At Horsefeathers, Yale Kramer reprints a powerful article he wrote for the American Spectator in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of D-Day: Easy Red, Fox Green: The Meaning of Omaha Beach.

It was clear that events had overtaken the elaborate plans to capture Omaha. Whatever happened was now out of the hands of General Bradley, commander of all of the American Forces on D-Day; out of the hands of General Gerow, commander of the forces on Omaha Beach, the Fifth Corps, and his two divisional commanders General Huebner, of the First Division, and General Gerhardt, of the Twenty-ninth. These were the men who had made the plans but they did not have to carry them out. They remained twelve miles out to sea, waiting for reports to come in.

For the twelve thousand surviving troops, virtually cut off from each other and their sources of information and supplies, and facing a combat-hardened enemy twice as strong as expected, without supporting tanks or artillery, disorganized and demoralized—their fate and fate of Omaha Beach was now in their own hands.

It was individuals, not divisions, who determined the outcome that day. Disciplined training and experience are enormously helpful to the combat soldier in overcoming his terror in battle. When these are absent or minimal, as they were that morning, the fighting man must depend on his own personal motivations—his sense of honor, of duty, of loyalty to his comrades—and the leadership of those around him.

Among the tired, wet, scared groups of men huddled behind the sea wall waiting to be bombarded to death piecemeal by the enemies’ mortars and artillery, a small number of leaders—officers, noncoms, and privates—began to emerge, and by example, exhortation, and bullying began to move the men up that slope, strewn with barbed wire and sown with mines, inch by inch. They were men like Staff Sergeant William Courtney and Private First Class William Braher of A Company’s Fifth Ranger Battalion, who were probably the first Americans to reach the top of the cliff on the extreme western flank, around 8:30 a.m. when they gained the summit, they sent word to a company of the 116th Infantry below to follow them up, and a handful of men did so.

Read it all, and remember the incredible bravery of those men who fought and died for every inch of beachfront.