3/8: The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower by Michel Paradis (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 7 September 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Light-Battle-Eisenhower-American-Superpower/dp/0358682371/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
On June 6, 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower addressed the thousands of American troops preparing to invade Normandy, exhorting them to embrace the “Great Crusade” they faced. Then, in a fleeting moment alone, he drafted a resignation letter in case the invasion failed.
In The Light of Battle, Michel Paradis, acclaimed author of Last Mission to Tokyo, paints a vivid portrait of Dwight Eisenhower as he learns to navigate the crosscurrents of diplomacy, politics, strategy, family, and fame with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance. In a world of giants—Churchill, Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Marshall, MacArthur—it was a barefoot boy from Abilene, Kansas, who would master the art of power and become a modern-day George Washington.
Drawing upon meticulous research and a voluminous body of newly discovered records, letters, diaries, and firsthand accounts from three continents, Paradis brings Eisenhower to life, as a complicated man who craved simplicity, a genial cipher whose smile was a lethal political weapon.
With a page-turning pace and an eye for the overlooked, Paradis interweaves the grand arc of history with more human concerns, bringing readers into the private moments that led to Eisenhower’s most pivotal decisions. By deftly integrating the personal and the political, he reveals how Eisenhower’s rise both reflected and was integral to America’s rise as a global superpower.
An unflinching look at how character is forged, and leadership is learned, The Light of Battle breathes new life into the man who made “the leader of the free world” the mantle of the American presidency.
1944
Off Omaha
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS. I am the world. I'm John Batchelor. The light of battle. |
| 0:05.1 | Michelle Peridae is the author of Eisenhower D. Day and the birth of the American |
| 0:09.3 | superpower. Ike has had 10 days at home dealing with George Marshall FDR and Mamie his wife. |
| 0:15.4 | He's now back in London and is headed to Central London because all the commanders and chiefs of all the services combined |
| 0:25.6 | British and American are now going to gather around the Supreme |
| 0:30.1 | Commander and they have X number of months to prepare something that nobody's ever |
| 0:36.2 | tried to do. Put together two armies and invade a third or fourth army that would be France and Germany. |
| 0:45.0 | France is not resistant but then again to Gaulle is so it counts almost as an adversary. |
| 0:51.0 | However, what is important and Michelle has already introduced the character is |
| 0:57.0 | K Somersby. Kay Somersby is Eisenhower's driver since 42. He took her to North Africa. Kaye Summersby is a model. |
| 1:06.8 | She's a beauty, an Irish beauty. Everybody who sees her, in fact I've had stories |
| 1:12.0 | about that night before the D-Day, where Kaye Somersby was driving Eisenhower around to meet the troops, including the 101st Air Board, who were very bored and tired and didn't want to meet another |
| 1:24.2 | general until somebody came running in and said there's a real looker with him and |
| 1:28.6 | so they all ran out and gathered around Kaye Summersby. She's a woman who at the time stopped soldiers from walking past them. |
| 1:37.2 | Okay. |
| 1:38.2 | Kay also drives extremely well, especially in London. And Michelle treats us to the drive she takes, |
| 1:46.7 | Eisenhower and his good aide, butcher, they call him butcher, butcher through London. Please tell this story because it tells |
| 1:56.4 | us everything about their relationship. |
| 1:59.4 | Yeah, it's a wonderful moment. So Eisenhower, as you mentioned, |
| 2:03.7 | returns after a soldier and briefly in the United States |
| 2:07.4 | where he's just bombarded and then |
| 2:09.7 | has to take put in, turns out to be a well over |
... |
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