A.G. Kirk (Commander, U.S. Navy) order for the day

3. In two ways the coming battle differs from any that we have undertaken before: it demands more seamanship, and more fighting. We must operate in the waters of the English Channel and the French coast, in strong currents and twenty-foot tide. We must destroy an enemy defensive system which has been four years in the making, and our mission is one against which the enemy will throw his whole remaining strength. These are not beaches held by apathetic Italians or defended by hasty fortifications. These are prepare[d] positions, held by Germans who have learned from their past failures. They have coastal batteries and mine fields; they have [illegible] and E-boats and submarines. They will try to use them all. We are getting into a fight.



Page 369 of Stephen Ambrose’s D-Day, June 6, 1944, where Ambrose quotes ship’s cook Exum Pike. Pike’s quote concludes

“I have often told my two sons that I have no fear of hell because I have already been there.”