Dwight D. Eisenhower — Supreme Commander

On the evening of June 5, 1944, Dwight D. Eisenhower drove to the airfield at Greenham Common to see the 101st Airborne Division off. His air commander had told him the airborne landings might cost seventy percent of the men. He had given the order anyway, that morning, on a weather forecast of a one-day break in the storm.

He walked among the paratroopers of the 502nd for more than an hour, faces blackened, helmets numbered, parachutes already on. He asked where they were from and what they did before the war.

The C-47s began taking off at about 10:15 that night. Eisenhower stayed on the field and watched until the last one was gone.

Eisenhower stands at the center of a tight ring of paratroopers, hands clasped, head tilted, listening. The men tower over him in their gear — chutes strapped to their chests, Screaming Eagle patches on their shoulders, numbers chalked on their helmets. Their faces are blackened; his is not. Behind them the tail of a C-47 with invasion stripes catches the last of the sun. Warm light, low horizon. The eye moves from face to face and comes back to his.