fire what you think you’re going to hit, and then a spotter has to be close by to adjust. 50 meters left, 50 meters long, 50 meters short. And that’s what a spotter does. He helps basically walk the artillery into the target.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and next question, how could – because you’d have to get a spotter on shore, but how could they communicate because – The radios didn’t work.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, the biggest problem with those kind of radios, which didn’t have – the transistor wasn’t invented until 1948. So these radios were all run with these things called vacuum tubes. And you got them wet, they quit working. Wow. So how are you going to keep them dry coming in from the ocean? And so they sent spotters ashore, but they didn’t have… They couldn’t communicate. Yeah, they could see what the target was, but they couldn’t communicate with the ships. Now, they figured it out during the day, so the battleships did participate later, but in the initial part, if they fired, they were just as likely to kill Americans as kill Germans. Right. So they didn’t. But the destroyers… had an advantage in that they didn’t have a deep draft. And so what happened was they were ordered to come – they were directed close to a mere 800 yards from shore where they came perilously close to scraping bottom. Then they slowed and turned into the current. to parallel the beach. And as such, they came almost to a virtual stop, okay, because they were going slow and they’re going into the current, but they didn’t even have to anchor. And at that distance, they could see the enemy positions and began immediately engaging the German fortifications with their five-inch guns and .50 caliber machine guns. At that distance, they could tell where the good guys were and where the bad guys were. The destroyers fired directly as they could almost reach out and touch their targets, which was very untypical for naval fire. Normally, they’re firing long distances, and like I said, they need spotters and all that to do that, but the destroyers were close enough that they could see the German positions and could fire directly at them. and they were devastating and they were called tin cans and they switched in and out and provided the amphibious troops effective and deadly artillery support until the army could get their own guns ashore several historians believe that without the navy’s destroyer support omaha beach might have resulted in a catastrophic disaster Go Navy. Help Army.
SPEAKER 09 :
How many people or how many individuals are on a destroyer typically?
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t really know. You’re not a Navy guy, huh? No. A few hundred, I imagine. They’re not very big, especially back then. I would guess you had a couple of hundred guys, maybe, sailors. They had different jobs to do. Sure. But their fire was basically a lifesaver to the infantry because they could take out the German gun positions and did. Wow. What time of day? How long into the battle? When did they start to engage them? Probably two or three hours in. Once the Army guys – this was not planned. Okay, they were not planned to go in. They were there to protect the big ships. That’s what a destroyer’s primary job is, is to defend the bigger ships. And so this was kind of an improvised plan that the Navy came forward because they could see that the battleships and the cruisers couldn’t see the targets. So they told the guys driving the destroyers to close as close as they could and help out the Army. And so this was kind of an improvised thing that happened during the day and probably happened around two or three hours into the battle. And they were truly heroes in terms of all this thing because at 800 yards, there’s not much underneath them.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, right. Question, Dennis Bush, where was General Eisenhower in all this?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Ike was back in England. And after he gave the go, he said to somebody, he said, well, now that it’s out of my hands. I can’t do anymore. Once he gave the initial order to attack, the invasion to commence, he became basically a bystander because then he didn’t even get to the shore until the next day. I don’t know when he actually came ashore, but most of the German or the American generals did not come ashore on D-Day, only the two that we’re going to talk about, Koda and a guy by the name of Wyman, which we’ll talk about a little later. So the leadership stayed on the boats.
SPEAKER 09 :
So I’m from Kansas, and so Kansas likes to claim Eisenhower because he grew up in Abilene. I’ve been to the library and all there, and I’ve always looked to him as a real hero. And I think there’s been a lot of good things that’s been credited to him for D-Day. What’s your thoughts about that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, he was not the greatest combat general by far, but he was the best political general. His primary contribution to the war was they kept this group of nations. I mean, the United States and Britain were not buddies. There was a lot of animosity, especially with the British commanders against the Americans. They thought Americans were useless in terms of a combat operation. And so there was a lot of bad blood between the Americans and the British. In fact, Hitler made a comment that the coalition will never hold because the British and the Americans hate each other more than they hate me. And so what Eisenhower was able to do was to keep this coalition together. And that’s probably his greatest contribution was he was a really good politician and could work. And that’s what both Churchill and the commanders back in the United States, Roosevelt, they could see that Eisenhower was needed. to bring the countries together. Because the Allies consisted of not just Britain, but Britain and all of their countries, like Australia, Canada. But, of course, they were in the Pacific, but you still had Canada heavily involved. You had… Polish, you know, the Polish government ran from when the Germans overran Poland, they went to England. So you had to coordinate with them, and they had soldiers and airmen that fought in the war. You had the French, which was de Gaulle and his group, and that all had to be, and he was a horrible person to work with from all I’ve read. That’s right. And Eisenhower was able to keep all of this together. And that’s probably his greatest contribution. Which is significant. Yeah, it was leadership.
SPEAKER 09 :
It truly is significant. We’re going to continue the discussion with author Dennis Bush about these fascinating stories. I’m just so inspired. I almost don’t know what to say. So stay tuned. We will be right back and we’ll continue our discussion with Dennis Bush.
SPEAKER 01 :
All Kim’s sponsors are in inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And as we are hearing these stories of D-Day, it’s just remarkable. And that is why I love… the Center for American Values located in Pueblo. The Center for American Values is focused on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients for actions that they took when in combat to protect those around them. But also these great – they’re putting together educational programs for these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism. So check out their schedule and go down, and you will be inspired by the portraits at the Center for American Values. That website is AmericanValuesCenter.org. And we are talking with – Dennis Bush, he is an author. He is a Vietnam veteran, pilot, fixed and rotor wing, project management in the aerospace industry for many, many years. And he is a graduate of the Air Force Academy. But we’re talking about his books. One is The Real Heroes of Omaha Beach, Soldiers Lost to History. The other is An Old Man Shall Lead Them to Victory, More Real Heroes of Omaha Beach. So we talked about General Cota. And is it Lieutenant Schneider? But there’s one more character in this story that we should learn about.
SPEAKER 05 :
Just as an aside, all you have to do on Amazon is search for my name. And it’s B-U-S-C-H. Like the beer. Like the beer, okay. Yeah, not the president. Well, that’s the difference between English and German. But anyway, let me quote from the book again. Before 10 hundred hours, the information regarding the situation on Omaha Beach that had been funneled back to the commanders aboard the ships in the English Channel had not only been very sketchy but also very bleak. It mostly consisted of information about the dismal situation on the beaches with virtually no reports about the breakthroughs that had been made in the German lines. So up until then, the operation had all the symptoms of a complete and utter disaster. And you also have to remember this was where all the news people were on the ships. And so this is where they got the negative reports was because of the ignorance, basically, of the situation. But very little of the intelligence was from credible sources. That is, most of it was hearsay or based on observations that revealed few critical details of what was actually going on ashore. So in order to get an accurate report of what was going on, Major General Clarence Huebner, who was the commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division, sent his deputy commander Brigadier General Willard Bill Wyman to land on Omaha Beach in order to find out what was really going on and report back to him by radio. then Wyman was ordered to stick around to help fix any problems he encountered. So General Coda’s counterpart in the 1st Division also went ashore, and only an hour or two after he did. So they were both on shore. And that’s when I say the three… real heroes of the western half is Lieutenant Colonel Schneider, who read the Rangers, General Cota, who, and what we talked about before, and now General Wyman. So let’s look at what he did. He was a man of swift action. He could see that the beach was piling up with vehicles because they were coming ashore, but they couldn’t get off the beach because the draws were still held by the Germans. And so he immediately radios back and says, stop sending in trucks and tanks and send more infantry because we’ve got to take this place first. Anyway, he had all the battalion commanders on the beach report to him immediately, and they related to him the good, the bad, and the ugly of the situation. The general immediately recognized two things. One, more infantry was desperately needed in the fight, especially to exploit the breaches made in the German lines. Two, none of the critical draws had yet been captured. As such, all tracked and wheeled vehicles were stuck on the beach and victory was not possible until that situation was rectified. So he took immediate action. In quick order, an entire infantry regiment was ordered to come to the front of the line and land immediately on the beach. Meanwhile, all efforts were focused on securing the St. Laurent draw, or E1. By noon, the German fire guarding E1 was eliminated. Tanks and a destroyer were brought to bear in that assault. Infantry was then pushing through the draw and other breaches, not just companies but entire battalions, and engineers were busy preparing the roads through the draw for tanks and trucks and half-tracks and jeeps to flood beyond the front line at the top of the plateau and spread out to forge and hold a permanent presence on the shores of Europe. Once the first tank crossed that threshold, the battle was essentially won.
SPEAKER 09 :
So I’d like to hear a little bit more about the elimination of the German fire guarding E1. When we say, I’ve learned when I’ve talked with veterans, they may say eliminated or whatever, but there had to be a battle for that, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah. What he discovered was by talking to the battalion commanders, in book one we talk about one of the battalions companies that actually had taken out one of the Widerstad nests on the St. Laurent draw on the west side or on the east side. And so that was neutered. But the west side was still formidable. And so he brings in this regiment and sends a company to go attack it from one flank. He gets a bunch of the people on the beach, and he’s taking artillery colonels and engineers and putting them in charge of sergeants and privates and sending them up the other side. They got the attention of two tanks to help them. And then a battleship or a destroyer came in, and they were able to communicate with them, and they fired on this position. So Wyman directed a very concerted attack on this German, heavily defended German position, and they took him out.
SPEAKER 09 :
So once they were able to do that and start to get tanks and jeeps and all, then that meant that they could come around the other draws and attack from behind, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. And that’s why you had to get up there. And I mean, as long as they were on the beach, they were useless. But if you get behind somebody, that’s called flanking. They’re much, much, much weaker. And so that’s what happened is once they got through this one draw, and on D-Day, that was the only draw that was opened that actual vehicles went up. But COTA had done something with Vierville, though, right? Well, they cleared it, but they didn’t actually start sending up vehicles because they were kind of way to the west there, and it was later before they actually sent it. Even though he had gotten – he had put things into motion that got it cleared by about 2 in the afternoon. So then that was the next straw that they were able to start sending vehicles. Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
And when you’re talking about COTA, it sounded to me like he was able to go up and around and come in from the flank or the back, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, yeah. He came down the Vierville draw from the back, you know, from the downside. He walked down it with this small group of guys that he mustered together. And then he gets out and then he starts the organization of taking this wall out so that the Vierville draw could be cleared and that vehicles could then proceed up it.
SPEAKER 09 :
So you said that with General Cota, it was basically kind of an undistinguished career before, an undistinguished career after. What about Wyman, General Wyman?
SPEAKER 05 :
I guess I’d have to refer to my notes, but I think he probably ended up with a division because he obviously was instrumental in the battle. I don’t have with me the information about what his career was.
SPEAKER 09 :
So people have to read the book.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. The thing about CODA. He was promoted to a division commander after the battle, obviously, because he was such an instrumental person. But he got sucked into this battle called the Hurchin Forest. And this is the battle nobody wants to talk about because it was a mistake. And we lost a lot of good soldiers in that horrible battle. It was trying to get through… to break through the German lines into Germany, and we took on this battle in a very inhospitable place and just decimated the troops. And he was fired. And I think it was because he just was sick of watching his men wasted in such – I mean, that’s not something I found documented, but he was fired for not being aggressive enough. And it was obvious from what he did on D-Day. He was not an unaggressive commander, but he loved his men. And I think he just saw the futility of what they were doing in this horrible place, and it got him in trouble. And so he kind of ended the war. They shipped him home. And so he had a fairly undistinguished career, period. But yet he was the hero of Omaha Beach.
SPEAKER 09 :
So question, I’m not sure I’m familiar with that battle. There was the battle that the movie, the… A bridge too far. That’s not this battle, is it?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, that’s Operation Market Garden. Right, okay. That was Montgomery’s plan to end the war early, where they sent in groups of the 82nd, 101st, and the British paratroopers to capture bridges to get into Arnhem in Holland. And it was his plan to end the war early by Christmas. which turned into a – if you watch the movie, there was, again, a bloody series of mistakes that ended up with – it was supposed to occur over about three days and took weeks and lots of casualties, and it was kind of a disaster. But the Hurchin Forest was actually an American operation. And it occurred actually just prior to the Germans’ last major effort, which was the Battle of the Bulge. But the Herchen Forest was part of that because the Germans were planning the attack just north of there. And so they put a lot of effort into holding on to this forest. And we blindly stumbled in, and it was a horrible place to fight. If you can imagine fighting in a forest. And it was a dense sleep. It’s not like the forest in Colorado. This forest was underbrushed and all that kind of stuff that you run into in that kind of a forest. It was just a nightmare to fight and was actually one of those things that, in my opinion, should have been bypassed. I don’t understand sending guys. I mean, there’s example after example after example of frontal assaults fail. I wrote, I think, in book three that I hope somebody puts a plaque up at West Point that says, never attack from the front. Always flank your opponent.
SPEAKER 09 :
That seems like that makes common sense, or that’s common sense. We’ve got one more segment with author Dennis Bush regarding his second book about D-Day. And so we’re going to go to break, and we’ll be right back. Music
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And we are talking with author Dennis Bush regarding his books, the first two books of a trilogy. And the first is The Real Heroes of Omaha Beach, Soldiers Lost to History. The next is An Old Man Shall Lead Them to Victory, More Real Heroes of Omaha Beach. I tell you, Dennis, this is just an amazing story. So how do you want to wrap it up?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I assess the principal lessons to be gleaned from the battle. And one, I think you should always plan for and manage a battle or any operation, for that matter, with the worst-case scenario in mind, not just the best. Two, all elements of war are critical. It takes the Navy, the Air Force, and the Army working together. Even within the Army, the Battle of Omaha was won with engineers, rangers, and especially the grunts, the foot soldiers, the men who fight on their bellies, up close and personal. Three, weapons don’t win battles. Competent, brave men, and now women, wielding them do, and they must be competently led. Four, the most amazing conclusion that can be drawn about the battle for Omaha Beach is that ultimate triumph can be attributed to the actions of just a few men. A dozen, maybe 20. all incredible heroes. Considering that 35,000 troops would land on Omaha on 6 June, that is an incredible revelation. Five, Omaha Beach was irrefutable proof that the efforts of one man or woman can in fact change the world and the course of human history And they can do so in a single day. If you had to choose one word that made the difference on Omaha Beach, that word would be leadership.
SPEAKER 09 :
Question on leadership. We talk about that a lot. What does leadership mean to you, Dennis Bush?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, basically, it means the ability to manage other people and to get them all focused to a common set of objectives. And so that it’s like a team and that you’re working for a common objective and you’re all working together. And that doesn’t happen by accident. It takes leadership. And just because you’re put into a position of leadership does not mean you’re a leader. I mean, the books have been written on what the word leadership means, which means to me that really we don’t understand leadership. If you have to write several books about the same word, we really don’t understand what that word is. But it’s certainly undeniably needed in many things. And it’s not just military operation. It’s made it in every company, even a small electrical shop where you’ve got seven or eight electricians. working for a single boss. Well, they need to be a leader. And so that’s, to me, it’s a very hard term to define, but it is essential in so many things.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it is essential. So you’ve got the two books published. The trilogy is close, very close. So what’s next?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I completed telling the story of the battle on the eastern half of Omaha Beach under the command and control of the 1st Infantry Division and the real heroes of Omaha Beach, and now have related the story of what happened on the western half of the beach under the command and control of the 29th Infantry Division and Ranger Force C in An Old Man Shall Lead Them to Victory. This takes care of Omaha Beach, so what’s left for the third book? Well, plenty. We still haven’t talked about the three remaining companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, Dog, Easy, and Fox, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Rutter. He and his band of special soldiers, Ranger Force A, were probably assigned the most dangerous and difficult mission in the entire Neptune operation. They were challenged with a mission to take out the heavy artillery battery and spotter bunker on Pointe du Hoc, which was atop a promontory that was fronted by sheer 100-foot-high cliffs that shot straight up from the beach. That German battery and command center connected to all German artillery behind the lines imposed one of the greatest threats to both American beaches and is a story that has never really been thoroughly told. I call it the real heroes of Pointe du Hoc. And I hope you read it. If you do, you’ll find another incredible tale of courage, ingenuity, and American exceptionalism. Once more, my focus is on the men who fought the battle. Moreover, it is a tribute to those warriors, and it is my intention to try and shine a spotlight on them. Furthermore, it is a testament that America is truly the greatest nation the world has ever seen and probably ever will. God bless America, who will in turn bless the rest of the world.
SPEAKER 09 :
Dennis Bush, the trip that I took to Normandy, I would say, ultimately changed my life. Would you say writing these books has changed your life at all?
SPEAKER 05 :
It changed my perspective on so much in terms of – I mean, some people say, well, are you a history expert? And I say, well, to be a history expert, you’d probably have to read 100,000 books because it’s so vast. We were just talking about how vast World War II was. And there have been hundreds of books written about it. It’s just so much to learn about all of this. And so what I chose to do was just focus on one element and try to tell a complete, thorough story of what happened. The facts are there. You just have to dig them out. And that’s what I started doing 25 years ago when I started my researching into World War II in Europe. which is where my father fought. He was an artillery battery commander in Patton’s Third Army. And, of course, one of my inspirations in life was what he did. And so that also was part of my interest in World War II. Now, what I covered in – he was not at Omaha. Patton’s army didn’t come into Europe until late July, August. But still, that’s what I elected to focus on. If I live long enough, I’d like to do a similar trilogy on Utah. And Utah’s where the airborne guys were. And I say the Rangers were 500 of the most well-trained soldiers in the world. Well, the airborne troops were, too. I mean, and I don’t mean to slight them, but they’re all behind Utah Beach. And that’s another extraordinarily interesting, brutal combat story, what happened there and what happened to the airborne troops. So that, I hope, I live long enough to finish. I’m about a third of the way there. But it takes still a lot of work to do. I’m trying to answer one question that I haven’t been able to figure out, is why did we land at Normandy? If you look at a map, the natural place to land wasn’t Pas-de-Calais, it was Belgium. And I’ve never been able to figure out or find any reason why we didn’t go there. It’s much faster. If you think about it, we landed in southern. France and so that meant we had to conquer all of France before we could get into Germany if we attacked in Belgium we only had to get across Belgium and we were in Germany but I mean I’ve been researching trying to figure out how that all occurred the other interesting thing to me is how this plan came together Eisenhower was assigned overall command of the operation, which was called Overlord, in November, December of 1943. There was a plan that had been put in place that was basically to attack three beaches. And Eisenhower and both Montgomery looked at that and said, that’s not enough. And so what I’d like to find out is a lot more detail on how all that planning came together, because it basically came together between January and June. It’s amazing. And it is the most massive military operation ever conceived.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and again, that day, you said that by the end of the day, we had 35,000 troops on the beach?
SPEAKER 05 :
At Omaha.
SPEAKER 09 :
At Omaha.
SPEAKER 05 :
Over 110,000 landed on all five beaches.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. And there were five beaches. The Americans were Omaha and Utah, and then there was what, Sword?
SPEAKER 05 :
Sword and Gold were British, and Juneau was Canadian.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Five divisions. Five divisions.
SPEAKER 09 :
Dennis Bush, thank you so much for writing these books. And when you have the third one published, we are certainly going to have to do another interview on that. And then we’ll take on Utah Beach, okay?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I would love to do it. I mean, I can say this is what I do for the rest of my life. It’s kind of my swan song.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think it is so important to tell these stories, and I so appreciate you doing so. And as we hear these stories, we realize that it is a testament that America is truly the greatest nation the world has ever seen and probably ever will. My friends, we do stand on the shoulders of giants. God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 02 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
