D-Day

While many will recall the D-Day invasion on its 70th anniversary, the focus of those thoughts will on the brave men who stormed the beaches and made headway into Nazi occupied France.  This was the most visible and most harrowing aspect of the invasion, but seldom recognized is  the logistical work and preparation that went in to retaining secrecy, while at the same time getting together arms, material, men, and ships to supply the largest modern-time invasion force.  How does one keep such a secret? Who worked behind the scenes to assure secrecy and the element of surprise?  It was a multi-pronged effort.  There was of course misleading, really false, material put out by the allies to create a diversion, the landing sites would not normally be considered as a location to mount a successful invasion, and of course the whole dummy division set up in another part of England with the auspices that it would be the invasion force, with General Patton as its commanding general, made up of inflatable rubber tanks, jeeps and the like, German intelligence fell for the ruse.  However, there are back stories that should not be forgotten.  The old saying goes that an army runs on its stomach, the men at the front are only one integral cog in a large wheel to a successful operation.  Others may not have been on the front line but their contributions were also important to the functioning of a well-kept secret operation.  I wish to recount two stories passed down through oral tradition.  Both involve Technical Sergeant Roy B. Hovel.

Roy Hovel, WWII photo

Entering the service as a private, and a recent law school graduate Hovel was drafted inducted in the Army in the summer of 1942.  Showing that the army has at least some level of intelligence, he would be sent for training in counter intelligence work, earning the rank of Corporal and later Technical Sergeant.  The dummy army division, and its rubber tanks were the result of army intelligence, but it was the little known Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) with the work of assuring no double agents, no spies, and no release of information dealing with the invasion. 

Yet, the first story begins well before the invasion.  Even though the decision to invade was made at the conference in Tehran, which would set forth the power of the Soviet Union and United States over the colonial interests and power of Britain, planning for such an event was long occurring. Before heading overseas, T Sgt Hovel was assigned for duty in the homeland, most often Detroit, and did investigation during the Detroit race riots in that World War II era.  But he also interviewed persons who had family, friends or had been in Europe or parts of Germany.  With an army marching on its stomach advance planners knew that good quality ports would be necessary following the invasion to supply the literally tons and tons of material that would be required to supply so huge an army.  This was not their grandfather’s army of the Spanish American war.  Instead of horses, which were not uncommon in the German Army, the US Army was heavily mechanized, perhaps too much so, and it depended upon machine, parts, and fuel to make its advance.  T Sgt Hovel would interview a man who had recent photographs of what would become one or two key ports on the French coast for the invasion.  This information would assist in preparation for securing and converting the ports to American and allied ships and their container systems.

Yet there is another story, perhaps more critical to the success of the invasion operation.  When sent overseas Hovel would be assigned to the camps and groupings related to the collection of soldiers and equipment for the invasion.  Specifically, however, was one day.  Loading over 150,000 men and supplies did not happen in one day, which may have been obvious even to the Germans.  After troops cleared quarters, part of the duty of the CIC field operations was to search through the quarters of every man who had to vacate the quarters for ships in the English Channel to discern what they may have left behind, that could be valuable if it fell in the wrong hands, or perhaps even clues as to whether information had been passed on.  Many an advantage has been obtained, or disadvantage felt, through the recovery (or loss) of a little known piece of information.  This seemingly thankless job would was not as unimportant as it may seem to us 70 years later.  T Sgt Hovel was going through the quarters of a general, who had just left to join the invasion force on a ship, when he came across a large binder or document titled Top Secret, Operation Overlord.  Today Operation Overlord is commonly known as the name for the D-Day invasion operation.  An operation to not only load ships with men and equipment, but the intended landing areas, and details of the plan of invasion, methods of driving out he occupiers.  Men would risk their lives, and it was on this invasion plan which Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight Eisenhower, had banked the D for Decision, and the allied success of the war, but back then the Technical Sergeant would not have recognized it being the title of the invasion.

Without looking through the large document he presented it to his superior officer.  With the ship on which the general had boarded having disembarked from the shore, the powers that be decided that his having left the whole document relating to the invasion plan in his quarters was egregious enough to warrant removal.  The general would be pulled off the ship and sent stateside.  So, for a brief point in time T Sgt Hovel held in his hands one of the most important documents of WWII. Some historians say that the D-Day invasion was the pivotal point of the twentieth century.  Yet, to Roy Hovel it was not as important as the ten children he would hold in those burly farm-hewn hands in his later years. Nonetheless, it is a small aspect of history.  As noted, something seemingly obscure or small often gives the advantage or disadvantage.  The world may be a different place today if that document had fallen into the hands of the Germans.  Efforts of those behind the scenes may not be filled with the adventure and loss of those on the front lines, but that does not mean they were not important to the effort.  Just ask the guy who had the job to make the coffee and peel the potatoes.