Mansfield Times

Kenneth Hammontree Portrays General Eisenhower in Avon Ohio Last Night

General Eisenhower on the D-Day LandingsPortrayed by Kenneth Neff Hammontree

Tonight, is the evening of July 6, 1944 and General Eisenhower is addressing the international press corps that has been flown across the English Channel for this exclusive press conference. This is Eisenhower’s first public comments on the D-Day invasion (Operation Overlord) and of its success.

Operation Overlord was the greatest amphibious operation the world had ever seen, a truly staggering feat of logistics that involved putting ashore on the Normandy beaches a total of: 176,475 men, 3,000 artillery pieces, 1,500 tanks and 15,000 assorted vehicles. Close to 8,000 fighting ships, merchant ships, and assault crafts were committed to the entire invasion force along with 10,500 air sorties.

Allied commanders secretly predicted to Eisenhower that as many as 10,000 men could be killed in the first 24 hours of the landings (The Longest Day) and that the invasion could be pushed back into the sea. Thankfully, they were overly pessimistic. Fewer than 4,500 Allied soldiers were killed on D-Day, and the total casualties were 8,422. This was in part due to the highly intricate Allied deception plans and the breaking of the Enigma Code that led Hitler and his military staff to believe the invasion would be at Pas-De-Calais, the narrowest point between England and France. The D-Day landings were the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Kenneth Neff Hammontree/Living History Productions302 Center Street, Ashland, Ohio 44805

Original source found here.