D-Day: The Longest Day

D-Day, The Longest Day: practising history and understanding one of the greatest events ever in modern history

Very often, significant events in history are glossed over all too quickly. This article describes a project I undertook with my Secondary 3 History students to deepen their understanding of this very important event in WWII, which the textbook dealt with rather too scantily.

WHO AM I AND WHAT DO I DO?

The history teacher is first and foremost a historian. Whenever we enter the classroom equipped with the latest and best 21st century pedagogical strategies and technological accessories, we ought to have “practised” history beforehand. Unfortunately, the multi-faceted nature of being a classroom teacher often overwhelms the simplicity of just interacting with historical sources, reconstructing stories, and making reasoned, objective observations.

Every time we face our students, we ought to avoid just trotting out “the facts” of history as given in the pages of “The Textbook.” As historians, our access to all manner of primary and secondary sources (often available online) is tremendous. Even in the process of imparting “historical” facts, information and data, one should be examining the relevant issues involved, evaluating factors afresh and seeking to explain one’s own personalised “version” of – what happened. When we thus approach the great events of history – revolutions, wars, tragedies, victories and achievements – there will always be a certain curious freshness to it all, which is often infectious in class.

After all, we want our students to “practise history” too, don’t we? And not just to score distinctions, right?

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH HISTORY?

The question was asked here last year: “What to do with history?” This is a real and honest question, especially if you, like me, are also involved in National Education in school. As it is, history provides much of the foundation for nation-building. It creates the collective memories that help to bring the nation into being. The shared celebrations of the nation’s great achievements – and the shared sorrow at its defeats – sustain and foster it.

This certainly is the experience of students in Singapore, where so much of National Education is founded on significant historical events. The Fall of Singapore in 1942 is the basis for Total Defence Day, the Race Riots of 1964 for Racial Harmony Day and, inevitably, Singapore’s day of independence in 1965 for our National Day celebrations.

History for nation building, however, can also potentially be misused. In the process of fixing such events in our collective psyche for the purpose of inculcating common national values, there is always the danger of creating an imbalanced view of the past. As Margaret MacMillan explains:

The histories that fed and still feed into nationalism draw on what already exists rather than inventing new facts. They often contain much that is true, but they are slanted to confirm the existence of the nation through time, and to encourage the hope that it will continue. [Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (2008) p 84]

MacMillan would have us all beware the dangers of slanting history, or writing “bad history,” which only tells part of complex stories: “Bad history also makes sweeping generalizations for which there is not adequate evidence and ignores awkward facts that do not fit. [Ibid, p 36]

What can we do with history? Well, for a start, we should seek to write and teach “good history.” We must “do our best to raise the public awareness of the past in all its richness and complexity.” MacMillan goes on to urge the historian: “We must contest the one-sided, even false, histories that are out there in the public domain.” [Ibid, p 36]

Our first function in class is to therefore ensure that our students receive a view of the past that is as objective and inclusive as possible.

To achieve this, it is also imperative to accept that there is no one, sacrosanct, view of historical events. Historical knowledge, argues the historian John Lukacs, is necessarily revisionist. There are gaps of historical knowledge that are, or ought to be, filled; but even that filling can never be permanent. Historical revisionism is simply the act of critically and carefully examining sources with a view of improving or correcting prevailing understandings. [John Lukacs, The Future of History (2011), p 143]

The teacher’s next function, therefore, is to provide opportunities for students of history to revise existing views of the past.

THE CRAFT OF HISTORIANS

In his seminal book, The Historian’s Craft, Marc Bloch suggested that the task of the historian was to deal with raw materials – documents, sources, data – from which historical understanding could be built upon. He wrote that one of the most difficult tasks of the historian is that of assembling those documents which he considers necessary. Subsequently, the historian must cross- examine and interrogate those very materials:

From the moment when we are no longer resigned to purely and simply recording the words of our witnesses, from the moment we decide to force them to speak, even against their will, cross- examination becomes more necessary than ever. Indeed it is the prime necessity of well-conducted historical research. [Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (1944)]

In other words, the historian must search out all available materials on his subject, which will then prompt him to consider several perspectives before deciding on the most plausible line of reasoning. The historian must think critically about his subject matter, and not merely settle for what is commonly accepted.

Simply put, Bloch would have us practise history even before we teach history, and confront these numerous opinions, wrestle with them and consider their respective merits before settling down on one.

In 1961, the left-wing historian E.H. Carr pondered the great question of what is history, in his book, What Is History?6 He rejected the simplistic, empirical view that the historian’s work merely consisted of the accretion of “facts.” He claimed that:

The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate. [Carr, What Is History?]

Carr divided “facts” into two categories. There were the “facts of the past,” historical information which historians deemed as unimportant, and “historical facts,” or information which historians have decided are important. Carr saw that historians quite simply turned “facts of the past” into “historical facts,” often based on their own personal biases, convictions and agendas. In this way, history was an unending dialogue between the past and the present. [“The only steady engagement [with the past] was the conviction that the present comes out of the past or that the past has led to the present – which is like saying that there has been one event leading to another and that history is the story of these causal connections which can be reported and understood only in the form of narratives.” – Peter Munz, “The story of my engagements with the past,” in Alun Munslow ed., Authoring the Past: Writing and Rethinking History (2013)]

THE DRAMA OF D-DAY, 6 June 1944

Believe me, gentlemen, the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive! For the Allies, but also for the Germans, it will be the longest day ... the longest day – German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel [Rommel’s words became the basis of the best-selling history book on D-Day, The Longest Day (1959) by Cornelius Ryan. It was made into an excellent movie in 1962, with the same name]

The subject of Operation Overlord may seem “small and insignificant” in view of the total GCE O Level history syllabus, but this belies the fact that it remains one of the most significant days in human history. It is a subject replete with all the drama, emotions, tragedy and triumph which are key ingredients for an unmatchable good story. Its value as a CCE lesson is priceless.

Even as the commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight Eisenhower saw off the first airborne paratroopers into the twilight on the 5th June 1944, Operation Overlord was not a certain success. Heavy casualties were expected among the first waves of soldiers landing at the Normandy beaches the next morning. Anyone who has sat through the first 20 minutes of the ground-breaking movie Saving Private Ryan will shudder at the thought of the sheer carnage, fear, bloodshed, death and destruction that was the lot of the young eighteen year old soldier that day on Omaha Beach.

And yet, it had to be done. Much of Europe had groaned under the yoke of Nazi tyranny for four years. The only way to prise the unwanted occupiers out of their entrenched defences was by a sea invasion. The planning for D-Day had taken a year. The troops would gather from Britain, America, Canada and several other Allied countries. Countless rehearsals had taken place, not without the sacrifice of human lives. An elaborate and intricate web of deceit had been weaved, employing bogus armies, inflatable tanks, wooden artillery, double agents, spies and some very clever intelligence officers, to mislead the Germans into thinking that there was a massive Allied army preparing to cross the English Channel and land in Calais. There was no such army. The Germans were fooled into deploying their best tank regiments to defending the northern stretch of French beaches against a phantom army.

Imagine if the ruse had failed; if the whole plan had been discovered by the enemy or leaked by some careless tongue (it almost was!) Then Operation Overlord and D-Day would have been a shambles. Then Europe would have remained under Nazi oppression. Britain herself might have been conquered after all. Her Empire would have crumbled. Singapore might not have been liberated in 1945. We would not have returned to British colonial administration but might have been Syonan-to till who knows when.

In fact, the first impressions made by British General Bernard Montgomery on 1 January 1944, after reading the draft plans for Operation Overlord, hardly inspired confidence:

The initial landing is on too narrow a front and is confined to too small an area .... a total of 16 Divisions will be landed on the same beaches as were used for the initial landings. This would lead to the most appalling confusion on the beaches, and the smooth development of the land battle would be made extremely difficult – if not impossible .... Further Divisions come pouring in, all over the same beaches .... Control of the beaches and so on would be very difficult; the confusion, instead of getting better, would get worse. [“First impressions of Operation Overlord,; by General Montgomery, Allied Ground Forces Commander, dated 1 January 1944]

Even on the 5th of June, just hours before the launch, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, was anxious enough to lament:

I am very uneasy about the whole operation. At the best it will fall so very very far short of the expectations of the bulk of the people, namely those who know nothing of its difficulties. At the worst it may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war. I wish to God it were safely over. [Richard Holmes, D-Day Remembered (2014)]

No wonder General Eisenhower felt the tremendous weight of burden when he finally said:

Well, I’m quite positive we must give the order.... Well boys, there it is, I don’t see how we can possibly do anything else. [Martin Gilbert, D-Day (2004), p 116]

No wonder he sent out his heartfelt letter to each and every soldier on the eve of D-Day which sought to steady the nerves as each man faced his own uncertain future:

Success could not be guaranteed. No wonder therefore, that Eisenhower should scribble a secret note - taking full responsibility should Operation Overlord fail - on some scrap of paper that same night as he was driven back to his quarters, having visited and bade farewell to those brave young men of the 101st Airborne Division:

Owing to his understandable anxiety, Eisenhower even managed to date his note wrongly.

THE LESSON PACKAGE

I put together a teaching and learning package for 3E students with the simple objective of encouraging them to “practise” being “a historian,” rather than simply being “a history student.” In addition to sharpening their exam skills (SBQ), I wanted them to nurture their “historian” skills.

The overarching strategy adopted was Historical Inquiry.

Through using sources to investigate historical questions, students are given the opportunity to see that history is not just a settled collection of facts, but rather a rigorously constructed set of arguments. As students encounter new and in some cases contradictory evidence, they are asked to reconsider their initial views, learning that interpretations of the past can change based on the available historical evidence. [“What is an Inquiry Lesson” teachinghistory.org]

Comparison of primary and secondary film sources After providing an overview of the contents of Chapter 5, I introduced students to snippets of two Film-Sources. These were:

• A British Pathe 1944 newsreel “D-Day, Greatest Combined Operation in World’s History” (a primary source)

• Episode 1 of the 2001 “Band of Brothers” series (a secondary source).

A focussed discussion followed, comparing primary with secondary sources. The aim of this activity was to promote critical thinking about the essential differences between primary sources and secondary sources, as well as their relative utility value.

Tutorial Assignment For the students, this was a choice of 3 subjects, each with a Question crafted to encourage historical thinking, interpretation and reconstruction. Each question came with 5-6 sets of primary documents (facsimile copies) in “raw form” eg memos, diaries, letters, pamphlets, secret notes, instruction manuals, drafts of speeches, pocket guides.

The Inquiry Questions and sources were:

1) Why is Winston Churchill considered a great leader?

• Winston Churchill’s School Report Card, dated 1884.

• Hand-written letter by Churchill, on 21 November 1915, during the First World War.

• The draft of a speech made by Churchill at the height of the Battle of Britain, July-August 1940.

• Personal telegram from Churchill to President Roosevelt, dated 25 December 1942.

• Letter of Invitation from Westminster College to Churchill, dated 3 October 1945.

2) How did the common soldier prepare for battle?

• Letter from Canadian Lance Sergeant Edwin Owen Warden to his wife, written on a boat on 5 June 1944, while waiting to cross the English Channel to France.

• First-Aid instruction leaflet issued to British soldiers in Normandy, France, to help them deal with battle casualties and injuries before the arrival of trained medics.

• Pages from the booklet A Pocket Guide to France, issued to US soldiers, including essential phrases, and background information on the country and people.

• Diary of Staff Sergeant Murray Goldman of the 3rd Medical Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, US 82nd Airborne Division

3) Was Operation Overlord a success?

• First impressions of Operation Overlord, by General Montgomery, Allied Ground Forces Commander. Dated 1 January 1944.

• Top secret notes of meeting of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), on 2 June 1944.

• Handwritten note by General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, on 5 June 1944. This note was wrongly dated (!); it took full personal responsibility of the D-Day landings. This was to be published if the landings had failed.

• The 7 June 1944 edition of Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper of the US army in Europe, with first news of the D-Day landings.

• Letter from General Montgomery to his friend Major General Frank Simpson, summarizing the situation on Normandy two days after D-Day.

• Aerial leaflet dropped by the Allied forces on the German troops to facilitate their safe surrender.

The Task: Re-writing History Students were asked to “re-write” an existing segment of their history textbook where the subject of their choice was discussed.

The aim of this particular exercise was allow students to write their own version of history. Since there is no one standard view of historical events, historians are always able to create their own story of the past. This is possible with a careful and judicious use of historical sources.

ENGAGING STUDENTS TO THINK HISTORICALLY

The following are my observations of my students’ learning experience using the package:

Understanding the Big-Picture. In order to appreciate the value of primary sources, students first had to be familiar with the “big picture.” With the help of teacher- lectures, handout notes, maps and textbook narratives, students needed to grasp the basic facts of Operation Overlord, against the backdrop of the total campaign to defeat Nazi Germany.

Creating chronology. The ability to think chronologically is essential for any history student. It was therefore a useful side-exercise to guide students into creating their own timeline, between 1939 and 1945. Major events and dates were entered into the timeline. Students had to decide on which dates and events were significant enough to be included.

Interacting with the sources. The next very big task was to sift through, read and comprehend the primary sources given. This was challenging since all the sources were provided in “raw-form” and not transcribed. However, the benefits were that students could experience the basic emotions, feelings, tension and anxiety through documents such as the hand- written notes of the participants.

Assessing Utility of sources The sources had to be examined against the background of the larger events and then placed in the correct place on the timeline. Students had to decide how useful these sources were in light of the existing known facts. Did the sources provide new information on the event or the subject? Was the value of the source in its presenting a new perspective, or a first-hand account, or an expert opinion?

Re-constructing “history” Re-writing the relevant portion of their textbook was a very enlightening experience for the students. The process taught them that what is considered as “history” is really a version or view of past events. Careful use of primary sources allowed students to write their version of the past and in this way, practise being historians. Most of the “re-written” histories produced were simple improvements to existing accounts, using first-hand sources to make history more tangible, more humane, more personal and more immediate.

THINKING HISTORICALLY AND EXAM SKILLS [Do refer to the excellent folder “A Guide to Teaching and Learning for Upper Secondary History” produced by the CPDD, MOE, Singapore in 2012]

Thinking historically is a life-skill. In fact, it was boldly proclaimed, not so long ago, that – “We are all historians.”

History, after all, is past human experience recollected. Thus our own everyday experience is the substance of history .... To construct coherent stories about this collective experience – something we all do – is to create histories. [Tom Holt, Thinking Historically: Narrative, Imagination and Understanding (1990), p 9]

However, Sam Wineburg would now argue that it is not so simple after all. Simply recollecting past experiences, is not true historical thinking. Neither is the normal, innate human yearning to connect to traditions and stories that have brought us to the present.

Wineburg’s tantalising proposition is that historical thinking is actually quite unnatural. It “requires an orientation to the past informed by disciplinary canons of evidence and rules of argument.” It seeks the verification of sources and questions mere stories.

Wineburg asserts that the discipline of historical thinking involves:

... interrogating sources, putting them on the stand and demanding that they yield their truths or falsehoods..... [Sam Wineburg, “Unnatural and essential: the nature of historical thinking,” in The Historical Association (December 2007)]

There is yet one more dimension that always looms large in our classrooms.

In the midst of the organised melee to drill our students to excel in their studies and obtain as many distinctions as possible, it is sometimes easy to forget that there is a subtle difference between “historical thinking” and “exam skills.” The former is a life-skill involving reading, thinking and understanding; the latter is essentially about writing suitable answers for exam questions.

In a pressure-cooker society where paper qualifications do count for a lot, it is almost understandable why so much attention is paid to helping students grapple and wrestle with, and master, the exam skills. We do well, in our classrooms, to consciously find a healthy balance between nurturing the historical understanding of our students, and providing them with the tools, writing-frameworks and structures to write out their answers in the best ways possible.

Haven’t we all encountered those students who had a great love for history, who could contribute the most obscure facts, ask the most stimulating questions and engage in intricate debates, only for them to show a mediocre performance in their written work and exams?

Or how about the many students who will quietly, pay full attention and diligently adhere to all your “frameworks” and “steps” to answering the near perfect Source-based question and Structured-essay question, only to display scant interest in anything beyond getting the coveted “A” grade?

The first-kind of student needs to brush up on written exam skills. The second needs to cultivate the skills and discover the joys of historical thinking.

Both need a good history teacher in the classroom.