Panzer Punch Re-Shapes D-Day

Instead of sleeping the crucial morning away, Hitler is awake and reacting to the landings along the Normandy coast. He utilizes nine Panzer divisions to drive a wedge in the beachhead and turn the course of D-Day as we know it.

Transcript

 Introduction

Hello, my name is Mark Bouffard. Welcome to What If World History?

Like you, I share a passion for civilizations, people, and stories of the past. This show looks at the epic events that sewed the fabric of our history and sculpted the world we now know. And it imagines: What If they happened a little bit differently?

Would it change the outcome? What might the “new history” look like? 

I invite you to explore the possibilities with me.

Let’s take a trip.

Our episode today is:

Panzer Punch Reshapes D-Day

We will explore the outcome of D-Day if Hitler had not slept in and released 9 Panzer divisions directly onto the Allied invaders who struggled ashore in the early hours of June 6, 1944.

Burning Death

Corporal Aleksander Wojcik (Voy-chick)

Colleville-Sur-Mer (Col-le-vee), France

June 7, 1944

The salty breeze blows white-bottomed clouds over a debris-strewn landscape. On any other normal June day, beach-going families would wind down the narrow dune paths to picnic along the cool waters of the English Channel. 

But that has not been the case since the German soldiers stationed in the small French commune started fortifying the beaches with Czech hedgehogs, Belgian gates, nutcracker mines, and metal tetrahedrons. 

What was once an unimpeded view of French coastline is rudely interrupted by ugly, squat concrete bunkers, machine gun nests, and miles of barbed wire. The quaint French town of stone streets, houses, and a cathedral is a rubble-strewn mess.

Now, acrid smoke clings to the beach grass bluffs and round pebble dunes. On the beaches, everything is burning or burnt. Wojcik sees charred metal carcasses of Sherman tanks, misshapen burning hulls of square landing craft, and piles of smoldering ammunition boxes, ration crates, and soldiers. So many soldiers. They look like a carpet of green against the tan sand and gray rocks of the beaches. 

Wojcik’s team of Polish, Russian and Czech prisoner soldiers are cleaning up debris from the Allied landings the day before. He finds it hard not to admire the bravery of the young American, Canadian and British soldiers who threw themselves against the Atlantic Wall. All for little to no effect.

Even though his head rings from the cacophony of shelling and his bleary eyes barely open from lack of sleep, he remembers. Wojcik remembers it was the Panzers that swung the battle. He had manned an MG44 nest on the bluffs as the invaders stumbled from their landing craft. 

Wojcik didn’t want to shoot the soldiers. But he knew his German sergeant would put a bullet in the back of his head if he didn’t pull the trigger or if he lifted shots above the heads of his targets. At times the barrel of his machine gun was in danger of melting from the constant stream of bullets exploding out of its barrel. 

The Panzers arrived just as the invaders had started to reach the top of the bluffs. Wojcik could hear their engines roaring as they moved along the seaside road behind his position. Even over the constant sputter of his machine gun, he could hear their guns firing. 

The naval bombardment, airborne drops, and aerial superiority had given the attackers a significant advantage at the kick-off of the landings. But it wasn’t enough for the infantry soldiers who landed ashore against sighted beaches, concrete bunkers, machine gun nests, and thickly armored tanks. 

Wojcik and his battalion will spend the next few days burying the dead, scavenging equipment and rations, and beginning to repair the damage. He ponders the situation. Perhaps the Allies will try another amphibious assault, but it won’t be here in Normandy. June 6, 1944, had been a day of disgrace, destruction, and defeat.

Success is Not Assured

Looking back 70 years, we think of D-Day, Operation Overlord, as an inevitable success. A rolling wave of men and material sweeping ashore in France and rolling through to victory in Berlin. But the inevitability of victory was not guaranteed, nor was it expected. 

In fact, General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, had written two versions of a June 7 speech that trumpeted triumph in one and admitted hard-fought defeat in another. The “In Case of Failure Letter” was tucked into his wallet until he handed it to his naval aid on July 11. 

It consists of just four short sentences:

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre (A-vre) 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.”

Eisenhower was so anxious that he mistakenly dated the note July 5 instead of the actual date, June 5. Thankfully, he never had to read that letter aloud. 

If not for a series of fortuitous events, the Allies may have become mired on the beaches and even pushed back into the English Channel by mechanized counterattacks, a tactic perfected by the German during Blitzkrieg operations.

The Normandy invasion began on the cold, dark morning of June 6. Forecasters had predicted a break in the storm that had delayed the invasion and forced the planners to consider heading back to the Surrey Coast of England. 

The weather was overcast, rainy and the sea swelled to six-foot waves. Along the Normandy coast, thousands of men lumbered down soaked nets into small, flat-bottomed landing craft known as Higgins boats. Each sailor, pilot, infantryman, and airborne trooper had been given a letter from General Eisenhower.

It read: “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”

The preliminary naval bombardment commenced at 05:45 and continued until 06:25 from five battleships, twenty cruisers, and sixty-five destroyers. Infantry began arriving on the beaches at around 06:30.

German Defensive Doctrine

Nazi Germany had at its disposal 50 divisions in France and the surrounding Low Countries. 

All German armed forces in the West came under the command of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt as Commander-in-Chief West. He had two Army Groups under his command – Army Group B, in northern France and the Netherlands, and Army Group G in the South of France.

Under Rundstedt, the Germans had built the Atlantic Wall along 2,000 miles of the European coastline. It utilized 17 million cubic yards of concrete and 1.3 million short tons of steel. To put that in perspective, that is enough concrete to build 270 Empire State Buildings and enough steel to construct 160 Eiffel Towers.

Army Group B contained the Seventh Army, defending Normandy and Brittany, and Fifteenth Army, north of the River Seine (Sin). The army group was commanded by the legendary general Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was one of Hitler’s favorites. He had been transferred from the Italian theater specifically to beef up the defenses of the Atlantic Wall. 

When he arrived in 1943, Rommel ordered a massive strengthening of the existing fortifications, adding pillboxes, gun emplacements, beach obstacles, and millions of mines. In some places, the defenses were extended inland to cover possible access routes and glider landing areas. He did such a good job that the invasion planners switched their focus from landing during high tide to low tide. With this change, the anti-ship obstacles would be more visible, but the soldiers would have to traverse more open sand before they could find cover.

For months Rundstedt had complained that top units had been pulled from his command and sent to defend the Italian peninsula and support the fighting on the Eastern Front. This limited the combat effectiveness and available reserves for the forces deployed along the Cotentin (Co-to-tan) peninsula.

At this point in the war, German soldiers were on average six years older than their Allied counterparts. Many of these soldiers in the Normandy area were conscripts and volunteers from Turkestan, Russia, Mongolia, Poland, and other Baltic countries that surrendered to the Germans. The Wehrmacht (or German defense force) had provided them mainly with unreliable captured equipment, and they lacked motorized transport.

In a great piece for Military.com called “When Hitler Snored,” Joseph Micallef details the German’s defensive doctrine. 

He writes: “Germany military doctrine called for a threefold approach to the Normandy landings: a mobile defense-in-depth, augmented by significant local striking power to hold the allied invaders in check. Then, a mobile strategic reserve could be brought to bear for a decisive counterattack and a battle of annihilation. The mobile reserve would be positioned well to the rear of the front line to prevent it from being committed prematurely and allowing it to be directed in a rapid thrust against the main force's weak points.”

The defeat of the Allies would hinge on the nine panzer divisions and one panzergrenadier division in theatre, with a total of 1,400 tanks and self-propelled guns. 

Furious Disagreement

Doctrine aside, there was significant discord among the leadership of Army Group B on the execution of the Normandy defense. Rommel wanted a big Panzer punch aimed at the invaders while they were still on the beach. 

Steven Zolga, in his book “The Devil’s Garden,” discussed Rommel’s viewpoint. Rommel argued that the invasion force had to be destroyed in the water and on the beaches, where they would have little cover or fire support. He proposed a strategy of static defense along the coasts, backed by concrete pillboxes and overwhelming firepower. 

Rommel wanted to deploy the Panzer units to support the infantry as a local tactical force that could strike against weak points in the Allied line. The tanks could be deployed to seal any breaches in the German lines. He believed, correctly, that it would take the Allies some time to build up their tank strength on the beaches and that, in the first 48 hours of the landings, the Germans would have an overwhelming advantage in armor.

Rommel feared that Allied air superiority would expose the panzers to devastating fighter-bomber attacks, which would hinder their movement. He also believed that the morale of the infantry manning the beach defenses would be strengthened by the presence of elite formations supporting them.

Rommel wanted the 12th SS Panzer Division, for example, to be stationed at Isigny (E-see-nee) rather than at Evreux (E-vroo). That would have placed it less than 10 miles from Omaha Beach rather than 110 miles to the east. 

In contrast, Rundstedt believed it was important to keep the Panzers in reserve until they can be deployed in force against the known inland weak points of the enemy forces. Lessons from other Allied invasions showed that the tanks and other responding forces could be knocked out by close support from naval bombardment.

Rommel appealed directly to Hitler, who made a confusing decision that would doom the defensive effort. Rommel was given operational control of just three panzer divisions, only one of which was close to the Normandy coast. The other two were held north of the River Seine. Three more divisions were assigned to Army Group G in the South of France, far from the action.

The four other Panzer divisions were separated from local command and control.

Micallef writes that: “The armored forces in the west were separate from Rundstedt's command. They were organized into Panzer Group West, under the command of Gen. von Schweppenburg, and reported directly to Hitler. Any operational deployment of the Panzer divisions had to be confirmed by Hitler himself.”

Hitler’s Asleep

According to Ian Kershaw in his 2001 book “Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis”, Hitler had been up until 3 a.m.--he was a notorious night owl--watching newsreels with Joseph Goebbels and Eva Braun at the Berghof, his home in Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. 

As late as 10 a.m., he was still sleeping as the defenses were crumbling on Juno, Sword, Utah, and Gold beaches. His adjutants were hesitant to wake him because many, including the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht, felt the Normandy landings were a feint from the real landings that would happen at the Pas-de-Calais (Pa-de-Cally). 

As a result, there was no German counterattack of any weight along the code-named beaches. On D-Day, only one Panzer division near Sword beach engaged Allied forces. At 16:00, the 21st Panzer Division mounted a counterattack between Sword and Juno and nearly succeeded in reaching the coast. It delivered significant damage and casualties before withdrawing from lack of infantry support. The division lost 70 out of 124 tanks  .

According to Steven Ambrose in his book “D-Day June 6, 1944”, Rommel's plans for fighting the D-Day battle were never put into motion for a number of reasons. First, the German were completely surprised. Operation Fortitude had fixed German attention on the Pas-de-Calais (Pa-de-Cally). Double agents in England had convinced high command it would be the site of the battle, and, as a result, they had placed the bulk of their panzer divisions north and east of the Seine River, where they were unavailable for a counterattack in Normandy.

Ambrose goes on to detail the extensive confusion of German Wehrmacht leadership. They were without air reconnaissance. Allied airborne troops were dropping here, there, everywhere. French Resistance had torn-up railroad tracks, cut their telephone lines, and sabotaged roads, and bridges. Surprisingly, their army, corps, division, and some regimental commanders were away from the coast at a war game in Rennes. 

An interesting story from the World War 2 museum highlights the misfortunes of the German leadership:

“General Wilhelm Falley of the 91st Air-Landing Infantry Division heard the roar of thousands of Allied aircraft engines in the night sky. He turned his car around and raced back to his headquarters near Bernaville. As he pulled onto the grounds, however, he ran into a blaze of gunfire from US paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division and became the first German general to die in Normandy.”

So the Germans were all but blind and leaderless. The commander who was missed most was Rommel, who spent the day on the road driving to La Roche-Guyonan (Guyon-an). He was driving long and winding roads instead of quickly flying to his headquarters because they lost control of the air. With the Allies’ 8-1 advantage in aircraft and complete superiority, Rommel dared not fly. Consequently, he would not arrive at his headquarters until late in the day.

The Old Man

According to Ambrose’s well-informed opinion, the only high-command officer who responded correctly to the crisis at hand was Field Marshal Rundstedt. Ambrose called him: the old man who was there for window dressing and was scorned by Hitler and the rest of the senior German high command. 

Two hours before the seaborne landings began, Rundstedt ordered the two reserve panzer divisions in Normandy, the 12th SS Panzer and Panzer Lehr, to move immediately toward Caen for a counterattack. He did so on the basis of an intuitive judgment that the airborne landings were on such a large scale that they could not be a mere deception maneuver (as some of his staff argued) and would have to be reinforced from the sea. 

The only place such landings could come in lower Normandy was on the Calvados and Cotentin coasts. Rundstedt wanted armor there to meet the attack.

Rundstedt's reasoning was sound, his action decisive, his orders clear. But the panzer divisions were not under his command. They were in reserve. To save precious time, Rundstedt had first ordered them to move out, then requested High Command approval. 

To the detriment of the war effort, they did not approve. At 07:30, Rundstedt was informed that the two divisions could not be committed until Hitler gave the order, and Hitler was still sleeping. On this day, he will sleep until noon.

As a result, the two panzer divisions spent the morning waiting. At that point in the day, there was heavy overcast, and they could have moved freely without serious interference from Allied aircraft. It was late in the afternoon, 16:00, when Hitler, at last, gave his approval. 

By then, however, the clouds had broken up, and Allied fighters and bombers roamed the skies over Normandy, smashing anything that moved. The panzers had to crawl into roadside woods and wait under cover for darkness before continuing their march to the sound of the guns.

What If?

But what if Hitler had not slept in? What if he realized the severity of the Normandy landings, coordinated closely with Rundstedt and Rommel, and moved the Panzer divisions to the code-named beaches. 

Consider this: What would happen if 1,400 Panther and Tiger tanks, supported by self-propelled guns and thousands of elite, well-equipped, and well-trained troops crashed into the Allied foothold. Many historians agree the results could have been catastrophic to the lightly-armed invaders.

In our What If World History scenario, Hitler is well-rested, clear-eyed, alert, and focused on repelling the attack. With heavy overcast weather, the Panzer divisions could move freely--without concern from aerial attacks--along the roads and position themselves for a decisive counterattack. Nowhere would this move be more devastating than Omaha Beach, near Colleville-Sur-Mer (Col-le-vee).

Abject Terror

Private Matt Sullivan

Omaha Beach, Dog White Sector

08:30 June 6, 1944

As Sullivan raises his green-helmeted head from the wet sand and beach grass, a sound reaches out to him. At first, it resembles a low rumble, and then as it grows louder, he can hear the high-pitched grinding of gears, sharp clatter of metal, and steady clanking of treads. 

Sullivan clutches his M1 Garand rifle and wiggles his body deeper into the defilade he burrowed into the sand. He takes a breath as he contemplates the new information and his next move. He risks a look to see what support he has at the top of the bluff. 

Sullivan can only see a few dozen men around his position. A glance back down the narrow beach path tells him reinforcements won’t be making their way up in any great number. Mortars, artillery shells, and bullets are raining death down on the poor souls in the water and on the sand. 

His own journey from the Higgins boat to his spot alongside the road seems like a blur of terror, adrenalin, and screams. Most of Sullivan’s platoon was wiped out as the ramp dropped on their LCVP. Tracers and bullets raked the wooden hull of the boat as men collapsed dead. They never fired a shot or stepped off the boat. It was a slaughter.

Sullivan had slithered over the wet bodies of his friends onto shore as the boat started to burn. The cold, salty water covered his head as he found refuge behind a rusty, twisted tetrahedron. From there, it was a furious dash to the “shelter” of the pebble and sand dune underneath the cliff. He could hear bullets whizzing by his head. Men dropped around Sullivan as he ran, and an explosion knocked the helmet off of his head. But on he ran until he could throw himself against the safety of the only defilade the beach had to offer.

Sullivan later followed a sergeant from another company along the narrow path up the bluff. Snipers were firing on them as they struggled up the steep and winding trail. The man behind him dropped, gurgling as a bullet pierced his neck. 

Now, on the road, the pit in Sullivan’s stomach grew larger as one-word echoes in his head: Panzers.  

The Panzer Punch

At Omaha beach, strong currents played havoc with the Higgins boats and forced many of them to land hundreds of yards off target. Withering and deadly fire was directed at the men from concrete bunkers, MG42 nests, and 105mm artillery barrages from the rear.

Ernest Hemmingway, a correspondent for Collier’s magazine, was on a Higgins boat trying to land with the seventh wave of infantry.  He could see soldiers working up the bluff. He recalls: "Slowly, laboriously, as though they were Atlas carrying the world on their shoulders, men were climbing. They were not firing. They were just moving slowly ... like a tired pack train at the end of the day, going the other way from home.”

Casualties were heavier than all the other landings combined, as the men were subjected to fire from the cliffs above. Problems clearing the beach of obstructions led to the beachmaster calling a halt to further landings of vehicles at 08:30. Exit from Omaha was possible via five gullies, and by late morning, barely six hundred men had reached the higher ground.

It will soon get much worse for the tired, scared American soldiers. The Panzer divisions are about to crash into the outmanned and outgunned infantry clawing their way off the beaches.

Robert Citino details the power of a Panzer division in a recent article for the National World War 2 Museum. He says: “Each division paired a Panzer brigade with a motorized infantry brigade. The Panzer brigade contained four battalions, each with a strength of 128 tanks. Counting command tanks, the division had 561 tanks. The infantry component was just as strong, however, consisting of two battalions motorized infantry and a motorcycle battalion. Supporting groups include a motorized artillery regiment, a motorized anti-tank battalion, a motorized pioneer company, and a motorized reconnaissance detachment consisting of armored cars and motorcycles.

It is this mass of mechanized might that rumbled down the hedgerows and narrow stone lanes towards the Allied lines, disjointed and unconnected as they were. It is a deadly combination of Panthers, Tigers, and Panzer IV tanks. They epitomized armored death that bristled with 75mm and 88mm cannons, and MG42 and MG44 machine guns. Any tank that encountered them would be outgunned, out armored, and outmaneuvered in the sand. In Russia, it took nine T-34s on average to knock out just one Panther. And that was in open ground.

At Omaha, 32 tanks were launched 6000 yards from the coast, but 27 were sunk before they reached the beach. The only artillery would come from the destroyers, who almost ran aground providing close-in support. But they would be ineffective against moving targets, like tanks, operating on top of the bluffs and behind the line of sight to the beaches. There were no reconnaissance flights available during these crucial hours.

Although the bunkers and pillboxes fall to navy guns and the determined will of the brave invaders, the soldiers who reach the top of the bluff are greeted by an impregnable stream of bullets and artillery rounds from the Panzer divisions. Hidden among the hedgerows and defilades of the buildings, trees, and dunes, tanks are raining death on the U.S. infantrymen. 

No draws are opened off of the beach. No beachhead is established on Omaha on D-Day. Between the 88mm and 105mm artillery, and the guns of the Panzers, the crowded beaches have become a burning maelstrom of fuel, metal, and flesh. 

Landing boats, men, and equipment are diverted to Gold and Utah beaches to the east and west. But, there are only so many open lanes through the anti-ship obstacles to reach the beaches. The back-up creates a flotilla of boats intermixed with different divisions from the British and U.S. armies. Chaos ensues. 

More importantly, the invasion has essentially been split in two. The Americans at Utah, and the rest of the Cotentin peninsula, are separated from the British and Canadian beaches further along the coast by two German tank divisions. There is no link-up of beachheads across the 50-mile front. 

Fierce fighting outside of Caen, supported by three Panzer tank divisions, limits the depth of the Canadian and British beachheads. Eisenhower’s forces are split in two and making little progress against the German defenders. Fearing another Dieppe or Dunkirk, Eisenhower decides to pull the troops from the beach while the logistical support is there to rescue them from the steel trap. 

Higgins boats, LCTs, and other “landing craft” are now pulling men off the beach and back to their personnel ships. Behind them, along miles of beach are millions of tons of ammunition, fuel, rations, and equipment. It’s quickly scooped up by the Germans to support their war effort. 

As early as June 7, repairs are underway along the coast. Railways are re-connected. Sandbags are refilled. New trench lines are dug.

The Next D-Day

While Operation Overlord did not prove successful, the Allies knew they still had to open a third front on the battle for Europe. The Russians were driving the Germans back with overwhelming force after the Battle of Stalingrad. FDR and Churchill were concerned the Russians would push them back to Germany and annex all of the conquered territories. 

Under Eisenhower, forces meant for the support of Operation Overlord are diverted to the Italian campaign where Rome had fallen on June 5. The Allies shift their focus to other plans to invade Europe and shape the course of the war.

Sky History has a great article titled “What if D-Day Failed”. I was not aware of this, but Operation Dragoon, the code name for the Allied invasion of Southern France, had been planned to support Operation Overlord with an invasion in August of 1944. A lack of resources led to its cancellation. 

According to Sky History’s version, the operation was launched successfully in early 1945. Lessons learned from Operation Overlord ensured victory on the beaches. Namely, naval and aerial bombardments were directed during clear weather so targets could be sighted, shelled, and confirmed out of action. In addition, tanks were launched closer to shore, under calmer seas, and were able to effectively support infantry movements. 

The BBC interviewed several historians and military experts about the consequences of a D-Day failure.

Professor Gary Sheffield, military historian, stated:

“Had D-Day failed, it would have been particularly costly for Britain. They were already running out of manpower, particularly the Army. I think failure would have given a huge boost to the ‘bomber barons,’ like Arthur Harris, who were arguing that strategic air attacks on German cities could bring the country to its knees. There’s also a small possibility that the Americans would decide to go on the defensive in Europe and concentrate on defeating the Japanese instead.”

He goes on to say: “I think the Soviets could have won the war single-handedly, perhaps by 1946. I think we may well have seen the hammer and sickle flying not simply in Poland and Eastern Germany, but in Western Germany, the Netherlands, and France.”

Soenke Neitzel, Professor of International History surmised:

“Had D-Day failed, it would have given a major boost to morale in Germany. The German people expected this to be the decisive battle, and if they could beat the Allies they might be able to win the war. I think Hitler would have withdrawn his core divisions from the West to fight on the Eastern Front.”

General Sir Richard Dannatt asserts:

“Had D-Day failed, with a costly loss of men and equipment, it would have taken years not months to gather the strength for another attempt at invasion. The Russians would probably have continued their advance towards Western Europe, but at a slower pace due to more German reserves being available to be deployed against them. I don't think strategic bombing would have brought a solution, and the U.S would have switched its main effort to the Pacific.”

He asks: “The intriguing question is: could the Allies still have managed to get an unconditional German surrender, or would there have been a negotiated end to the war? In that case, what would Europe look like today?”

Sky History posits that the Soviets, in this timeline, had been advancing towards Berlin from the East, albeit at a slower pace due to the reinforcement of German soldiers from the Western Front. Although D-day was a failure for the Allies, the Germans can still not afford to leave the ‘Atlantic Wall’ unguarded. This limits the men sent to the Eastern Front. The creep of the Front towards Berlin is still inevitable, but the pace slows down considerably. 

Given the success of the Allies in Italy, now bolstered by additional reinforcements meant for France, the push into Southern Europe also feels inevitable. So we can assume that the end result of World War 2 is still an Allied success. But VE day could be pushed back 12-18 months.

It’s shocking to think, but a delay in U.S. troops reaching Germany, and Berlin, could deliver the entire country to Russian control. It’s horrifying to consider what this could mean for the coming decades that would shape the Cold War.

We know the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of D-Day were victorious. But that victory came at immense cost and sacrifice.

As we wrap up this episode, I want to leave you with a first-hand account of Omaha beach. Pvt. Robert Healey of the 149th Combat Engineers shared it with Stephen Ambrose in his book, “D-Day: June 6, 1944”: "When we walked down to the beach in the afternoon. It was just an unbelievable sight. There was debris everywhere, and all kinds of equipment washing back and forth in the tide. Anything you could think of seemed to be there. We came across a tennis racquet, a guitar, assault jackets, packs, gas masks, everything.

"On the way back I came across what was probably the most poignant memory I have of this whole episode. Lying on the beach was a young soldier, his arms outstretched. Near one of his hands, as if he had been reading it, was 'Our Hearts Were Young and Gay' by Cornelia Otis Skinner. This expressed the spirit of our ordeal. Our hearts were young and gay because we thought we were immortal, we believed we were doing a great thing, and we really believed in the crusade which we hoped would liberate the world from the heel of Nazism."

Conclusion

Thank you for joining me, Mark Bouffard on this trip. I’d like to thank my editors, including Clint Buehle, my twin brother Matt Bouffard, my retired journalist uncle Kevin Bouffard. The music you hear is Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.

This has been What If World History? In our next episode, we will walk the streets of a bustling, 13th Century Viking city on the shores of North America 200 hundred years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.