Teaching With Documents, Volume 2


D-Day Message from General Eisenhower to General Marshall


The featured document is a message drafted during the early hours of the D-day Normandy invasion by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Commander of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), to his superior in Washington, DC, Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff. The document captures the immediacy and suspense of that day. Eisenhower’s statement reflects his lack of information about how well the landings were going, even though they were well under way at that moment. His pride and confidence in the battle-tempered men he had met the preceding night men he was about to send into combat is also evident. A record from the holdings of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, KS, the message is found in Pre-Presidential Papers, 1916-52.













Document Analysis

1. Distribute copies of the document to your students and ask them the following questions:

a. Who created the document?
b. What type of document is it?
c. For what purpose was the document created?
d. Who received the document?
e. Whose copy of the document is this?
f. What do the dates of the document reveal about the life of the document?

2. Ask your students to speculate on the meaning of the security classification designations "Top Secret" and "Eyes Only" evidenced in the document. Invite a local active or retired member of the military services into the classroom to assist the students in understanding what the designations mean and why this document needed to remain security-classified for 23 years.

Class Discussion

3. Ask students to interpret Eisenhower’s description of the departing airborne troops. Then ask them if the descriptive words, "the light of battle was in their eyes," is a positive or a negative description. Next, ask students to identify and make a chart of additional cliches for those about to go into battle. Then, ask them to locate war poems written by World War I British poet Wilder Owen or World War II American poet Randall Jarrell and speculate on how the poets might react to the language Eisenhower employed.

Related Topics for Research

4. For further study, students might research and present brief reports on the following topics:

a. What did U.S. citizens learn about the early progress of the invasion from the newspapers in your area? Microfilmed copies of old issues of newspapers may be available at your local library or through interlibrary loan to your school library or media center.

b. What was the weather like in the days immediately preceding the invasion and for several days afterward? Why were the tidal cycles and the moon phase important?

c. How did Eisenhower arrive at the decision to proceed with the invasion on June 6?

d. Trace and summarize the evolution of the decision to mount an invasion across the English Channel. Include in the report accounts of what transpired at key Allied meetings such as those held in Casablanca, Quebec, Cairo, and Teheran.

e. Describe the elaborate deception effort of placing Gen. George Patton in charge of a phantom 1st U.S. Army Group (FUSAG) to keep the Nazis guessing about troop build-ups and movements prior to D-day.

f. Compare and contrast the communication capabilities of the U.S. military during World War II and at present.

5. If possible, arrange for a veteran of the D-day invasion to describe his or her participation for the class in person, through a letter, or by telephone or videotape.

Click the image to view a larger version

6. Ask volunteers to research and role play the tense Teheran Conference. Ask the class to evaluate the positions the three leaders took.

7. After studying the decision to proceed with the D-day invasion, ask your students to consider whether or not they would have made the same decision Eisenhower made. They should justify their decisions in a brief written memorandum addressed to Marshall.

Note: A photograph of Eisenhower talking with members of the 101st Airborne is available from the National Archives. To order a copy, call 301713-6660 and specify "War and Conflict negative number 1040."

If you are near Abilene, KS, you may wish to visit the Eisenhower Library to see the document featured in this article and many other documents and artifacts pertaining to Eisenhower, D-day, World War II, and other related topics. Please call the Public Affairs Office, at 785-2634751 to arrange a visit.


Eisenhower, David. Eisenhower At War 1943-1945. New York: Random House, 1986.



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Chicago: "D-Day Message from General Eisenhower to General Marshall," Teaching With Documents, Volume 2 in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. Wynell B. Schamel (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, 1998), 183–187. Original Sources, accessed August 9, 2022, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=B9D32U1N91V6GVB.

MLA: . "D-Day Message from General Eisenhower to General Marshall." Teaching With Documents, Volume 2, in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, edited by Wynell B. Schamel, Vol. 2, Washington, D.C., National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, 1998, pp. 183–187. Original Sources. 9 Aug. 2022. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=B9D32U1N91V6GVB.

Harvard: , 'D-Day Message from General Eisenhower to General Marshall' in Teaching With Documents, Volume 2. cited in 1998, Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. , National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, Washington, D.C., pp.183–187. Original Sources, retrieved 9 August 2022, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=B9D32U1N91V6GVB.