You have your memories, Uncle Ernie’s transcribed memories, of how it was on D-Day and before from his unique viewpoint. You were
almost two years old at the time but you have read how it was and have seen
several films of which it was a part. In your mind the 1962 film you saw as a
twenty year old, “The Longest Day” is still the best and clearest film
interpretation and being filmed in black and white it was more realistic as a
‘you are there, newsreel style’ type of film.
0827 hours. If I remember correctly Eisenhower was the only general
since Caesar whose troops successfully crossed the Rhine River. I remember he
gave a speech at one of the anniversaries of the battle saying (paraphrased),
“We have to find a way to a lasting peace.” He is one of my focus heroes along
with Churchill and Caesar too. I volunteered to join the Air Force twice and
was turned down both times as ‘1-Y’. One was after high school and the other
during my third year of ROTC at Otterbein. I appreciate and have respect for
the best aspects of our military. I respect all those who have served their
best. Once dead however I would hope all is resolved, personally and otherwise.
Living is a very complex circumstance. The very act of surviving for many of us
creatures entails deception. Nevertheless some people scream for the truth and
others suggest ‘that God have mercy for our souls.’ I would hope that if a
G---D exists that G---D has understanding for our hearts and minds and our
limiting circumstances first. Understanding would be enough. I don’t know what
my sins are in this context.
What you mean to say is that you don’t trust
humankind to have laid the full framework for a sin is in any given
circumstance. For instance, “Do not kill” does not appear to jive with any
military in a battle or otherwise survival situation. – Amorella
0906
hours. Thank you for the clarification. Exactly on the mark though I do not
know how to express this myself. Humans attempt to resolved or rationalize
these things. This is a trickster’s world by definition, Amorella. Of course
this allows for a smoldering of dark humor to make a faint shadow of smoke in the
light of day. But enough, I need to put the segments together and set up a near
final draft.
Take a break first, boy, and enjoy the cool
morning sunshine while it lasts. – Amorella
You are
home and have the grass to mow before dusk or tomorrow morning. You called Kim
and confirmed Sunday afternoon. She just called and is talking to Carol
presently. Later, - Amorella
You revised the first paragraph of the
chapter. Continue on with this. When you complete the chapter to (final) draft
quality we add it to the post and to iCloud. – Amorella
1052
hours. I can do this now that I realize how this ‘experimenting’ is supposed to
work. I certainly like the concept.
1154
hours. I completed the first segment. I feel it is now much more clearly written.
You
are again sitting in the shade at Rose Hill Cemetery to the right of the
‘Hageman’ family monument. – Amorella
1701
hours. I completed the (final) draft of Chapter 2.1.
When you find yourself accessible drop the
chapter in and add. Carol is on page 456 of her book The Drop. You are
suddenly in a relaxation from the inside out. – Amorella
I am
relaxed, that’s the gist of it, and on my way with the first chapter better
completed. We move on with thirteen chapters to go. Awesomely cool.
***
Chapter One
The Supervisor has a little saying still:
Ring-a-ring
o'rosies
A
pocket full of posies
"A-tishoo!
A-tishoo!"
We
all fall down!
We
rise from clay
On
judgment day
Be
we dead or still alive.
The Dead 2.1
Merlyn is
sitting alone in his curragh, in the spiritual memory of the small wooden frame
boat of stretched animal hides, on his memory of a slow moving mountain stream.
Glancing to the east he sees his favorite old tall oak that centers his sanctuary,
created from his seventh century of living in Earth circumstances. He thinks, I
am a dream in a dream in a dream and Merlyn then let’s it go as he cannot
imagine more.
From
nowhere nearby the Supervisor
observes a middle-aged Merlyn sitting in the pleasure of his own company for
meditation. He is as a lonely flower blossom on a high rocky mountain crag.
Merlyn considers who he is but not what he might in the spiritual future
Transmutation. Often things are not as they appear in this expanded World of
the Dead, this HeavenOrHellOrBothOrNeither, as those recently converted marsupial
humanoid Dead call this place.
Merlyn’s
position is similar to that of Schrodinger’s theoretical cat – he is half a
spirit living in the hands and fingers of Richard Greystone on Earth, and he is
half a spirit existing in the Combined Worlds of the Dead since the Second
Rebellion of the Dead. Merlyn’s dreams continue the story that begins in the Lightning, or so told by the marsupial
humanoids and other higher conscious beings scattered about various universes that
began within the first universe that mattered in the mirror of the spiritual
light into the physical.
One
doesn’t become a Merlyn without internal order and reason first. He learns as
he thinks and nearly always considers alternatives at his disposal. Presently
he is slumbering nearly surrounded by a seemingly omniscient spiritual fog,
Merlyn is a blossom rarely seen and heard but through his dead friends. Richard
the Living has never seen but perhaps has heard the tone of Merlyn’s voice
once, but Richard the twin is as unsure as Merlyn about his own
existential-like existence.
*
“Hello,
Merlyn” says the Supervisor. “You
hear me well enough.”
“I
do. Here is my thought. I do not understand this current Community of Dead in
which we exist. We Earth Dead revolted for a second time against you and
recently won. I am here to speak to the Living. The Communities of the Dead
have changed with this Second Rebellion, that is Earth centuries after the
First Spiritual Rebellion during the time of Homer, the Storyteller. I have
shown everything in dream-story forms, in chapters with four segments. Now, I
have fourteen chapters to work in this unbound book. I rather like not being
bound; the dreams are more intensely real. But where do I go from here? I feel mostly
unfilled.”
“And
you too are unfilled Merlyn,” responds
the Supervisor. “Even half alive and half dead your consciousness remains
unfilled.”
Wide-eyed
and sitting tense in the curragh, Merlyn stares forward into the sanctuary’s
fog declaring, “This then is the natural state of all humanity, Living or Dead
– to be unfulfilled?”
“It
is the natural state of the Dead and the Living,” comments the Supervisor coolly.
Merlyn
adjusts his body that does not exist but memory-like he continues peering
forward as if he could see the Supervisor directly in front of him
above the forward frame of the boat. Merlyn asks simply, “What else exists for these individual
and collected consciousness of our humanity?”
The Supervisor smiles as if SheanHe
had heard the smallest tiny piece of humor in what may be the longest of time
if SheanHe were the least bit physical. SheanHe
considers the humor behind this spontaneous smile and wonders – what would
Merlyn think could he see my slightly upturned lips? He has no eyes yet he
still acts with a sense of what vision is. I would have thought he would have
learned something from what being dead is. He moves in the memory of body and
brain, forgetting he has neither. He sits here
in his small boat on a river that is not and never has been but a construction
within the memory of his six senses.
The
collective consciousnesses of two species exist here and are kept simple and living with memory as if there is
nothing else in these Worlds of the Dead. These Worlds are as a dressing of a
horse whose hairs tip the humanity of the brush. Lightning continues from Before-the-matter-of-material-physics
through to a portrait that has yet to be painted, let alone framed – this so
considers the Supervisor.
Nearly
fog, Merlyn stares ahead, muttering, “I see nothing. I know nothing.”
The Brothers 2.1
“Can
you believe the girls are still looking for new hats?” gripes Richard.
Robert,
sitting in the driver’s seat, sighs, shakes his head sideways in his typically
reasonable manner, “Deal with it Richie.”
“It
just pisses me off. We bought our caps in sight of ten minutes and we’ve been
waiting in the car ever since.”
“I
don’t know why we do this every year. The women go out and buy all this stuff
for Christmas and want to have it wrapped even though we know what we are
getting, even the daughters know.” He fiddles with the steering wheel of the
Lexus, “It is just a waste of time.”
“It’s
a cultural façade,” comments Richard nonchalantly.
“I’m
not talking about Christmas. I’m talking about the present wrapping.”
“It’s
time wasting, like you said. It was okay to wrap stuff when the kids were young
and didn’t know any better, but our kids have a kid.”
“They’ll
just say it’s for the kid,” mimics Robert also nonchalantly.
“Women.”
“You
know the old cliché.” The brothers’ minds recollected the old banalities about
marriage and relationships.
“Sometimes
it would be nice to not be here, to just go away to some deserted isle and contemplate
the absurdity,” comments Richard.
Robert
taps his brother on the shoulder, grins and responds, “That reminds me of the
incident in London where the fellow wanted to kick you out of Westminster. I
wanted to be on a deserted island at the moment and contemplate the absurdity
of the charge.”
“It
is absurd,” laughs Richard. “We just left the Poets’ Corner and the old geezer
says to me, “This is a church, hat off please.” I immediately felt bad,
recollects Richard. People always tell me to take my beret off out of respect;
they didn’t say so, but that is what they meant. We had just visited Chaucer’s
encased remains. He is the first who sparked me with a literary interest in the
human condition. He adds, “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote; The
drought of Marche hath perced to the roote.”
“What
are you thinking about bro?”
“Geoffrey
Chaucer. He changed my life with . . .
‘And
specially, from every shires ende
Of
Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The
holy blisful martir for to seke,
That
hem hath holpen, when that they were seke.’”
“A
good doctor would have been better than the martyr, don’t you think?” asks
Robert respectfully.
“We
took that pilgrimage too, Robbie.”
“We
did, but we had poems to write didn’t we Dickie.”
“People
had an innocence in those days. Even today, at least when we were in Canterbury
the last time, a single burning candle set on the floor near the Chair of the
first Archbishop, St. Augustine. I thought that very cool, moving even, that in
this day and age someone would light a candle in memory of Archbishop Thomas
Becket who had been murdered at the cathedral.”
“It
is inspiring when anyone remembers,” adds Robert while thinking on one of his
favorite poems “In Remembrance of . . ..”
Just
then, Connie and Cindy come out of Macy’s with their load of hat bags. Both
sister chatting – listening and talking as if it were a conversation in simultaneous
translation.
“Finally,
we are out of here,” comments Richard with relief.
“I
couldn’t have stood another minute,” adds Robert, whose point is missed by
Richard.
Once
the women loaded the car and sitting comfortably in the back seat, Connie
enthusiastically asks, “Where are we going for lunch?”
“I
would like the Tea and Sandwich Express,” replies Cindy.
“Why
don’t we park there,” says Robert.
“And,
we’ll walk across the street to Taco Bell,” completes Richard.
“What
have you two been talking about?”
“Memories
mostly,” responds Robert.
“Were
we in the conversation?” questions Connie.
“Of
course. We were thinking about our last trip to London,” notes Richard, “and
Westminster.”
“Oh,”
says Cyndi, “you were talking about being asked to take off your beanie.”
“Beanie,
that’s a good one,” notes Rob.
“You
know it’s a beret,” directs Richard in a hint of disappointment.
She
responds, “Just trying to get your goat, dear.”
“Remember
when you two were college freshmen and had to wear those ridiculous beanies,”
says Connie.
“I
kind of liked them,” comments Cyndi. “They both looked cute and innocent.”
“No
one’s is ever innocent,” remarks Robert.
“Babe’s
are,” badgers Cyndi.
“Depends
on their age, isn’t that right, Robbie,” rebuts Richie.
“Hey,
our two beautiful babes here are always innocent,” replies his twin. All four
laugh.
***
Grandma’s Story 2.1
Criteria
and Renaldo had a big wedding in Greece. Plenty of money flowed from Criteria’s
side of the family. Once it is established that Scottish Queen Igraine is a
cousin Criteria buys land and a comfortable house fit for the newly endowed
Lady and Lordship in Scotland. Both give up previous Catholic duties as story
gatherers and live peacefully on the Isle of Arran off the southwest coast of
Scotland where the warmer Gulf Stream flows. The birth of their first child
brings immediate problems, says Grandma.
*
Criteria
lies exhausted. Two servants, Kirsten and her sister, Flora, work to control
the birth baby’s periodic seizures. Between the baby’s muscle twitching and
salivating, the child stares blankly and falls limp. The babe rejects any
substance. Crying would start then stop. The open eyes become motionlessness.
This sets Lord Renaldo on his knees in fully intense private prayer.
Now
in her late thirties Criteria is seized by the newly felt pain of a mother’s
world immediately recognizes that praying is not the answer.
Two
days and nights fly by. The newborn boy sporadically takes in nourishment then
lies still only to be plagued with outbursts and seizures. Everyone in the household becomes close
to physical and emotional exhaustion.
*
This
child should not take so long to die, is the silently unshared thinking. This
concludes mercifully with a ‘May the good Lord take him now.’
“His
head is fighting his body,” says the servant Kirsten.
“How
can a newborn know which is which?” asks Flora.
“Angels
know things,” notes Renaldo. “He is a fighter.” He thinks, this boy is a warrior.
If he survives, he will become a warrior for God. If he dies, he will rise as a
new angel among the rest. His body moves in spite of orders his head. Doubts
rise in Renaldo’s mind like blackened suns. A retired order of God should not
be the Lord of anything, he thinks. What would Criteria have me do besides
pray? What else can I as a retired monk do?
*
“I
see a runner,” says Flora the next mid-morning. “A strange man running this way
in the courtyard.” Silence settles in for a brief reaffirmation.
“It is Merlyn!” shouts Renaldo suddenly,
“Merlyn! Merlyn is here at our manor! Merlyn is here!”
Tam,
the head servant, opens the door and immediately bows. “It is an honor, a
blessing. The baby. You came to help the baby.”
Merlyn
acknowledges the bow with a slighter one. He hears the immediate cry up the
stairs. He commands, “Let me see
this child. I shall have my way with him.”
Shortly
Merlyn is holding the boy. The swaddling clothed babe trembles at the fingers
while his elbows shake to a different rhythm. “Get me sea salt,” he orders, and
head servant Tam is on his way.
Merlyn
holds the child carefully and observes the boy’s every movement and recognizes
there was an order to it. The twitching slows and the blank staring begins.
With a blinking the boy drools. Limpness. A few drops of urine. The tiny,
vulnerable seeming infringed upon body stiffens. The twitching begins at the
extremity of one limb or another. An elbow or a knee would then quiver.
Trembling and quivering and crying or screaming commences.
Merlyn
sees the boy in and out of this world both at once and suddenly foreshadows his
own fate -- how it is it that I, Merlyn, will experience this terrible
sensation in my own life? How is it that I will find myself in two places at
once like this poor child . . . I am stuck frozen and flat in a
future place. The cold stone surrounds a pond of stars. I am here then and now.
I am the shaman dancing. A shaman I do not know looks at me and points to a not
so bright star, and says “We are from there,” then he points to the soil beneath
my feet, and continues, “to here.” Here, his vision ends.
*
It
seems half a day, which it is not, when Tam returns with a sack of sea salt.
Merlyn makes a solution in a bowl of water and put a cloth to soak within it. He
takes the cloth and squeezes a few drops into the child’s mouth. He does this several
times in the afternoon, and thus Merlyn saves the firstborn son of Lady
Criteria and Lord Renaldo. By evening the young babe become a mite stronger on
his way to being a healthier and well-reasoned child.
Merlyn the
Magician has an unknowing trick up his sleeve
His mind is
in a nature for his dreams to slide and weave.
***
Diplomat Pouch 2.1
The
three marsupial humanoids and three Homo sapiens sit around the usual table in the usual fashion with various
daiquiris combinations and side bowls of assorted Earth spreadable cheeses and
wheat crackers.
Have
we left yet, wonders Blake Williams while glancing studiously at his sister Pyl
and brother-in-law Justin.
“What
are you thinking, Blakie?” asks Pyl.
“We’d
like to know?” smiles Friendly. The others congenially follow suit.
“Let’s
go,” says Yermey, “follow up.”
Blake
let’s out a little laugh commenting, “It feels like we’re in the Twilight Zone.
My mind is racing with questions.” He chuckles again, “I am thinking – ‘Have we
left yet?’”
The
sunny communial laughter spontaneously rises from the table like a gift sent
from Heaven. That’s what travels from Friendly’s mind through heart and settles
into her soul. Her impulse is to stand but she does not. She declares, “Blake,
we have been on the way since a few seconds after Ship closed the door.”
“No
turning back, Blake,” notes Justin in a tone more meant for himself than anyone
else.
Friendly
fills in quickly. “Ship will fill you in on the manners and social particulars
of our culture. You can practice them on us; be rest assured that like Ship, we
three are your friends and legal guardians, not guards. This trip will take
about three months your time. Ship’s time is set accordingly your room wall
times will keep you posted – not to where you are, but what time it is in earth
days minutes and seconds until our arrival time.”
“Much
like a GPS,” adds Blake comfortably. “Hey, we can understand that.”
“We
like to think of our location as within ourselves,” comments Hartolite. “Ship
is our pouch and we await the time pleasantly until we leave.”
“Then
does it get unpleasant?” asks Pyl with a paused smile.
“Very
good,” responds Yermey in a respectful delay. He reasons, I like this woman,
her smile is as comforting to me as Friendly’s. Very odd, this is. This Pyl is
but a babe in the woods, but she shines anyway.
Again,
the relief of intimate communial laughter follows the brief quiet after Pyl’s singular
attempt at wit.
“Why
is it, Hartolite; that you refer to Ship as a male when you think of him as
having a pouch you are surviving in?” asks Justin in some unrealized
irritation.
Hartolite’s eyes shoot kindness with the
comment, “Justin, Ship is a male because most of our males would rather serve
than lead. Our women protect first, and that is a major aspect of our society.
Our men, the majority, would rather focus on making our lives easier to live.
More men than women built Ship. It is our culture.” She stops abruptly fearing
she is going to be regretfully misunderstood.
“I
like that,” comments Blake. “Let the women lead. They tend to be better at it
anyway.
Justin
holds up quietly, understanding Blake’s tone is easier than the quick memory of
the retributive tone in Hartolite. Her face though, thinks Justin instinctively,
appears to show contentment. Hartolite knows who she is and acts accordingly.
These people are interesting to observe, but I suppose they consider us
interesting also. This is going to be an adventure, no doubt about it.
Pyl
casually smiles Friendly’s way. We two are more alike, she surmises. We like to
get things done and sometimes we find men like Yermey and Blake annoying thorns
in our side. I look forward to time we two sit and talk about how it is being
female in our respective cultures. I think it is not really so different.
Blake
waits patiently for what’s next without conscious thought. ‘We are in this
until the conclusion; we might as well make the best of it. That’s what we are
here for.’ These two statements cover Blake’s bottom line.
Hartolite
has concerns about Ship contacting HomePlanets and stating the obvious — we are
bringing three earthling primate volunteers home for an introduction to our
culture. Machinery will work this out before our people see our homecoming as a
fact. Ship would have never allowed this if he and the other machines did not
see this as a favorable outcome for us. Then, out of the blue, a fresh thought
– our trip to Earth and this outcome was
secretly manipulated by machinery in advance to this similar outcome.
Hartolite
suddenly feels much better about this whole otherwise surreptitious operation.
She thinks confidentially, ‘I will share this with Friendly when we are alone.’
Deeper and secretly within herself Hartolite realizes, ‘we two will be
cognizant of something Yermey has not yet contemplated.
***
** **
70TH ANNIVERSARY OF INVASION
Westerville's Ernsberger helped set date for D-Day
By Andrew King
Thursday
June 5, 2014 3:48 PM
When June 6 rolls around each
year, many take a moment to remember those who were lost as part of D-Day, the
largest seaborne invasion in history and one of the pivotal battles of World
War II.
Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary
of the invasion.
But for longtime Westerville
resident Warren "Ernie" Ernsberger, the day brings back memories of
being enveloped in a secret mission to choose the day for the attack, when as a
young man his knowledge of weather forecasting brought him into the company of
giants.
In the spring of 1944, Ernsberger
was a 22-year-old lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Forces, stationed with the
Royal Air Force at Medmenham British Intelligence General Headquarters, about
40 miles outside London.
He had enlisted as a 21-year-old
meteorology cadet after attending meteorology school at UCLA for nine months.
When he enlisted, he never
anticipated much of a weighty job to do the war.
"I thought, 'In this job,
I'll probably be back of the lines, if anything. Or stuck in an airport
somewhere,' " Ernsberger said last week.
Near the end of May 1944,
Ernsberger received a call that told him he was to meet with Gen. Dwight D.
Eisenhower and a secret committee in London. Eisenhower had been appointed
Supreme Commander of Allied Forces at the time.
A car deployed straight from
London picked Ernsberger up shortly after the call, and took him to a meeting
that he said was filled with generals and colonels, including Eisenhower,
George S. Patton and Omar Bradley, all key American military leaders in World
War II and the Normandy invasion. Ernsberger was immediately intimidated by his
surroundings.
"When I think back, it
scares the hell out of me," he said. "I was 23. I had a lot of life
experience at that point, but not that much life experience. ... I thought,
'What the hell am I doing here?' I was in a state of shock at that point."
But Ernsberger did belong in the
room, and his meteorology experience gave him an important role in planning the
attack.
After the committee narrowed down
the options of locations on the Normandy beaches, Ernsberger was given the task
of determining when it would be best to carry out the attack based on
weather patterns, cloud cover and the tide.
It was even more obvious that he
was as important as anyone else in the room when Bradley turned to him and
said, "At this table, you're a general, too," he said.
Ernsberger worked tirelessly for
the next several days, and got daily reports from pilots flying from the United
States to London who had observed weather movements. After careful
deliberation, he chose June 6 as the optimal time, citing the correct weather
and the high tide that would allow allied boats to approach as close as
possible, and give paratroopers the correct conditions above.
When he presented his findings,
Eisenhower addressed him at the very beginning of the meeting, telling him,
"Since you have the most important report today, you can start."
But even at that point,
Ernsberger didn't realize the importance of his work. He said Eisenhower called
him days later, waking him up from a dead sleep to verify the forecast was
still accurate and that no changes needed to be made.
Out of instinct, Ernsberger
quickly replied that everything was unchanged.
"I had been sleeping for
seven or eight hours at the time," Ernsberger laughed. "Lots of
things could have changed, I realized later."
On the day of the attack, with
150,000 Allied troops deployed to invade Europe, Ernsberger was assigned to
take photos from above. From 8,000 feet in the air, he was higher than the
paratroopers and the supply planes, and saw the carnage unfold below him.
"I think I aged 20 years
that day," he said.
When he returned to Medmenham, he
went straight to his bunk, unable to shake the numb feeling of seeing thousands
of men charge to their deaths.
"I had no concept of the
scope of what was involved and the thousands and thousands of troops that were
involved," he said. "Seeing all that down below and all the bodies
floating and the carnage, it was just beyond consciousness."
Nearly 70 years later, the
memories of D-Day have stuck with Ernsberger, much to his chagrin. He says he
doesn't like to think about what he saw and what he was a part of, but knows
how important it was to the war and to history.
"I try not to think about
it," he said. "But every time it's mentioned, it all comes back. It
still seems as unreal as it did that day."
Despite aging 20 years more than
the average person, Ernsberger, 93, now lives in his quiet Uptown Westerville
home. He's lived in the city since he was 15, and he and his wife Patricia
(Patsy), 93, never moved when he returned from the war.
Since the war, he has been
incredibly active in the Westerville community. He served on City Council
between 1955-72, owned four different businesses with Patsy, and has been
involved with Otterbein's theater program and the Westerville Historical
Society.
Seven decades removed from the
headiness of D-Day planning, he says he knows his race is nearly run. He was
diagnosed with lung cancer nine months ago. His vision has failed. But he still
visits Patsy in her assisted living home every afternoon.
Like the rest of his life, he
takes his condition lightly.
"I've lived plenty," he
laughed.
And though no military mementos
or memorabilia are prominent in his home, his memories of influencing one of
the most important battles in history remain.
"I can't believe it," he said. "But I
saw it. It happened. It's real. It's almost more than you can grasp."
Selected from -
http://www.thisweeknews DOT com/content/stories/westerville/news/2014/06/03/70th
+
** **
** **
GUEST COLUMN
Young Ernsberger was at the table with generals, setting date
for D-Day
By Patricia Ernsberger
Thursday
June 5, 2014 2:28 PM
Normandy Project
Westerville’s
Ernsberger helped set date for D-Day
When June 6 rolls around each
year, many take a moment to remember those who were lost as part of D-Day, the
largest seaborne invasion in history and one of the pivotal battles of World
War II.
In the spring of 1944, Europe had
been heavily bombed by American and British planes; first using American B-24s
followed by B-17s. The first targets were military bases, and then the bombing
began to concentrate on railways, highways, bridges and airports. There were no
ground troops or allies in Europe then but there was much speculation about an
allied invasion.
My husband, who became a first
lieutenant in May 1944, arrived in England on March 3, 1944. He had been sent
to meteorology school at UCLA and received a Certificate of Achievement, the
equivalent of a master's degree. From UCLA, he was sent to Harrisburg, Penn.,
to the U.S. Army Air Forces Intelligence School. Then, he went to Will Rogers
Field in Oklahoma City, where the 2nd Photo Intelligence Squadron was formed.
From there the Squadron embarked for England from New York, on the Queen
Mary, on Feb. 3, 1944. He arrived in Glasgow, Scotland on Feb. 27. The
squadron proceeded by train to High Wycombe, the U.S. 8th USAAF Headquarters,
where Gen. Jimmy Doolittle was the commander. Five days later, five men were
put on detached duty with the Royal Air Force and were sent to Medmenham
British Intelligence General Headquarters.
After spending his first three
weeks studying aerial photos taken by American P-38s and P-51s as well as
British Spitfires (the Spitfires actually spit fire, when they started up), my
husband was assigned to what was called the Normandy Project.
About the first of April in 1944,
word came the Normandy Project was to be involved in plans for the invasion of
the continent. Five men -- four British and one American, Lt. Ernsberger --
were assigned to study landing sites for the invasion. There were 11 possible
sites. After five sites were selected, the committee met with one of Gen.
Eisenhower's staff, Gen. Bradley, a three-star general. Each of my husband's
group of five was to choose a site based on:
* Accessibility to land the
craft;
* Defensibility;
* Ability to get equipment five
miles inland;
* How near the landing was to
German encampments;
* Weather conditions, wind
direction, cloud height and tide.
It was because of my husband's
training in both meteorology and intelligence that he felt he was chosen to
serve on the group of five.
Soon after the meeting with Gen.
Bradley, my husband, Lt. Ernsberger, was at work when he was notified he was to
meet with Gen. Eisenhower's committee in London. Gen. Eisenhower had been
appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.
One day at the end of May at my
husband's office at Medmenham, a call came in directing him to be prepared for
a meeting the next day at Gen. Eisenhower's headquarters in London. A car would
be there to pick him up at 6 a.m.
Ernsberger was on duty that night
when the call came in, and was to work until 6 a.m.
However, he left at 5 a.m. to
shave and get ready. He arrived in London at 8: 15 a.m. without sleep or
breakfast.
At the building in London there
were military police everywhere. One of them opened the car door for my husband
and then walked him to the building. He was shown to a waiting room with six
empty* chairs. After 15 minutes, a three-star general arrived. My husband stood
up and the other man introduced himself as Omar Bradley. Then Eisenhower walked
in and shook hands but they did not salute. The conversation was very relaxed.
My husband did not speak except to say he didn't know what the protocol was*
for a lieutenant among generals. They laughed and Bradley patted him on the
back.
Gen. Patton arrived next followed
by British Gen. Montgomery. Eisenhower was sitting at the table in a conference
room going over papers with the door open. At precisely 9 a.m. Eisenhower's
aide, a Lt. Colonel, came into the waiting room and said to "come in
now," and announced Gen. de Gaulle would be late and for them to get
started. They went into the conference room and sat around a big, dark, very
shiny, wooden table. Ernsberger was seated at the tail end of the table, he
said, across from* Montgomery and Eisenhower at the head. In a comer was a
large urn of very strong coffee. Each general was assisted by an aide and
Eisenhower also had a POW survivor from Dunkirk with him. When the group got
down to business, the aides left the room and returned only when Eisenhower
buzzed for them to serve more coffee.
Eisenhower went around the room
and introduced everyone. When he got to my husband he said, "Lt.
Ernsberger is here as a representative of the Intelligence Department." He
further stated he wanted to set the invasion for the first week of June, which
meant within eight days.
He was asking for a target. date
and said there were three things that needed to be considered to set a date.
They were the weather, the sea,
and getting organized by the target date. There was a lot of discussion of how
this could be done. He added he would assign each target area to someone to be
responsible for. Then Gen. Eisenhower said, "Lt. Ernsberger, you're the
meteorologist and you are responsible to come back with the information on the
weather and the sea."
The generals were each to bring back
information about all coordination in their given area. There was a request for
any other questions to be discussed as well as for an oceanographer. The tide
varied so much in different areas that an expert was needed. Gen. Montgomery
had such a man on his staff that was in his 80s. They met within three days.
The oceanographer brought three experts with him. This meeting occurred in
London.
Eisenhower set a date for another
meeting and the discussion period ended. My husband returned to Medmenham. He was
met by a barrage of questions about where he had been. He could not answer
those questions. "Later, after the invasion the questions really
came," Ernsberger said, but still he did not answer them. At their
meeting, Eisenhower had stressed the need for absolute secrecy.
Three days later my husband
returned to London. A car and driver were put at his disposal. The second
meeting was held in the same place, in the meeting room adjacent to
Eisenhower's office. At this meeting things were set for the invasion date,
June 6, after all the generals presented their reports, questions were asked
and details were all openly discussed.
Eisenhower asked if everyone felt
they were ready. No one dissented or made a negative comment. Ernsberger said
there might be a glitch with the weather due to a low pressure over Sweden but
that it did not appear it would move down fast enough to interfere on the 6th
(actually it moved down on June 10).
Between the first and second
meetings, Ernsberger sent a telegram to learn the whereabouts of a
meteorologist, a Swedish man named Bjerknes. Bjerknes was Ernsberger's
professor at meteorology school at UCLA and had put together the theory of air
mass analysis, which is still used in weather forecasting today. Ernsberger
learned Bjerknes was in London at that time so they conversed on the telephone.
Of course, no mention was made of why he asked about air mass indexes. In
Bjerknes' opinion, the low pressure system in Sweden would arrive in southern
England until June 10.
Ernsberger's report included the
time of 6 a.m. which was what was wanted, and the 6th was also at the highest
tide so the ships could be above the I-beams the Germans had set in the water
to snag Allied landing ships. It would not be at the highest tide again for
another 30 days.
The report included wind
direction which influenced dropping bombs, shelling and cloud height.
He also had to supply each
general with aerial photographs of their assigned landing areas and the area
five miles inland. Gen. Eisenhower said if there were any hitches that they
must be reported before noon on June 4; otherwise, the invasion was set.
Ernsberger attended no more meetings.
Of the five landing sites
selected, one on the west coast of France was a decoy. Some Allied ships were
sent there to do shelling and thus, deflected three German divisions totaling
nearly 50,000 troops from converging on the actual landing spots.
Localite and school-mate of my
husband, Navy Officer Harry Bean, was in command of his squadron of six landing
crafts. Some of the crafts were off-loaded at Glasgow, Scotland and taken over
land, then launched at Portsmouth, England so the Germans did not know of all
the assemblage. Harry Bean said there was no sleep the night before the
invasion.
It was later learned that the night
of June 4, de Gaulle and Montgomery were in London. Patton was with his troops
when they went in on Omaha Beach. It was reported that President Roosevelt was
on a battleship off of Greenland. Professor Bjerknes, whom Ernsberger had
consulted, traveled with Roosevelt as his meteorologist and that was why he was
in London and able to consult with my husband, by phone.
My husband stated that on the
night of June 5, ships were coming from France and Spain. They were ready and
assembled at 6 a.m. June 6.
On June 4, after the second
meeting, when it was decided the invasion would take place as scheduled,
Ernsberger was to return to Medmenham by car. A four-door, V-8 Ford Army car
picked him up and took him to an airport outside Oxford. It had an extra long runway,
a civilian airport taken over by the military. There, he met with one of the
pilots assigned to Intelligence flights by the name of Harry Orwell. They sat
in the car by the entry guardhouse. Harry was a flight lieutenant, an
Englishman who had flown 2,000 miles. He flew the American P-38.
At the airport, the driver was
excused from the car and Harry was given the instructions for June 6. He was to
be over the English Channel by 7 a.m., taking off from Medmenham at 6;30 am. He
flew at 7,000 feet, the top layer of the varying heights to which the planes
were assigned, according to their mission. Harry was assigned to a section to
fly while photographing the action. He flew from three miles out into the
Channel to approximately one mile inland. The aerial footage stopped at 11 a.m.
The P-38 is a two-seated plane.
The pilot sat in the back seat. A very large camera was in the front seat and
the opening in the floor there. Two other cameras were placed on each wing and
fuselages; three in all. Though there was no seat for Ernsberger as he was not
officially assigned to go on the flight, at Harry's invitation, he did go and
rode piggy-back, his legs around Harry's waist. There was no wiggle-room. And
they held these positions for two hours.
Ernsberger could only see out the
side of the plane between the wings. He could see a haze of smoke from the
bombing and shelling, and enough vision was allowed to see the carnage on the
beach -- the many bodies floating on the water. Nearly 8,000 Americans, plus
British and other Allied troops not in that count, perished that day, June 6,
1944.
Looking down and seeing the
bodies was horrifying and my husband did not speak of it for many years. He
still does not like to talk about it as it brings back the horror of the scene.
He said no reports or publicity that appeared afterward adequately described
how terrible the mission was and that if he closes his eyes, still, he can see
it.
Harry Bean made multiple trips
(Ernsberger believes six or seven perhaps) back to England and brought troops
back close enough to wade onto Omaha Beach. On the way back to England he
retrieved and ferried wounded and dead service members from the water.
Harry Orwell and Ernsberger never
met again. Not too much later Orwell did not return from a photography flight,
over the site where buzz bombs and V-2 rockets which devastated Britain were
made. What Orwell's fate was, we have never known.
On his return to Medmenham Lt.
Ernsberger, without revealing the reason for his absence, resumed his routine
duties and his meetings became a part of history.
Patricia and Warren
"Ernie" Ernsberger are longtime residents of Westerville, with Mr.
Ernsberger serving on Westerville City Council from 1955-72 and both being very
civically active in the community for decades. This account of Mr. Ernsberger's
historic involvement with the D-Day invasion -- which took place 70 years ago
tomorrow -- was written by Mrs. Ernsberger, as told by Mr. Ernsberger in
November 2013.
Selected from - http://www.thisweeknews DOT com/content/stories/westerville/news/2014/06/03/guest-column
+
** **
No comments:
Post a Comment