The Human Face of D-Day
Walking the Battlefields of Normandy: Essays, Reflections, and Conversations with Veterans of the Longest Day
Keith M. Nightingale
Casemate, Philadelphia, 2023, 288 pages
Book Review published on: November 24, 2023
Staff rides have played a role in the professional military education of soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and officers for generations. Historical examples can offer insight and inspiration to developing leaders, especially when a veteran of the action is present to recount their experiences. Observation, avenues of approach, key terrain, obstacles, cover and concealment, and the effects of terrain and weather are seldom appreciable from reading books or watching videos. When physically present on the site, a person gains a greater comprehension of the conditions under which an action took place. A good staff ride is an opportunity for human experience, and that human experience is enhanced by interaction with a participant.
American armies have had the good fortune to fight their battles on foreign battlefields since 1898, meaning that the lessons from battles in North America are not taught by living veterans, they struggle to be relatable in a modern context, and they often must be led by historians or researchers. Foreign battlefields are often out of reach from time and budgetary perspectives unless a unit is forward deployed or based (like in Korea, Europe, or Hawaii). Many battlefields abroad are unspoiled by urban/suburban sprawl or economic development and remnants of the battle are often visible. Unfortunately, twenty years of fighting counterinsurgency have left units with an inability to justify the expenditure of time and resources on appreciation of the battlefields of large-scale combat operations (LSCO). Hopefully, as the U.S. Army reorients toward LSCO, the practice of conducting staff rides will experience a renaissance (especially in regionally aligned units that can rotate through their area of responsibility). Unfortunately, the era of interaction enjoyed by Col. Keith Nightingale during many of the staff rides he conducted to Normandy with veterans and event participants is coming to an end.
Nightingale’s book, The Human Face of D-Day: Walking the Battlefields of Normandy: Essays, Reflections, and Conversations with Veterans of the Longest Day, recounts his experiences as a battalion staff officer in Italy in the late 1970s and his first, low-cost, low-tech excursions with staff officers from his unit that shared his historical interests to the Normandy area. While tromping about and often camping near sites of historical importance, Nightingale and his compatriots had the good fortune to meet American veterans and Norman locals who shared their experiences, recollections, and artifacts. These chance encounters became opportunities to expand their understanding of the D-Day landings from a human perspective. They plugged him into a network that grew over time and has recently seen a sharp decline as the first-person participants have succumbed to old age; the National World War II Museum in New Orleans estimates that in the United States, three hundred World War II veterans a day are passing.
By the fortieth anniversary of the D-Day landings in 1984, Nightingale was a battalion commander for 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry (2/505 PIR), 82nd Airborne Division; a unit that had significant historical connection to the assault and combat around Saint Mère-Église and La Fière. He was the natural choice for the 82nd’s chain of command to be the commander of troops for the division’s return to Normandy for the first major commemoration since the end of World War II. He organized a weeklong series of events that included a cross-channel jump (that originated in Britain), site visits at significant locations (for both U.S. and Allied personnel), presentations by veterans, and commemorations. By this event, his network of veterans and presenters ranged from privates to generals, British Allied officers to the grown children of the French mayor from 1944; even his 1944 counterpart commander of 2/505 PIR.
The 1984 staff ride led by Nightingale occurred at the same time as President Ronald Reagan’s speech at Pointe Du Hoc. Author Douglas Brinkley attributes that speech to sparking significant new interest and reexamination of the events in Normandy. Brinkley contends that without Reagan’s speech we would not have had books published like Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, movies and miniseries like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, or even French efforts to conserve the sites against the effects of time and nature. It set the stage and essentially wrote the manual for future Normandy staff rides.
Nightingale reflects on his interaction with the American soldiers, their British counterparts, and the local Norman inhabitants with reverence and eloquence because the strategy of liberating Europe was reliant on operational planning that in many cases failed. But the outcome found success in the efforts and exertions of individuals and small tactical units in the fields and towns of Normandy in 1944.
Nowhere was the planning failure more apparent than at the beaches near Vierville-sur-Mer, Colleville-sur-Mer, and Saint Laurent-sur-Mer that were infamously code-named Omaha by Allied planners. Aspects of the terrain, hydrology, German order-of-battle, and tactics for defense all seemed to be accounted for, leading rank-and-file soldiers in the assault waves to believe that their success was a foregone conclusion, and a brief fight was only a formality. Nightingale’s deconstruction of the fire-support plan for Omaha Beach is informative, articulation of its failure insightful, and description of the valor by the assault troops that closed with and destroyed the German defenders of the Omaha area that carried the day, masterful.
War and conflict are human creations and Nightingale’s book draws on human interaction and experience underpinned by historical context. He describes the strategy and operations only to the depth necessary to frame the significance of the human experiences placed in the events. His book is a great example of the understanding that comes about for soldiers from staff rides done correctly.
Book Review written by: Paul J. Narowski II, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas