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"    STF/AFP/Getty ImagesAmerican troops land at Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.  At 06:31 this morning the first Americans landed on the beach. Paratroopers had preceded them the night before, but well inland. These men, from the 8th Infantry Regiment were the first of the amphibious troops. With them came a little old man, short and wrinkled, he carried a walking stick. He had a bum shoulder and a dodgy ticker. His name was Roosevelt and he really should not have been there. His father had been the President, and now his cousin filled that same role. Somebody like that would have been a prize, if captured, so his presence was unexpected. But then his family had something of a history of being places where you really would not expect them to be, and the men of his Division had come to believe. Utah Beach, the western-most landing spot for the Allied armies, was well away from the other beaches where American, Canadian, and British forces were arriving early this morning 70 years ago. And as it turned out, Utah Beach itself was not where it was supposed to be. Not by a long shot. In the smoke and dust kicked up by the massive pre-landing naval bombardment, the markers leading the way into the beach were missed by the men piloting the landing craft. Sure, they were heading ashore, but unbeknownst to them they were heading for the wrong section of the shore. The place they were supposed to land was more than a mile, some 2,000 yards, to the north. With confusion created by smoke, dust, noise, and fear, the landing craft were well off-target. But time and tide wait for no man, and so when they grounded on the gently sloping sands and the ramps dropped, the men of the 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, and the diminutive general accompanying them, stepped ashore. Even today Utah Beach is unremarkable. This stretch of the coast is at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, and it is low, with just a single light sand dune abutting the beach. Go there off-season and you can walk these sands, alone, lost in the memories of 100,000 men. You can wander the beaches imagining the approach and the arrival all those decades ago, with not a single person in sight. If you have a vivid imagination, and know your history, it can border on the spiritual. There are no beachside cafes, nor bustling hotels or tourist shops selling kitschy D-Day schlock to interrupt you, as at some of the other landing sites. There is only the beach, where the first of the allies waded ashore, and the world started to change.    Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was the deputy division commander of the units that landed in the first wave. He had to pull strings to be allowed to land with the dogfaces, but when your cousin is the President of the United States, some of your &amp;quot;strings&amp;quot; can be quite substantial. Roosevelt only played that card, significantly, in order to get in to combat, not to avoid it. Eventually General Bradley caved, and so Roosevelt was there, in the first confusing moments. Confusing, of course, because the terrain did not match what the infantry was expecting. They had maps, but the ground did not match the maps they were issued. What to do? Two battalions of American infantry were now ashore, and the battalion commanders were wondering, &amp;quot;what do we do now?&amp;quot; And this is the moment when that wizened little man who was not supposed to be there, using a walking stick, made his mark upon the history of the world. Roosevelt knew from the initial scout reports that they were in the wrong place. But he also knew, because he was there, that the place where they landed worked. The lead infantry units had then pushed inland and felt none of the horrific resistance they would have encountered if they had landed where they were supposed to be. He knew the chaos of war, having landed on other beaches in other places, and he knew the reality of military planning. He knew it was up to him, the only general ashore, to make the call: Where would the second, and third, and all the waves after that, land? Would they go in where they were supposed to land, effectively transforming the second wave into a de facto new first wave, or would they follow-on, on the wrong beach? Would they follow the military plan, or change it, based upon circumstances? Roosevelt was not long for this earth, and he probably knew it. I suspect that he did not care. What he cared about were the men, the mission, and the countless memories recorded by the men who served with or under him substantiate that. He was a worthy successor to his father, and might have left a mark known to more, had there been more time. He was not to have that time. Less than 60 days later, having just been appointed as the commander of his own Division, he died of a heart attack. But on this day, this morning, 70 years ago, he made history. He gave an order, and the men followed, and the world began to change. &amp;quot;We start\u2026from here.&amp;quot; The opinions here are fully supported by every single nation, every single Army and Navy and Air Force that the author has ever been associated with. I can be reached at R_Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com. Originally posted at esquire.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a10647/utah-beach-d-day-landing-060614-1402075815/>