Julius Hobson, Jr

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

June 5, 1944. 3:30am.

Eisenhower woke to howling wind and hard rain. At 4:15am, in a water-soaked tent, his meteorologist James Stagg told him: there's a 24-hour break in the storm coming. One window. Miss it, and the next date is June 19.

He had 5,000 ships and 160,000 men already moving toward France.

He said: "OK. Let's go."

That evening at 8:30pm, he drove to Greenham Common to stand among the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne. He had just been privately briefed they could expect 80% casualties. He didn't show it. He walked through the crowd, shaking hands, asking names, asking where men were from.

One soldier, Lt. Wallace Strobel, said Michigan.

Eisenhower smiled. "Oh, Michigan. I used to fish there. Great fishing in Michigan."

Witnesses said his eyes were wet when he got back in the car.

That night, alone, he wrote four sentences and stuffed the paper in his pocket:

"Our landings have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

He misdated it "July 5." His mind was somewhere else.

Meanwhile, across the Channel, Field Marshal Rommel was in his staff car rolling through Germany toward home. His wife Lucie was turning 50 tomorrow. He had brought her a pair of shoes from Paris.

The Germans had no Atlantic weather stations. Their meteorologists had told high command: no invasion is possible in this weather. Rommel genuinely believed they had weeks.

The paratroopers jumped at midnight.

[Larry Sabato @LarrySabato]

82nd anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944. Always remember.

[Jake Justice @jakecobb]

Keep posting this so nobody forgets that this was one of the worst events in American history.

Never has a sitting president encouraged his supporters to believe a lie so deeply that they’d be willing to attack or democracy.

[BlackHistoryStudies @BlkHistStudies]

James Baldwin with activist James Meredith, Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963, a year after Meredith became the first African American student admitted to the University of Mississippi. ❤️🖤💚

[Barb McQuade @BarbMcQuade]

Seems like a bait and switch. After predictable outcry, Trump DOJ pulls back slush fund for insurrectionists, but retains tax immunity for Trump. Was that the plan all along? It’s all corrupt.
https://t.co/NnZwe4nLO0

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

[ustonymc @ustonymc]

USS YORKTOWN
Rest easy old gal...

[LanaQuest aka RosaSparks @LqLana]

September 15, 1963 an explosion ripped through 16th Street Baptist Church.

Four little Black girls were killed during Sunday school.

John Coltrane inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s speech after the bombing composed “Alabama” and patterned his saxophone playing like the speech. #DemsUnited #BlackMusicMonth

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Wow.

Why this does not concern more Americans is so strange to me.

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

Donald Trump is lying about California elections, threatening criminal prosecutions and this is what WaPo writes.

Legacy media is broken, it is compromised and failing us. Support pro-democracy independent media. Subscribe to Democracy Docket. https://t.co/0StGlWz45f

[Barb McQuade @BarbMcQuade]

Former FBI Agent Greg Stejskal explains why feds should be investigating cases of Good, Pretti, and Castro in Minnesota. https://t.co/sXs91yWJF0

[Justin Wolfers @JustinWolfers]

No economist, Wall Street investor, policy wonk, or even undergrad econ student believes growth stops inflation — not even the cranks.

[Black Media Hub ✊🏿 @BlackMediaHub]

A picture of Trayvon Martin at space camp. He posthumously received an aviation honorary degree.

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

There is nothing left of the Justice Department I worked at.

[Fred Wellman @FPWellman]

Absolute clownery. We are at war. He’s not in the Middle East assuring allies, coordinating operations, or overseeing operations. No. He’s cosplaying as a real warrior. An Infantry officer who didn’t graduate Ranger School so he has to dress up like the actual qualified soldiers that did.

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

On the night of June 5, 1944, Eisenhower stood on a tarmac in England and watched 13,000 paratroopers board their planes.

He already knew what Air Marshal Leigh-Mallory had told him in private: up to half of them might not survive the night. 6,500 men. Dead before a single soldier touched the beach. Eisenhower had approved the mission anyway, called the decision "soul-wracking," and said nothing to the men.

Instead he drove out and visited them.

He chatted. Laughed. Asked where they were from. Shook hands. Cracked jokes. Not one of them knew their general had just signed what might be their death warrant.

When the last plane disappeared into the dark sky, his driver Kay Summersby looked over at him.

There were tears running down his face.

He drove back to Telegraph Cottage in silence. Then he sat down, picked up a pencil, and wrote a note he prayed no one would ever read.

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

Look at what he edited.

He had first written "This particular operation." He crossed it out and replaced it with "My decision to attack." Then he pressed the pencil down hard and drew a long, firm line under the words "mine alone."

He misdated it July 5 instead of June 5.

He was so consumed with dread he had forgotten what month it was.

He folded the note and put it in his wallet. He carried it there as 156,000 men stormed the beaches of Normandy. When word came back that the beachhead had held, he took it out, crumpled it, and threw it in the trash.

An aide quietly pulled it out and saved it.

That note is now behind glass at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas. You can still see where the pencil pressed hardest.

Right under the words "mine alone."

82 years ago tonight.

[TheFrenchie @ML3democrats]

Remember when they said Zelensky desecrated the sanctity of the White House by not wearing a suit

[AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY @AfricanArchives]

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a black cardiologist, performed the very first sucessful open-heart surgery and also founded the first non-segragated hospital.

[Baseball’s Greatest Moments @BBGreatMoments]

Ty Cobb pictured here in a Atlanta hospital, eventually passing away of Cancer at 74 years old. Only three former players, Ray Schalk, Mickey Cochrane, and Nap Rucker attended his funeral

[Peter Baker @peterbakernyt]

At least 97 of the nearly 1,600 people who were charged in connection with the Capitol riot have been accused of new crimes since Jan. 6, 2021, according to a study released from @lawfare. @lukebroadwater https://t.co/KdixHNBElX