Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. 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.
Michael Haskew opens his recent book, West Point 1915: Eisenhower, Bradley, and the Class the Stars Fell On, with this note, written by Eisenhower and to be released only in the event of the failure of the D-Day landings that he oversaw as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. For any historical work in which Eisenhower is a central figure, this would be appropriate. The invasion was the most consequential event of Eisenhower’s already consequential military career. As a literary, scene-setting technique, such an opening foreshadows the climactic moment that neatly separates the rising and falling actions of World War II. And the note is quite rightly lauded as a supreme act of leadership and character in an institution — the U.S. military — that instills these virtues in its people as a matter of necessity.
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