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Comment by GavinB | Hacker News Reader

This is an engaging read, but the text doesn't square with the introduction. Marshall starts by saying that "disproportionate attention was paid to the little element of courageous success in a situation which was largely characterized by tragic failure."

Perhaps at the time (this was written in 1960) the account contradicted the common view, but the second half of the piece seems to me an example exactly what Marshall criticizes in the introduction.

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31 paragraphs detail the men who tried and died, while the last 13 paragraphs are more positive, detailing a group of men who tried and lived. I'm not clear how you feel that he is paying disproportionate attention to courageous success. That he wanted to end the article on a positive note meets my approval if not yours. Frankly, I needed a little uplift after those first 31 paragraphs.

I would additionally add that, while he spent a while talking about one of the positive outcomes for a while at the end, even the tone of that section really points out the utter luck that was involved in a lot of the successes.

It was a horrific day, but a pivotal one for at least the next 40 or so years of history. Had the Allied forces not been able to break into Normandy the outcome of the war was no certain thing, even with the success in Italy.

I thought it was a great article, I just found the introduction a bit incongruous. The title of the piece is "First Wave at Omaha Beach," but all discussion of the first wave is concluded by 40% of the way through.

By the conclusion, which should be wrapping up the thesis of the article, the first wave seems forgotten and those final 13 paragraphs could have been lifted straight from the writings that are critiqued in the introduction.

That's my perspective today. In 1960 this might have been much more of a break from the established narrative, and even fairly shocking.

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