Test test i assume command is set with the best all around team for which a man could ask. Some had already been working for months in england. We adopted first a master plan and then had to coordinate every last detail of the ground, sea, and air plans. While this was going on, we led off with an air show designed to make the landing points as soft as possible to batter the german communications, and to make certain wed have control of the air. It was quite a show. Those airmen did a magnificent job. We had polish, french, czechs all sorts in our outfit. Theyd natter away about what theyd been up to. The only word you could ever make out is marshaling the odds. Bombardiers did nothing but looked down on french bridges. We used to ask each other, have you cut any good bridges lately. Finally there was only one bridge left between paris and the sea. Down in the late spring through the wounded towns of england moved the mess made by our patients. Two precious years of plans were put away, the offices were empty, all the maps were rolled up. What had been paper at last had come alive. Across the channel aware of our resolve, alerted germans stood beside their guns. Their generals were prepared. They looked across the heaving sea and grinned. They would wreak havoc on us on the beaches and even death himself would stand amazed. Yet faint across the groaning of the sea came the thin thunder of a massive power drawn to the great free peoples of the earth it gathered in the ancient ports of england to crowd upon the steel encumbered ships. It was a funny sort of feeling marching down to the ships. Wed done it plenty of times before, of course, on the schemes and that kind of thing. They didnt tell us this was the big show. Might have been just another exercise. Some of the chaps cracked gags. They werent very comic but we laughed. I think we all guessed. The general feeling was, okay, if this is it, lets get in there and get it over with. Even waiting for a bus, never could stand it. After a bit our ship found its place in the middle of all the rest of the stuff and there we stayed for days. They gave us the final briefing then. We knew what to do and how. They told us where and when. Thats a briefing. I listened to every word wrote it down in my head like a record and it kept playing over and over again. The beach in the morning. Ever since i became a soldiers, they were getting me ready for this. Before there had been time in front of me protecting me. Now the time had worn away and there were only a few hours left. In the morning id have to face it. I tried to imagine how much fear i would have, you know, if it would keep me from doing my job. I suppose everybody else was wondering the same thing. Nobody said anything official, but all of a sudden the ship got much busier, and over the amplifier the chaplain said hed be saying mass at 1830 hours. Funny, i dont think i ever believed even after the final briefing that the invasion was going to come off. And a voice on the loud speaker said, men who wish to take their antiseasick pills should take the first one now. That did it. I was tugging a glider the way we always practiced it except id never been in the air with a whole army before. Three airborne divisions. Before the glider pilot cast off over the landing zone, i wished him good luck over the radio. Seemed sort of an inadequate thing to say. As supreme commander, let me break in at this point to say just a word about the navy. From the moment of embarkation to that of landing, the full burden fell upon me and our merchant fleets. They had to sweep the mines, marshall and protect the transports along the coastline and finally man the small boats that carried the soldiers to the beach. On that day there were more than 8,000 ships and Landing Craft on the shores of normandy. It was a most intricate task and a vital one for the success of our plans. The courage, fidelity, and skill of the royal and american navies have no brighter page in our histories than that of june 6th, 1944. Back in london only a few people knew. It was a wellkept secret. Around day break we were told to be at the ministry of information at 8 00. Then they told us. They called our beach omaha. Dont ask me why. I never been to omaha. If its anything like omaha france, you can have it. I understand omaha was the roughest spot. We lost some good men took a few prisoners. It was a lousy trade. Western told what to expect. Wasnt a surprise or anything but when it really happens, its different. For a while there we were pinned down but a lucky thing, the other beaches were going better so we got a little more than our share of the old teamwork. Navy come in the air guys and finally we got moving good. You hear a lot about how long it takes to make battle hardened soldiers out of green troops. Listen, i got to be a veteran in one day, that day. And so they paved the beaches with our blood and lurched across the dunes and refd the roads. In the depths of rich Green Pastures of normandy the three airborne divisions fought against grievous odds and then came german reinforcements. From berlin a voice cried out the allies must be hurled into the sea. The armies clashed. Our first objective was to merge all the beachheads into one and 50 miles of men drive on together beyond the red sands through the broken wall. Where i was it wasnt too bad getting ashore. You had to fight for every bloody thing. Crawl on your belly. Chucking up a few hand grenades and then rush them. Sometimes they killed us but we were killing more of them. If we couldnt manage them on our own, wed have to wait while the Company Commander called back for artillery support. The navy was still with us too, chucking shells ahead of us. These three days we advanced seven miles. Then we were told to stand fast and dig in. Next morning we had the news. We heard it from the bbc. It sounded great. Wed joined up all along the bridge head. There was a solid line, 45 miles of it. Wed got a foothold. We were in. A portion of the film the true glory and joining us from new york is mark harris who has been researching many of the directors from this period. As you look back at that film what are your impressions . You know the english filmmakers, the men in the British Army Film unit, were really peerless at putting together these documentaries. Not only did home front audiences in england find them very stirring, but they played well in america, too. England had a head start on the filmmaking effort in the war and their documentaries, including early ones like desert victory really sparked a sense of competition in u. S. Filmmakers. There was a lot of open discussion in the War Department and with people like frank capra saying why arent our movie this is good . Why isnt the material were getting as strong as this british material . So the true glory in the hands of carol reed a really great director is a good example of how the english really knew what they were doing in this front. In setting up our conversation about this film we touched briefly on the concentration camps and what George Stevens saw throughout germany. He later put together a film about the nazi concentration camps. What did you learn about that . Stevens did not go home quickly after the war was done. He lingered in germany, and he was still in uniform and on duty. His task was to prepare two evidentiary films that were to be shown at the nuremberg trials later that year. One was called the nazi plan, which was intended to demonstrate that, in fact this was a well calculated, systematic effort in a way to prove intent and conspiracy, and the other film nazi concentration camps was to document the atrocities that stevens and his men had seen when they went through the gates of dachau and filmed there. I, george p. Stevens, colonel, army of the United States, hereby certify that on the 1st of march 1945 to the 8th of may 1945 i was on active duty with the United States army signal corps. Both of the movies were shown at the trial themselves and since the defendants were, you know, were present, they were forced to watch these movies, and by the accounts of people who were there it was really a fascinating experience that at first they didnt understand that the crowd, that the room was horrified by this. They were so infatuated with the footage of hitler that one of them said, you know after this even, you know, the americans will want to join up. The films in fact had just the opposite of the impact that the german defendants had hoped. They so repelled and horrified the room that afterwards some of the defendants lawyers said that they found it almost impossible to be in the same room with the people they were representing, and by the time the second of the two films was shown at nuremberg the defendants really understood that it was over for them, that the films had provided evidence that was more damning and more painful than any spoken testimony could be. And finally George Stevens left the army in 1946. What was his postworld war ii career like . Stevens postworld war ii career was great. 2 did not include any comedies because he really felt incapable of making funny films after what he had seen at dachau but he became a very serious director who was hugely respected throughout the 1950s for movies like giant, a place in the sun , and the diary of anne frank. Stevens felt the closest things he had made to a world war ii movie after the war was not a war movie but a western. It was shane, and shane was inspired because stevens when he was in postwar germany, was horrified to see little children running around in cowboy outfits shooting cap pistols. He wanted to make a movie that made audiences aware of what a bullet really did, what the impact much shooting someone really was, and he said that in the movie, i believe the words he used was he said for our purposes in this movie, a single shot is a holocaust and even today shane stands as one of the most sober and painful westerns from that era. George stevens, one of the five directors featured in the new book out by mark harris titled five came back. Joining us from new york city on American History tv. Thanks very much for being with us. Thank you. Youve been watching a special presentation of our reel america series. Join us every sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern for more archival films by government industry and educational institutions. Watch as these films take you on a journey through the 20th century. Thats reel america eferlvery sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv. Wed like to tell you about our lectures in history series. Join untser students at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern to hear lectures on topics that range from the American Revolution to the 9 11 terrorist attacks. Lectures in history every saturday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern on American History tv. Wed like to hear from you. Follow us on twitter cspanhistory. And check out our upcoming programs at our website,
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