Remarks to Congress - Eisenhower Memorial Commission

My imagination cannot picture a more dramatic moment than this in the life of an American. I stand here in the presence of the elected Federal Lawmakers of our great republic, the very core of our American political life and a symbol of those things that we call the American heritage. To preserve that heritage more than three million of our citizens, at your behest, resolutely faced every terror the ruthless Nazi could devise. I am summoned before you as the representative - the Commander - of those three million American men and women, to whom you desire to pay America’s tribute for military victory. In humble realization that they, who earned your commendation, should properly be here to receive it, I am nevertheless proud and honored to serve as your agent in conveying it to them.

This does not seem to be the moment in which to describe the campaigns of the European conflict. They will become the substance of history, and great accounts they will be! But I think you would want from me some brief estimate of the quality of the sons, relatives and friends you - all America - have sent to war.

I have seen the American proved on battlegrounds of Africa and Europe over which Armies have been fighting for more than two thousand years of recorded history. None of those battlefields has seen a more worthy soldier than the trained American.

Willingly, he has suffered hardships: without a whimper he has made heavy sacrifices, he has endured much, but he has never faltered. His aggressiveness - his readiness to close with the enemy - has become a byword in the embattled Armies of Europe. You have read many reports of his individual exploits, but not one tenth of them ever has been or ever will be told. Any one of them is sufficient to fill a true American with emotion - with an intense pride in his countrymen.

Never have soldiers been called upon to endure longer sustained periods of contact with a vicious enemy nor greater punishment from weather and terrain. The American has been harassed by rifle and automatic weapons, pounded by hand grenades, by artillery and rocket shells, attacked by tanks and airplane bombs! He has faced the hazards of countless mines and booby traps and every form of static obstacle. He has conquered them all!

The tempo of battle had increased immeasurably during the span of this conflict. When the Germans launched their blitzkriegs through Poland, the low countries and France, featuring tactical use of airpower with mechanized units on the ground, it seemed to a fearful world that at last there had been achieved the ultimate in destructive force - that nothing could stand against the German armies.

When America entered the war arena that arrogant Nazi machine was at the zenith of its power. In 1940 it had overrun practically the whole of Western Europe, while, a year later, in the East, it had hammered the great Red Army far back into the reaches of Russian territory.

The Allies met this challenge with vision, determination, and a full comprehension of the enormity of the task ahead. America brought forth her effort from every conceivable source. New techniques of war were developed. Of these the most outstanding was the completely coordinated use of ground, air and sea forces. To his dismay the German found that far from having achieved perfection in the combined employment of all types of destructive power, his skills and methods were daily outmoded and surpassed by the Allies. Through tactical and strategic unification the Allies successfully undertook the greatest amphibious landings yet attempted in warfare. Following each of these, forces were swiftly built up on the beaches, and sustained by our Naval strength. The next step was always a speedy advance, applying to the astonished enemy an air-ground teamwork that inflicted upon him defeat after defeat. The services of supply by their devotion to duty performed real miracles in supporting the battle lines, America, and her Allies, sent finally into Europe such a mighty avalanche of aggressive power by land, by sea, by air, as to make the campaign of 1939 and 1940 seem small in contrast. The result was the unconditional surrender of an arrogant enemy.

The real beginning, for us, was in December 1941, when our late great war leader, President Roosevelt, met with his friend, Prime Minister Churchill, and forged a definition of allied organizational and directional method for the prosecution of the war. During most of my three years in Europe, these two God-given men were my joint commanders-in-chief. Their insistence of making common cause the key to victory established the pattern of the war in Europe. To those two all of us recognize our lasting obligation. Because no word of mine could add anything to your appreciation of the man, who, until his tragic death, led America in war, I will say nothing other than that from his strength and indomitable spirit I drew constant support and confidence in the solution of my own problems.

In Mr. Churchill, he had a worthy partner, who led his country through its blackest hour, in 1940. The Prime Minister’s rugged determination, his fighting spirit, and his singleness of purpose, were always a spur to action. Never once did he give less than full cooperation in any endeavor necessary to our military objectives, and never did he hesitate to use his magnetic and powerful personality to win cheerful acceptance from his countrymen of the great demands he was forced to make upon them.

It was no small test of the hospitality and generous understanding of the British people to have two million strangers moved among their already limited and crowded facilities. The added confusion imposed by the extensive gear of a great Army was accepted with a cheerfulness that won the admiration of us Americans. In critical moments Mr. Churchill did not hesitate to cut Britain’s already reduced rations to provide more shipping for war purposes. Their overburdened railways had to absorb additional loads until practically all passenger traffic was suspended and even essential goods could be moved only on an emergency basis. For the hospitality the British offered us, for the discomforts they endured on our behalf, and for the sacrifices they made for the success of operations, every American acquainted with the facts will always carry for them a warm and grateful place deep within his heart.

Under these two great war leaders were the combined British-American chiefs of staff who were my direct military superiors and the channel through whom I received all my orders. Their unwavering support, their expressed and implied confidence, their wise direction, and their friendliness in contact, were things to which I am happy to bear witness. They devised the machinery by which huge allied forces were put together as a single unit, and through them were implemented the great military purposes that America and Great Britain agreed upon to further the political objectives of the war in Europe.

The spirit of unison that they developed was absorbed by the forces in the field. In no place was this vital unity more strikingly evidenced than among the individuals that served as my principal commanders and on my staff. British and Americans forgot differences in customs and methods - even national prejudice - in their devotion to a common cause. Often I have thanked a kind providence for these staunch allies, from highest commander to the newest recruit, and for their readiness to serve within the team.

From our first battle associations with the British Air Forces in England, with her Navy in the African invasion, and with the British Armies in North Africa, we have measured their quality through many months of war. We well know and respect the fighting heart of the British, Canadian and French soldiers and their leaders.

This teamwork was equally strong among the several services - Air, Ground, Navy and Supply. The Navy’s task in gaining our first European footholds was a staggering one. Without wearing you with tactical details I ask you to take my word for the truth that in all the brilliant achievements of the American Navy, and of her sister service in Great Britain, there is none to excel the record that was written in the great and successful invasions of Africa, Sicily, Italy and France. With the Navy was always the Merchant Marine, in which Americans have served with a devotion to duty and a disregard for danger and hardship that defies any attempt to describe.

To the Air Forces, without whose services all else would have been futile, I - all of us - owe similar debts of gratitude. Perhaps it is best for me merely to say that in every ship, in every plane, in every regiment, was a readiness to give life itself for the common good. And in this statement, I must include the men that have been responsible for the tactics of the battle itself.