Ike visits Paratroopers


When Ike visited the 101st Airborne division at the end of the movie a sub title at the bottom of the screen said it was "June 6, 1944". Wouldn't the paratroopers would have already been in Normandy by that time. Aye?

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[deleted]

That is my point. They landed in Normandy at around 1 am, but the movie shows them on June 6th in England in the day light. I guess this was just a mistake.

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[deleted]

I think they got Patton wrong too.
Made him look like a Martenette. Droped his helmit while he cried and hugged Ike. I don't think it happened that way. I'm sure Ike dressed him down, but Patton wasn't a hugger or a cry baby.

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The famous photo of Ike visiting the 101st that the movie/show tried to capture (even to the point of Selleck trying to imitate the pose and posture of Ike from the pic)was indeed taken on June 5th. The day before the invasion. The airborne was in their blackened up getting ready to embark on the planes mode. They loaded at dusk (or slightly after) on the 5th. I have forgetten the exact time they took off but jumped in the dead of the night June 5th/6th. I guess what day it was would be a technicality. Whether they jumped before midnight (then it would be the 5th) or after midnight (then the 6th).
Patton could be a bit of a martinette. I haven't read or seen anything of the helmet/crying issue before either. I did note that he did say to the jeep driver that he had "played him like a fiddle", leading us to believe it was a put on. I didn't feel like they made him look like a cry baby, (my two cents), just being manipulative.
It was kind of slow, but was good at providing a lot of additional background info and stories about D-Day that aren't well known. I liked that aspect of it. My biggest problem was seeing Selleck and trying to visualize Eisenhower. That was too much of a leap for me. Eisenhower is too well known (and photographed) for a big name actor (that looks almost nothing like him) to portray. George C. Scott was a good choice for the movie "Patton". Edward Herrmann is good at portraying FDR (I think he has a couple of times). But Selleck as Ike? Just didn't work for me. Weighing all the +/- I gave this 5 of 10, average.

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General Eisenhower visited the 101st Airborne paratroopers before they emplaned for their drop onto the Cotentin Peninsula behind the invasion beaches. The film's subtitle got the date wrong as Ike's visit with the Screaming Eagles came on the night of 5 June 1944 - yes, on the night: owing to the long summertime daylight at Britain's latitude, and to the Allies operating on the expedient wartime system of British Double Summer Time (in effect, the same as America's Daylight Savings Time PLUS an extra hour of daylight!), Ike's nighttime visit with the paratroopers happened in daylight-approaching-dusk, at about 2200 hours (ten o'clock). The paratroopers soon thereafter emplaned for their drops, which were made in full darkness, into Normandy.

The film doesn't make a point of these two factors which the COSSAC (Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander - which was the Allies' invasion planning organization, headed by British Lt. Gen. Frederick Morgan, before Eisenhower was appointed to head Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force: SHAEF) and SHAEF planners had to consider: first, the invasion had to be made in summer which offers weather clement enough for amphibious landing and post-landing active campaigning by combined arms (armor/infantry/artillery), and long hours of daylight conducive to sustained offensive operations; second, the short summer nights compelled a tight schedule for the takeoff of paratroop-carrying and glider-towing aircraft, as well as for the paratroop drops and glider tow-releases and landings.

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This film is not great. So much so that I've never been compelled to watch it from beginning to end and just caught 15mins here and there as it's regularly repeated here in the UK.

I was unexpectedly very moved by this scene when I eventually watched the final 15mins. It was instantly evocative of Ike's secretary's recollection of the general's admission of finding it very difficult to look the men in the eye in the certain knowledge that he was sending very many of them to their death.

I agree it's a struggle to accept Selleck as Ike. There's very little offered in the way of nuance or individual character which has yet to be truly explored in any depiction of Eisenhower. Nevertheless, Tom Selleck does carry the picture and in a modest case of art imitating life appears suitability burdened throughout the picture. It's effective enough to communicate the responsibilities and frustrations. It certainly stirred an emotional response in that recreation of Ike's meeting with the airborne.

@Twitzkrieg - Glasgow's FOREMOST authority

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From everything I've read and seen in documentaries the incident with Patton's helmet falling off when he hugged Ike was a true incident. Altho given the long friendship between Ike and Patton I doubt that he made any comments like "I played him like a violin". Patton had too much respect for his friend of over 25 years.

The conspiracy theorists are conspiring against me.

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What about the "bloused " pants Ike wore when getting out of the car to visit with the 101st airborne? I have never seen a picture of him wearing his pants like that. Almost looked like they were bloused with socks. can anyone confirm that that is how he would have worn his trousers?

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Here's a pic of the event and no he wasn't wearing spats/gators in it :)
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/General-Dwight-D-Eisenhower-with-101-Airbourne-Posters_i1754918_.htm

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I totally agree. The writers and director had to take dramatic license to show somehow that Patton was thinking he'd put one over on Ike, but in real life he would have never said something like that to any NCO, except possibly his long-time personal aide Master Sergeant George Meeks. Meeks was black and the driver was white, so if it was supposed to be him, it was a miscast!

BTW, as far as Patton's behavior being a "put on", when Mad magazine did a parody of the George C. Scott movie, that's exactly what they titled it.

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My dad, a paratrooper of the 82nd, remembers seeing Eisenhower visiting days before the invasion. He mentioned to cross the channel took anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes so the airborne troops formed up and flew off between 1:00 to 2:00 AM. The 101st also had glider troops. So it would be possible to film glider troops in the daytime since C-47 towing gliders would take longer to get to their targets. I noticed in that Eisenhower's 101st visit photo that many of the troopers are not wearing parachutes. The few that are could be pathfinders dropped before the glider troops to secure and mark glider landing sites.

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this scene was also portrayed in the Robert Duvall tele-biopic of Eidenhower D-day..in it, the paratroopers do not know he is coming, it is a surprise..also he asks THEM if anybody has got a cigarette..they respond enthusiastically..

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