The Secret Note Eisenhower Carried on D-Day

Chapters: 0:00 The Note in Eisenhower's Wallet 0:42 Operation Overlord & The June Window 2:40 The Weatherman: Group Captain James Stagg 4:04 The Transatlantic Forecasting Argument 6:24 The Storm at Southwick House 8:08 Postponing D-Day: The 24-Hour Call 9:46 The Narrow Break & The Final Order 15:52 "If Any Blame Attaches": The Failure Note 18:42 What If Eisenhower Had Waited? 20:30 The Aftermath In June 1944, the largest invasion force in history was ready to cross the English Channel. Then General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief weatherman, RAF Group Captain James Stagg, told him the weather would not allow it. What Eisenhower did next, and the short handwritten note he hid in his wallet, says a lot about the man behind D-Day. In this episode: the clash between the American forecasting team led by Irving Krick and the British team of Sverre Petterssen and C. K. M. Douglas, the observation from Blacksod Point in Ireland, the 24-hour postponement from June 5, the narrow weather window Stagg found, the debate inside Southwick House, the mystery of what Eisenhower actually said when he gave the final order, and his unused "in case of failure" message, misdated "July 5." Told from the American side, with full credit to Stagg's British team, and checked against the U.S. Army official histories, the Eisenhower Presidential Library, and the National Archives. Which forecast would you have trusted, and what would you have done in Eisenhower's place? Tell me in the comments, and subscribe to Army Folks for more carefully researched WWII stories. Sources: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, "In Case of Failure" message, transcript (eisenhowerlibrary.gov), with library notes as reproduced by the Ruhr-Universität Bochum source collection Tim Rives, "OK, We'll Go: Just What Did Ike Say When He Launched the D-day Invasion 70 Years Ago?", Prologue, National Archives, Spring 2014 Gordon A. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, U.S. Army in World War II (U.S. Army Center of Military History), chapter 8 Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command, U.S. Army in World War II (U.S. Army Center of Military History), chapter 9 The National WWII Museum, "Pressure, the D-Day Weather Forecast Story" Met Office, "How our weather advice influenced D-Day and Operation Overlord" and "How accurate was the movie Pressure?" The National Archives (UK), "James Stagg: The weatherman who turned the tide of D-Day" (records AIR 73/8, CAB 106/976, AIR 37/1124A) Met Éireann, "Blacksod Point and the D-Day Forecast" U.S. Department of Defense, "Remembering D-Day" National Park Service, "General Dwight D. Eisenhower"