The King wrote a letter to Churchill. It read: “My Dear Winston, I want to make one more appeal to you not to go to sea on D-Day. Please consider my own position. I am a younger man than you. I am a sailor and as King I am the head of all three services. There is nothing I would like better than to go to sea, although I have agreed to stay at home. Is it fair that you should then do exactly what I should have liked to do myself?”
He went on: “ You will see very little but you will be at considerable risk. You will be inaccessible at a critical time when vital decisions might have to be taken. However unobtrusive you may be, your very presence on board is bound to be a very heavy additional responsibility to the Admiral and Captain…”
Churchill stayed at home.
De Gaulle likewise was a prickly house guest. He had just arrived from Algiers and was livid to be told about the invasion – which his staff had had no part in planning – and that Eisenhower, rather than he, was to run a provisional government in France.
That the US Treasury had been printing ‘French occupation dollars’ was a further point of tension. De Gaulle, already deeply suspicious of what he saw as an Anglo-Saxon plot to marginalise France, objected to the term ‘occupation’.
It was at this point Eisenhower’s true greatness shone through. He had the ability to calm things down and was the embodiment of a coalition soldier, able to hold together a very fractious group.
Eisenhower had walked in the gardens of Southwick House with De Gaulle. They smoked, and the American let the Frenchman, whom he outranked by three stars, harangue him about the plan. In an inspired moment, Eisenhower turned and said “General, do you have any further advice for me?”
De Gaulle, acknowledging Eisenhower’s patience and position, then said “Mon General, if I were you I would delay no further” and he left. Churchill departed also, in a huff because he had not been allowed to interfere in any way. He said to the staff “good luck and God speed, but I’ve been told not to talk to you,” before storming off.
The Allies strike ‘a telling blow’ to occupiers
By early afternoon Juno, Sword, Gold and Utah beaches were largely stable and the situation at Omaha was improving, although many hours behind schedule. Lord Lovat and his Commandos, accompanied by piper Bill Millin, had relieved Major John Howard and the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry at the Bénouville bridges. Georges Gondrée, proprietor of the Café Gondreé, approached with champagne for Lovat. He was waved away with the words: “I’m working.”
The forces of 50th Division had pushed inland four miles from Gold beach towards the town of Creully and 47 Commando Royal Marines had taken Port-en-Bessin to close the gap with the US forces at Omaha. Caen, home to 60,000 civilians, was bombed at 13:30 by over 70 B-24s of the 2nd Bombardment Division in an attempt to cut German communication lines. Despite a leaflet drop over the town earlier, warning civilians of an Allied air attack, there were many casualties.