Stephen E. Ambrose · 656 pages
Rating: (20K votes)
“Pvt. Robert Fruling said he spent two and a half days at Pointe-du-Hoc, all of it crawling on his stomach. He returned on the twenty-fifth anniversary of D-Day “to see what the place looked like standing up” (Louis Lisko interview, EC).”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“No matter how bad things got, no matter how anxious the staff became, the commander had to “preserve optimism in himself and in his command. Without confidence, enthusiasm and optimism in the command, victory is scarcely obtainable.” Eisenhower realized that “optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction.” He learned that a commander’s optimism “has a most extraordinary effect upon all with whom he comes in contact. With this clear realization, I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory—that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“failure at one point could throw the momentum out of balance and result in chaos. All in that room were aware”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“When you talk about combat leadership under fire on the beach at Normandy,” Ellery concluded, “I don’t see how the credit can go to anyone other than the company-grade officers and senior NCOs who led the way. It is good to be reminded that there are such men, that there always have been and always will be. We sometimes forget, I think, that you can manufacture weapons, and you can purchase ammunition, but you can’t buy valor and you can’t pull heroes off an assembly line.”18 • •”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“free.” On the edge of town, Fitzgerald saw a sight “that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers. The body closest to the hole was only three feet away, a potato masher [grenade] in its fist.II The other distorted forms lay where they had fallen, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, empty of M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two. He had fought alone and, like many others that night, he had died alone. “I looked at his dog tags. The name read Martin V. Hersh. I wrote the name down in a small prayer book I carried, hoping someday I would meet someone who knew him. I never did.”34”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“• While Rommel was going to see Hitler to beg for more tanks and a tighter command structure, Eisenhower was visited by Churchill, who was coming to the supreme commander to beg a favor. He wanted to go along on the invasion, on HMS Belfast. (“Of course, no one likes to be shot at,” Eisenhower later remarked, “but I must say that more people wanted in than wanted out on this one.”) As Eisenhower related the story, “I told him he couldn’t do it. I was in command of this operation and I wasn’t going to risk losing him. He was worth too much to the Allied cause. “He thought a moment and said, ‘You have the operational command of all forces, but you are not responsible administratively for the makeup of the crews.’ “And I said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ “He said, ‘Well, then I can sign on as a member of the crew of one of His Majesty’s ships, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ “I said, ‘That’s correct. But, Prime Minister, you will make my burden a lot heavier if you do it.’ ” Churchill said he was going to do it anyway. Eisenhower had his chief of staff, General Smith, call King George VI to explain the problem. The king told Smith, “You boys leave Winston to me.” He called Churchill to say, “Well, as long as you feel that it is desirable to go along, I think it is my duty to go along with you.” Churchill gave up.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“On the edge of town, Fitzgerald saw a sight “that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers. The body closest to the hole was only three feet away, a potato masher [grenade] in its fist.II The other distorted forms lay where they had fallen, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, empty of M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two. He had fought alone and, like many others that night, he had died alone.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“Thus the total armada amounted to 5,333 ships and craft of all types,”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“On the beach, men saw Father Lacy “go down to the water’s edge and pull the dead, dying, and wounded from the water and put them in relatively protected positions. He didn’t stop at that, but prayed for them and with them, gave comfort to the wounded and dying. A real man of God.”22”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
“Pvt. Felix Branham was in that boat. “Colonel Canham had a BAR and a .45 and he was leading us in,” Branham said. “There he was firing and he got his BAR shot out of his hand and he reached and he used his .45. He was the bravest guy.”23”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
Stephen E. Ambrose
Born place: in Lovington, Illinois, The United States
Born date January 10, 1936
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“How, then, to imagine, the expansive heart of this God—greater than God—who takes seven buses, just to arrive at us. We settle sometimes for less than intimacy with God when all God longs for is this solidarity with us. In Spanish, when you speak of your great friend, you describe the union and kinship as being de uña y mugre—our friendship is like the fingernail and the dirt under it. Our image of who God is and what’s on God’s mind is more tiny than it is troubled. It trips more on our puny sense of God than over conflicting creedal statements or theological considerations. The desire of God’s heart is immeasurably larger than our imaginations can conjure. This longing of God’s to give us peace and assurance and a sense of well-being only awaits our willingness to cooperate with God’s limitless magnanimity.”
― Gregory Boyle, quote from Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
“But what I thought, and what I still think, and always will, is that she saw me. Nobody else has ever seen me — me, Jenny Gluckstein — like that. Not my parents, not Julian, not even Meena. Love is one thing — recognition is something else.”
― Peter S. Beagle, quote from Tamsin
“I think being so passionate about something is a talent in itself.”
― Hiromu Arakawa, quote from Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 3
“As Coach explained his version of the day’s events to Dad and Sylvia on the brick drive of our house, Will finally decided to acknowledge me.”
― Cidney Swanson, quote from Rippler
“Love that bore me I bear back to my Origin with no loss, I float over the vomiter
thrilled with my deathlessness, thrilled with this endlessness I dice and bury,
come Poet shut up eat my word, and taste my mouth in your ear.”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Kaddish and Other Poems
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