"The General had seen welcomes in Paris and London and Washington and New York, but he got the warmest reception of all when he hit his boyhood home town, little Abilene, Kansas."
"As soon as the Eisenhower party was seated a gun boomed and the parade began. It wasn't a military parade. It told the story of a barefoot boy's rise from fishing jaunts on nearby Mud Creek to command of the Allied expeditionary force that defeated Fascism in Western Europe."
In 1944, a class of sixth graders wrote General Eisenhower and asked him how they can help in the war effort; click here to read his response...
Written in the interest of promoting U.S. Army morale, this is a profile of five-star
General Dwight David Eisenhower by an anonymous YANK MAGAZINE journalist. An interesting interview, it was printed six months prior to the Normandy invasion:
"General Eisenhower's rise is surely without parallel in American military history. From colonel to supreme commander and full general in two years - from the 'mock' war maneuvers in the delta country of Louisiana to the real maneuvers that face him now as he must figure out the when and how of the attack that must drive to the very heart of Nazi Europe - that is his story."
Click here to read about Hitler's slanderous comment regarding the glutinous Hermann Goering.
"In two full-dress interviews in Paris and Washington,
General Dwight D. Eisenhower talked about some of the high spots of the campaign for Europe and about certain post-VE-Day questions. It's been generally agreed that the interviews were pretty historic. Here are highlights of the general's talks to the press in the two Allied capitals..."
Clike here to read about General Eisenhower and the German surrender.
An interesting W.W. II story was passed along by actor, announcer, producer and screenwriter John Nesbitt (1910 - 1960), who is best remembered as the narrator for the MGM radio series
Passing Parade. Five months after the end of the war, Nesbitt relayed to his audience that during the Battle of the Bulge, U.S.-born Nazi agents, having been ordered to kill
General Eisenhower, did not even come close to fulfilling their mission, suffered incarceration among other humiliations - all due to a lack of knowledge where American comic strips were concerned. Read on...
Here is another "Now it Can be Told" article...
This is a conversational
General Eisenhower article that primarily concerns the plans for the Allied occupation of Germany, coupled with every American soldier's wish to simply get in boats and go home:
"I'm just as bad off as any GI today," General Eisenhower said quietly. "I don't want to be here. I'm 54 years old and I lead a kind of lonely life."
The third paragraph makes reference to a "pretty British secretary named Lt. Kay Summersby".
Recommended Reading: "Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight Eisenhower"_by_Kay Summersby
The following is an extract from General Eisenhower's report on the Allied operations from June 6 through the 26 of August, 1944:
"Many factors are woven into warp and woof of this great victory...One was the meticulous care in planning and preparation, another was the fact that we achieved some degree of surprise involving place, timing and strength of attack. The excellence and sufficiency of amphibious equipment, with measures for dealing with beach defenses and obstacles, was also important. In the air, the Luftwaffe has taken a fearful beating. Since June 6, 2378 German aircraft have been destroyed in the air and 1,167 on the ground..."
Statistical data concerning the U.S. Army casualties in June and July of 1944 can be read in this article.
One of the many "now-it-can-be-told" stories of the early post-war period had to be that friction that existed on the SHAEF staff between British General Bernard Law Montgomery and General Eisenhower. It is recalled herein by the noted English war correspondent Alan Moorehead (1910 — 1983).
"On the first day of operations, I heard him say, 'By golly, we've done it again! By golly, I wouldn't have believed it1' Meaning the surprise landings really turned out to be a surprise. And [turning to the press corps] he added, 'This is the period when you fellows want to know everything, but military folks are scared to death just now. Darn it, I can't tell you anything! After all, I'm the man responsible."
"Though these words are feeble, they come from the bottom of a heart overflowing with pride in your loyal service and admiration as warriors. Your accomplishments at sea, in the air, on the ground and in the field of supply have astonished the world."
