The Americans were early and persistent advocates of a direct strategy - a cross-Channel attack that would first destroy German military power in the West, then drive deep into the heart of industrial Germany to end the war. The British, on the other hand, sobered by their disastrous experiences at Dunkirk and Dieppe, preferred to stage a number of small-scale attacks around the perimeter of fortress Europe. They thereby hoped to weaken German defenses before leaping precipitously across the Channel into the teeth of the still powerful Wehrmacht. The British simply could not afford the staggering losses entailed in a frontal assault on the northwest coast of Europe. "Memories of the Somme and Passchendaele," wrote Sir Winston Churchill years later, "were not to be blotted out by time or reflection." British Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), put it more bluntly in his memoirs: "Certain British authorities instinctively recoiled from the whole affair, as well they might, for fear of the butcher bill." It is not surprising, then, that the harder the Americans pressed in 1942 and 1943 for a firm commitment on a cross-Channel attack, the more the British seemed to vacillate.
After a debate lasting through much of 1942, the Americans agreed to postpone any cross-Channel attack in favor of the November landings in North Africa-Operation Torch. The strategic outcome of Torch was what American Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall had predicted. Success in Tunisia-the first the Allies had experienced against the Wehrmacht-inspired Churchill and his Chief of the Imperial Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, to devise a Mediterranean strategy aimed at knocking Italy out of the war and at protecting British sea-lanes to the oil-rich Middle East. The July 1943 invasion of Sicily was followed by the landings at Salerno and Anzio, the collapse of Mussolini's government, and the beginning of the bitter and protracted fight up the Italian peninsula.
Thus it was not until the Teheran Conference in November 1943 that the British, prodded by the Russians, reluctantly agreed to launch a cross-Channel attack, code-named Operation Overlord, in May of 1944 and to allow President Franklin D. Roosevelt to name a commander for the operation. Although both Marshall and Brooke coveted the appointment, had even been promised it, both were passed over. Instead, all concurred in the selection of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then commanding United States forces in Europe. On 14 January 1944, Eisenhower, now titled Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, arrived in London to begin work on the final invasion plan.
Months before Eisenhower's appointment as Supreme Commander, General Morgan and his COSSAC staff had produced a preliminary plan for the seaborne invasion of Europe. Constrained by the range of fighters based in southern England and by the availability of suitable landing beaches, COSSAC planners' options narrowed quickly to the Pas-de-Calais area and a section of the Calvados coast on either side of the Norman town of Arromanches-les-Bains. The Pas-de-Calais beaches, attractive because of their closeness to England and the shortness of the lines of advance to the German border, were rejected because of their limited number, their remoteness from a major port, and their highly developed defenses. Normandy, almost by default, became the designated "lodgment area."
COSSAC planners proposed to land three divisions (two British and one American) abreast onto Normandy's sand and shingle beaches, followed immediately by two more and flanked on the east, near Caen, by elements of a British parachute division. Many details, including the exact landing date, were not specified by COSSAC in order to leave some flexibility to the Supreme Commander. However, the weather, tides, and light conditions required for the landing were outlined and calculated so that the precise calculations for H Hour on D Day could be made in the future. The absence of an adequate port along the Calvados coast led the planners in two directions. On one hand, they specified the port of Cherbourg, located on the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula, as an immediate post-D Day objective. On the other, they began planning for the construction of two artificial ports (code-named Mulberries) to be towed from England after the initial landings.
The Overlord plan also called for the pre-invasion strategic bombing of selected targets in Germany and France in an effort to destroy German tactical aircraft, "since only through air power can we offset the many and great disabilities inherent in the situation confronting the attacking surface forces." Later air strikes would seek to interdict troop movements toward the lodgment area. Bombing patterns were to be carefully designed to avoid disclosing the actual landing sites. The landings themselves would be immediately preceded by massive air strikes at the beach fortifications.
Lastly, the Overlord plan called for feinted landings in southern France and in the Pas-de-Calais area, although the details of neither effort were spelled out. The Mediterranean feint ultimately became an actual landing, Operation Anvil, while the elaborate Pas-de-Calais deception-Operation Fortitude-was maintained until well after D Day.
On 3 January 1944, COSSAC staffer Brigadier Kenneth McLean briefed General Bernard Law Montgomery, recently appointed to command the Second British Army, and General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower's chief of staff, on the various complicated elements of Overlord. Montgomery, as was his wont with plans not specifically his own, objected to various parts, specifically the weight of the initial assault landing. McLean later characterized Monty's position as simply "give me five divisions or get someone else to command." Backed by Eisenhower, he won his point-an additional American infantry division would now be landed at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, covered by two airborne divisions dropped behind the landing beach. However, Monty's victory came at the expense of both Anvil, which had to be postponed until D Day plus 30, and the early May date for Neptune (as the assault landing phase of Overlord was now named) to allow for the production of a thousand additional landing craft.
Throughout the winter and spring months of 1944, the details of Neptune were settled and fitted into place. Planners at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) picked an early June date for D Day, with the landings coming over five beaches code-named, from east to west, Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, and Utah. Two American divisions, the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Infantry Division (reinforced with the 116th Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division), were to land across Utah and Omaha beaches respectively. The veteran 82d Airborne Division was teamed with the green 101st to make the night drop on the Cotentin Peninsula behind Utah Beach. The 3d British Infantry Division, landing over Sword Beach, supported by the 6th Airborne Division to be dropped on the east bank of the Orne River, formed the east flank of the assault. Juno Beach was the D Day objective of the 3d Canadian Infantry Division. The 50th British Infantry Division was due ashore on Gold Beach, just east of Arromanches. The 3d British and Canadian divisions, with their reinforcements, formed I Corps, while the 50th Division was the spearhead of XXX Corps. Together, the two corps composed the Second British Army, commanded by Montgomery. The American assault divisions were the spearheads of two corps, V (lst Division) and VII (4th Division), organized into the First U.S. Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley. For the initial assault and the period through the breakout, both armies were designated as the 21 Army Group, under Montgomery's command.
While SHAEF planners fretted over their plans and schedules, thousands of American infantrymen were put through courses offered by the Assault Training Center at Woolacombe. The assault regiments were reorganized to reduce their overhead and increase their firepower. A tank battalion was assigned to each regiment to provide close-range artillery support. Some of these tanks were to be landed from LCT's (Landing Craft, Tank) in advance of the first wave of infantry; others, the duplex drive (DD) tanks (Shermans specially equipped with propellers and canvas water dams), were to "swim" themselves ashore. Landing close behind the tanks and infantry were the engineer demolition teams. Their dangerous job was to clear and mark gaps through the beach obstacles and minefields before the in-coming tide covered them. The engineers were supported by naval demolition teams equipped with tank-dozers.
Two battalions of Rangers, the 2d and 5th, were attached to the 116th Infantry and given the specific task of destroying the six 155-mm guns thought to be dug in atop the Pointe du Hoc between the American beaches. Likewise, British forces included elite commando units-the 1st and 4th Special Service Brigades-assigned specific assault tasks on Sword, Gold, and Juno beaches.
Plans for air and naval bombardment in support of the attack were as thorough as those for the infantry. Air bombardment plans called for the shifting of Allied strategic bombing efforts from targets in Germany to the French rail system and then to the Atlantic Wall defenses. A final air strike was to occur minutes before H Hour, when medium and heavy bombers of the U.S. Ninth and Eighth Air Forces and the British Bomber Command would bomb fortifications on Utah and Omaha beaches. Each of the five landing forces was provided with its own naval escort and fire support. Of the nearly 5,000 ships of all types that would participate in the attack, 702 were classified as warships (including six battleships and twenty-two cruisers). Their fire would cover the landing craft during their hazardous passage to the beach and later be called in to destroy pockets of resistance. Neptune planners also placed a great deal of reliance on specially modified LCT's-some firing rockets, designated LCT(R)'s, and others carrying tanks or 105-mm self-propelled howitzers in firing positions-for gunnery support after the naval bombardment had lifted. On the whole, the air and naval bombardment plans were impressive, even if their execution on D Day was often flawed.
Twenty-First Army Group Headquarters scheduled a day-long review of Neptune on Good Friday, 7 April 1944, at St. Paul's School in Kensington, where a thirty-foot terrain board of the lodgment area had been constructed. It was Monty's show. Without notes, he held center stage for two hours while discussing the upcoming landing and his plans to fight a tank battle for Caen and Falaise on D Day. Admiral Bertram H. Ramsay and Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory followed with their assessments of the naval and air facets of the operation, and in the afternoon army and corps commanders outlined the roles of their commands. By all accounts it was an impressive performance, although Churchill, looking somewhat old and tired, closed the meeting with the admonition that this was an invasion, "not the creation of a fortified beachhead."
SHAEF called the senior commanders together again at St. Paul's on 15 May for a final review. Eisenhower opened this meeting with some brief remarks, and Churchill again closed the day's proceedings-this time with words which somewhat startled the Americans: "Gentlemen, I am hardening to this enterprise." By this date four assault exercises had been held at Slapton Sands on the Devon coast, one of which resulted in the death of 639 Americans when German E-boats sank two LST's and damaged a third. Losses in the 4th Infantry Division were over four times those incurred on D Day. With their training virtually complete, the men of the assault units were cordoned off in camps, where they restlessly awaited orders to move to their embarkation areas.
Only the Supreme Commander could give those orders, and during the first days of June Eisenhower agonized over that decision. SHAEF planners had chosen 5, 6, and 7 June as the mornings, weather permitting, that met their requirements-a late-rising moon followed by a low tide at dawn-for a successful landing. Favorable tide conditions were not due to occur again until 18-20 June and not in phase with a full moon for another month. Eisenhower had chosen the earliest date, Monday, 5 June, for the assault, but adverse weather reports early in the morning of the fourth forced him to postpone the attempt. He decided that the high seas and overcast skies would jeopardize the success of any landing attempted that morning. Of his senior advisers, only Montgomery advised against postponement. As it was, Ike's order to delay Neptune turned back ships that had already sailed from ports in northern England.
At 2130 in the evening of the fourth, Eisenhower met with his staff in the library of Southwick House (his private trailer was parked on the grounds nearby) to learn that the stormy weather forecast for the Calvados coast had in fact materialized. However, Group Captain J. M. Stagg, the chief SHAEF meteorologist, proceeded to forecast a one- to two-day period of relatively good weather, lasting through Tuesday, 6 June. Eisenhower was faced with a cruel choice. If the ships sailed again, and were again turned back, there could be no effort on the seventh, because they could not be refueled in time. A postponement until the nineteenth would demoralize the troops on the crowded ships and destroy the tight security hitherto maintained. Eisenhower weighed the consequences in silence for fifteen minutes, then spoke: "I am quite positive we must give the order . . . I don't like it, but there it is. . . . I don't see how we can do anything else." He met again with his staff in the early morning hours of the following day to review his decision. After forty- five minutes, he gave the order: "O.K., let's go." It was 0415, Monday, 5 June.
Across the Channel, German troops manning the defenses along the Atlantic Wall were lulled by the turn of the weather. Naval patrols were canceled because the minimal weather conditions for an invasion (a sea state less than 4, wind speed under 24 knots, a visibility of 6,000 yards) were not met. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took the opportunity for a quick motor trip to Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday. Seventh Army staff officers were away from their headquarters attending a map exercise at Rennes. Their absence prompted the cancellation of a Seventh Army alert scheduled for the night of 5 June. Although caught off guard by their inability to forecast weather coming in from the Atlantic, the German forces in France were nonetheless formidable.
By June 1944, the number of German divisions positioned in Western Europe stood at fifty-eight, an increase of twelve since the previous fall. Some were bodenständige (earth-rooted or static) divisions without motorized transport, filled with men in their late thirties and with former prisoners of war from the Eastern Front who had volunteered for service in the German army. Others were training divisions, containing the underage and unfit. That still left some thirty divisions of adequate strength in France to oppose any Allied landing. Twelve of these divisions lined the Channel coast, backed by a reserve of ten panzer and panzer grenadier divisions. The size and tank strength of these divisions varied greatly, but all contained a nucleus of battle-experienced veterans.
Direct responsibility for the defense of the Channel coast fell to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of Army Group B (Armed Forces Netherlands, Fifteenth, and Seventh armies). The defense of southern France, both Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, was the responsibility of Army Group G, commanded by General Johannes Blaskowitz. Both he and Rommel reported to sixty-eight-year-old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief West (OB West). However, the chain of command between von Rundstedt and Rommel was muddled by the quasi-independent nature of Rommel's command and by their fundamental disagreement over the appropriate strategy to repel the expected invasion. Rommel, because of his disastrous North African experience with Allied air superiority, believed that the invasion would have to be turned back on the beaches, within forty-eight hours, if it was to be defeated at all. He therefore argued forcefully for personal command of all mobile reserves under OB West and for the positioning of those reserves well forward so that they could counterattack quickly. Von Rundstedt and his panzer group commander disagreed. They wished to hold the mobile panzer and panzer grenadier divisions in deep reserve, to be committed to battle only after the strength and axis of the invasion had been ascertained. In March 1944, a compromise was reached whereby Hitler gave Rommel control of three panzer divisions, the 2d, 21st, and 116th, while holding four others-Panzer Lehr, 1st SS Panzer, 12th SS Panzer, and 17th SS Panzer Grenadier-in reserve under the command of OKW, the Armed Forces High Command.
Despite these disagreements within the German High Command, Rommel, immediately after assuming command in December 1943, began to implement his strategy by strengthening beach defenses all along the Channel coast. To fortify the intervals between the already heavily defended ports, he ordered the laying of additional anti-personnel mines in a 100-meter-wide belt. By mid-May, some four to five million had been strewn behind likely landing beaches, and half a million beach and landing-zone obstacles had sprouted between tide marks and in open fields behind the coast. A network of trenches, firing pits, and resistance nests had been dug into the bluffs overlooking the beaches. They were supported by pillboxes and concrete bunkers covering the principal beach exits. The valleys of the Orne, Merderet, and Douve rivers, located on the flanks of the prospective Allied lodgment area, had been flooded to impede the mobility of any assaulting forces. Under Rommel's incessant prodding, the Atlantic Wall had begun to live up to its name.
On 1 June, the German Seventh Army had three static divisions (the 243d, 709th, and 716th) dug in along the Calvados coast and in the Cotentin Peninsula, backed by two attack infantry divisions (the 91st and 352d). Despite the vital information concerning the German order of battle gleaned from Ultra intercepts (the British top-secret code-breaking operation), the presence of the 352d Division behind Omaha Beach was not detected until it was too late to warn Bradley's V Corps commanders.
In fact, the probable location of the 352d Division was less of a concern to Eisenhower than was Air Chief Marshal Leigh Mallory's pre-D Day warning that casualties in the American airborne divisions might run as high as 70 percent in the glider units and 50 percent among the paratroopers. On 30 May, Eisenhower agonizingly reappraised the airborne assault plans before deciding against cancellation. Perhaps the gravity of that decision prompted him to draft a press release taking full responsibility if the invasion failed. It certainly drew him to the 101st Airborne's encampment in the evening of 5 June, where he mingled with small groups of paratroopers as they waited to board their transports.
By midnight, the 822 C-47s carrying the assault units of the 82d and 101st Airborne divisions, some 13,000 men, were over the Channel in clear, moonlit skies. An unexpected cloud bank over the Cotentin, combined with heavy AA flak, scattered the tight formations, causing many paratroopers to land far from their designated drop zones. Despite the losses of "sticks" (the eighteen paratroopers carried by each plane) that came down in the Bay of the Seine, the flooded river bottoms, and far behind German lines, the D Day casualties came to only 15 percent. The scattered night drop seemed to confuse the Germans, who were unable to mount effective counterattacks against the often outnumbered and isolated paratroopers. After some hard fighting in the hedgerows and marshes around Ste.-Mère-Eglise, and with support from their glider infantry, the paratroopers were able to disrupt German efforts to reinforce their defenses behind Utah Beach, thereby greatly aiding the 4th Division's landing.
That effort had also been unexpectedly aided by the calmer seas in the lee of the Cotentin, which allowed twenty-eight of the thirty-two DD tanks assigned to Utah Beach to "swim" ashore, and by a strong current which swept the first wave of landing craft some 2,000 yards south to a less heavily defended front at La Grande Dune. Although German strong points held out for some time along the flanks of the landing zone, motorized units of the 8th and 22d Infantry pushed inland to link up with the 101st Airborne by nightfall. The 4th Division's D Day casualties were 197.
By contrast, the landing on Omaha Beach began and nearly ended in disaster. SHAEF miscalculations and errors became apparent early. Intelligence sources, including Ultra, failed to locate the 352d Division dug in behind the beach. Bradley's First Army staff had earlier rejected the use of specialized British tanks, Major General Percy C. S. Hobart's "funnies," which could have supported the infantry, because they would complicate American logistics. These tanks included Shermans modified with mine-exploding chain flails (Crabs), Churchills mounting petards and carrying various bridging materials (AVRE's-Armoured Vehicles, Royal Engineers), and Crocodiles, Churchills fitted with a flamethrower. The saturation bombing of the beach defenses by the heavy bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force was ineffective because a late release-ordered by Eisenhower to protect the landing craft-meant that most bombs fell well behind the beach, killing more dairy cows than Germans. To cap these miscalculations, the LCVP's and LCA's (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel and Landing Craft, Assault) carrying the two assaulting regiments, the 16th and 116th, were launched 10,000 yards offshore, greatly exposing the seasick men to German fire. Many boats grounded on offshore sandbars, forcing the infantrymen either to wade ashore or to drift in with the advancing tide. Those ashore took shelter wherever they found some scant protection from the hail of automatic weapons fire sweeping the beach.
Much of the fire support planned for Omaha Beach never materialized. Twenty-seven of the thirty-two DD tanks assigned to the 16th Infantry foundered on the run in. While LCT's brought twenty-eight tanks ashore in the 116th Infantry's sector, many of the DUKW's carrying the 105-mm howitzers foundered. Most of the fire support that morning was provided by naval vessels operating close inshore.
The failure of the first wave to silence or to suppress German fire made the dangerous work of the engineer demolition teams in clearing and marking paths through the beach obstacles almost impossible. Landing craft in the following waves milled around beyond the rows of obstacles, some occasionally crashing through, searching for a safe route to the beach. By noon, the stalemate had become so critical that Bradley, waiting offshore in the cruiser Augusta, considered diverting the follow-up waves to the flanking beaches. The issue remained undecided until mid-afternoon, when men from both regiments worked their way up the bluffs and moved inland. The V Corps' assault across Omaha Beach cost two thousand casualties.
As dramatic as the American landings had been, it must not be forgotten that the first Allied soldiers to land in Normandy were British. At 0016, five gliders of the 6th British Airborne Division's glider infantry skidded to stops on the approaches to the bridges over the Orne River and the parallel Caen Canal. In short order both bridges were in British hands. Those six platoons of the 2d Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and the 249th Field Company, Royal Engineers, along with the sixty pathfinders (paratroopers equipped with beacons to mark the landing zones) who landed at the same time, were the vanguard of the British airborne assault on the eastern end of the lodgment area.
Before dawn, paratroopers and glider infantry from the 3d Brigade had captured the Merville Battery (a heavily fortified complex thought to contain 150-mm guns) in the most daringly conceived operation in the Neptune plan. Other men from the 3d Brigade destroyed bridges in the Dives valley in an effort to seal off the eastern approaches to the landing beaches.
High winds played havoc with both the pathfinders and paratroopers from the 5th Parachute Brigade, scattering them for miles along the Dives valley. Although concentration and movement were slow, units were able to reinforce the glider infantry holding the Orne bridges and to clear the landing zone near Ranville for the seventy-two gliders due to land at 0330.
Offshore, the ships of Naval Force "S" were preparing to launch the 8th Brigade of the 3d British Infantry Division against the three miles of sand due west of the mouth of the Orne, designated Sword Beach.
Preceded by the most intense naval bombardment of D Day, the landings on Sword were scheduled for 0730, an hour after sunrise, so that the incoming tide could cover offshore shoals. Supported by twenty-one DD tanks and numerous AVRE's, the 1st Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, quickly neutralized the shore defenses and captured Hermanville, a mile inland. To the east, the 2d Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment, found the initial going rougher. It was able to move inland only after the commandos of the 1st Special Service Brigade captured German positions in Ouistreham-Riva-Bella. Their sector of Sword, known as Queen Red, came under heavy artillery fire later in the morning. Only the quick release of the barrage balloons on which the German gunners had been ranging prevented the wholesale destruction of landing craft and vehicles now jamming the beachfront.
By afternoon, the 3d Division's drive inland began to falter short of its D Day objectives as troops dug in, anticipating a counterattack by the 21st Panzer Division. Nevertheless, commando units made contact with the paratroopers holding the Orne bridges at noon, and elements of the 3d Division relieved those in Benouville that evening. For all their D Day successes, the British had failed to capture Caen, then only lightly held by the 21st Panzers.
To the west of Sword Beach, the 3d Canadian Division stormed ashore along the five miles of coast between La Riviére and St.-Aubin-sur-Mer. Neptune planners had timed the assault on Juno Beach so that the tide would be high enough to cover the offshore reef. Here, as elsewhere, both British and American bombers made their strikes too far inland to have much effect on the beach defenses. That left it to the navy to save the day. Fire support from the battleships Warspite and Ramilles, the monitor Roberts, and a host of lesser ships proved decisive.
Rough seas played havoc with the boats of the first assault waves. DD tanks and the other specialized armor arrived late on many parts of the beach, but with their help both the Regina Rifles and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles of the 7th Canadian Brigade quickly broke through the crust of German defenses. Nevertheless, Company B of the RWR suffered heavy losses when it landed ahead of its supporting armor. A similar situation developed on Nan sector when the tide swept the LCA's, carrying Company B of the Queen's Own Rifles two hundred yards from its assigned landing area. Company B lost sixty-five men on the sand between the water and the protective sea wall. D Day casualties among the Canadians numbered a thousand. Yet that seems light when compared with the destruction of the 2d Canadian Division at Dieppe two years before. On that disastrous August day, the Canadians lost some 3,000 men (killed or taken prisoner) out of a landing force of around 5,000.
By dark, the Canadians had pushed to within three miles of Caen, withstood a counterattack from the 12th SS Panzers, and made contact with units of the 50th British Division moving in from Gold Beach.
The experiences of the 50th Division were similar to those of the other Second Army forces that morning. The beach received the usual pounding from both air and sea, with the usual mixed results. Specialized tank units landed ahead of the infantry, playing a critical role in neutralizing the German strong points at Le Hamel and La Riviére. The preliminary bombardment had failed to silence the battery of casemated guns at Longues, west of the landing area, but after a twenty-minute duel, the cruiser Ajax settled the issue by knocking out three of the four casemates, two with direct hits through the embrasures. At the same time, Crabs, firing into blockhouses at point-blank range, subdued the defenses at Le Hamel and La Riviére long enough for the infantry to cross the beach. At the close of D Day, elements of the 65th Brigade had advanced to the outskirts of Bayeux. To the west, the 47th Royal Marine Commando had captured Arromanches (the future site of Mulberry B) and were almost to Port-en-Bessin, although they had failed to make contact with the Americans on Omaha Beach. The division's left flank rested firmly on the Canadians.
In all, the British and Canadian first waves had gotten ashore with fewer casualties than anticipated. The fact that the infantry landed at mid-tide meant that German weapons, sighted so as to provide enfilade fire on the forebeach, could not be brought to bear on the LCA's. By the time the infantrymen entered the killing zone, they were covered by fire from the specialized armor which, in most cases, beached just ahead of the LCA's.
As D Day drew to a close, the Allied forces were well short of planned objectives-beachheads six miles deep and control of Caen-but they were ashore and, however precarious their hold, determined to advance on the morrow. That evening Winston Churchill told an anxious House of Commons that the battle would be "pursued with the utmost resolution." Three thousand miles away Franklin Roosevelt asked for divine blessing: "Almighty God-Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor."