And then we invite all of you to join dr. Holden and Committee Members downstairs for a reception and that, my friends, is more than enough for me. So, dr. Holden, the floor is yours. Good evening. Thank you very much. Its nice to see all of you here this evening. Were going to take a journey and time. But not that long ago when i first started with this program for the 75th anniversary, four years ago, we actually had some fellow citizens here from normandy who as children had lived through the bombardment on june 5th and june six. And it was incredible to hear their stories. I will attempt to give you an overview. Please understand i cannot touch on every hero. But what i would like to do is to give you a survey tonight and give you some pointers for a future Reference Research on your own. Its like the old library of Congress Series from the 1980s, and at the end of their hour long special would say and the library of congress recommends the following books, and theyd give you two or three or four books. Well, ill talk about some movies. Ill talk about some books. Ill talk about some future avenues of approach. Not everything has been declassified. There are still areas where you can not get into. I know that regarding my own fathers activities at the end of World War Two, at hitlers eagles nest with the band of brothers so bear with me. Well try to make this as intelligently presentable as possible. You may have to jump around with me a little bit because when you work in the field of intelligence, as i have, i had four top secret clearances and four different government agencies. You jump from that to dot and sometimes from dot to know that in order to make connections because a good Intelligence Analyst is putting together a jigsaw puzzle that the other side doesnt want you to put a put together. So with that in mind, the first slide and here you see. Members of i dont know which division they could be the fourth infantry division, they could be the 29th, which from here in virginia and maryland, or they could be big red one, the regular army division. Theyre going into the beaches on the morning of june 6th. And now i will attempt to advance thede. If you find yourself on enterprise momentarily, youll know whats hap there we are old friend george patton. Remember him from last years lecture and the year the year before. Ear before and would normandy be without george . Well, as he would say, nothing but heres the starting quotation for tonight, and well have a number of them. If if the proper study of nkind is man their proper maps are the key to moving. Armies. Y is that . The American Army in europe, in World War Two, the average division of 20,000 men consume. 700 tons of supplies per day. Thats mind boggling. And you have to have a road network to do that with. You cant be hollywood and go traipsing over hillandale. It doesnt work that way. And were here tonight because our sister city is con france. And i would like for you to look over here. Heres normandy. Normandy is the key to liberating france, england. Theres no other proper area of beaches that can be covered by support and can be Landing Craft coming in from the english ports. But normandy. And theres paris. Why fr because france is the gateway to third reich. Heis. And heres the rhine river and the sed line youve got to come in to normandy, swing through paris to get to the rhine and hitlerthd reich. Theres georgia and nore going to go to the movies. 70, patton. And theyre on the island, sicily, and ve got big, huge maps of sicily. George and his headquarters. And he looks at his and says, messina, bill messinas the key to sicily. If they had let me land that syracuse and drive up the coast road. Messina, i have every german on this island now. Its the same thing with con, ladies and gentlemen. If youre going to go into normandy to get into northwest france, to get to the third reich, youve got to go through con imagine the Old Fashioned spoke wheel and the center hub that the roads come through north, south, east, west is con you cannot move an army through normandy unless. You have a road network. The only exception, of course, is georg patton, because he doesnt go through general montgomery, stays at con and visits there for six weeks. And before gewhere. But thats another story. The next map on youright shows paris. Lationship of con to heres the rhine and the third reich. So you can see howmportant this is, this connection con is like b arrow pointed at the heart of pears, and that points directly east to third reich. George knew what he was talking about. So did someone else. This gentleman from france, great napoleon master of entalre, a good spy is 20,000 soldiers. Now, remember thatber, because thats the equivalent of visions. And general eisenhower, our leader in the m will touch on that very thing greatly others think alike. They see the big picture cture. American lom minneapolis, an minnesota, ota, which my ly it, because thats where theyre from. This is called name cynthia. Cynthia was the nom de guerre of of Amy Elizabeth for born in 1910. Casting, tall, blond hair. They said she had the most piercing Emerald Green eyes. Anyone saw. She was fearless. She apso lutely was fearless. There wasnt. She wouldnt go or anything wouldnt do to achieve her goals, which were espionage. She comes here to washington, a teenager. She comes becomes very fluent and linguistics. And shes bitten by potomac fever. Probably the most deadly fever in the history of mankind. She goes over to spain during the spanish war in the 1930s. And she becomes deeply involved with british espionage in during their civil war. She then goes to for special Operations Executive mr. Churchills little plaything of spies in occupied europe. In the beginning of the war in vichy france. And she does a very credible job, so creditable all that a gentleman by the name of william stephenson, head of Security Operations throughout the entire western hemisphere. You know, his biography, a man called intrepid. He will her the most important spy of World War Two, four, two reasons, one for himself and england and one for general eisenhower. Power and operation torch, the invasion of north africa. What she does is theres a log jam on capitol hill. Gee, that sounds familiar. And senator arthur vanden berg is an old curmudgeon. And hes not going to on lendlease. In the spring of 1941, ill be darned if fdr is going to get lendlease over my vote. Cynthia goes to pay him a midnight visit. And, you know, the next day, he had seen the light and voted for it. And it got passed. Amazed. Because lend lease, say england as youve just been seeing on the fdr series. Then she goes to the french consulate up in the vichy french consulate in georgetown and see seduces a Senior Member of the staff. And while she is having her way with him but letting him think hes having his way with her. Lo and behold, a team of black bag fbi i safe crackers walk in through an open door. Go to the safe and the vichy consulate. Open it up. Pull out the code and cipher books to see if i remember all northwest africa was under vichy control. And they take them out and they photocopy him that night and take him back in just morning. No one the wiser. Those are the code and cipher books that enable general eisenhower to succeed fully launch operation torch. And of course, who else could lead it but george patton. But we need to go to georgetown. We didnt go to northwest africa. We can go six miles up the road to Arlington Hall on route 50. And collins brings rd. It was Girls Finishing School as ey were known at that time, taken over by army signal and here you see old signal or the old signal school as it was when it was a Girls Finishing School. Es been a book written that called girls highly recommended. Now they would work three in three shifts of 8 hours each round the clock, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Obviously, they werent. Congressional people on capitol hill with theirule. These very dedicated individuals, mostly women, because women are much more patient overall thannd they have a much more heightened sense of detan most men. These are generalized options, yes. But basically troop now on your right side is a photograph of a separate section that work there because virginia was completely segregated at the time. And these ladies and a few gentlemen are all africanamerican cousins. They were doing same work, but in a different section. To say, missing. Ords are, i want i tried to get a hold of them for the talk and my s in the field there said, we cant come up with them right now. Maybe in a years time. Stuff does get misfiled. Ive worked in top secret in the archives. Stuff does get lost. And then some stuff gets shredded and burned. So you dont know which road theyve down. I feel based on just gut instinct alone, that there is at least masters, if not a doctorate, waiting to be written on this africanamerican section at Arlington Hall. Very dedicated. And they werent technically spies behind enemy lines, but the work that they did was as critically important to bringing about victory. And what im trying do tonight, both on this side of the pond and the other side of the pond, is to have you realize that you need everybody working together as a team. I was born in an Army Hospital and raised on army post. And believe me, youre taught from day one. Youre a member of a team. Excel on your own. Yes. But only as member of a team. So it takes the people back here at Arlington Hall, as well as people out in the field doing their espionage best, such as this lady here from a town just north balmore. Know we have one representative here tonight from that distinguished town. And this is virginia hal born in 16, ten years after Wallace Simpson is born up there. There was something obviously in the becae virginial was uncontrollable. Her family ands a young woman, she went off and, joined the foreign service. But she was he discriminated against because she was a woman. She went out field honey. One day accidentally. Blew off her lower left leg. So she w war. A wooden prosthesis didnt slow her down a bit. She s gutsy. She had grit. And then some. She goes work f mr. Churchills. So we special Operations Executive in vichy france, and she has a very good sixth sense. If you. And she finds out that the gestapo was about to come and get her. So she takes cuthbert her wooden leg. And she walks 50 miles through the pyrenees mountains in the middle of a snowstorm to get to neutral spain. She then cable is the british Contact Office in london saying, i am now in spain. But cuthbert gave a lot of problems and they cable back should crews. Not realizing it was her wouldnt like she is gutsy. So in fearless brave she goes back into occupied france for oasis. You see there their original insignia there. And while bill donovan General Donovan sends in and she does a magnificent job of espionage and then she comes at the end of the war, he wants her to be given a medal at the white by president truman. She says i wt to stay undercover and continue myor whatever it may be. So he presents her with the , distinguished service cross. Atelin his office, which the photograph here on the right my gutnct ving been 41 years and several seven federal agencies. Instinct is had she been a man and formshe would haten e medal of honor. And i think somebody should really seriously look into that. She was in career edible General Donovan, who won the medal of honor in the first war. General donovan called her the finest espionage agent in all of World War Two. That worked for the ss very, very, very high recommendation. Here is someone i met when i was 12 years old, figuratively speaking, because that is when this fabulousook air spy came out and i have my copy over here on the table. I read it when i was a was totally captive by it it was the first book to come on photo interpretation analysis in the form of it meant the difference between dday being and not launched its all to this fabulous h a photo interpretation. Constance Babington Smith she has three things going for her. Number one, shes titled english family, which means everything across pond. Number two, her brother also works in photo analysis. And then the same overall area so he can back her. Number three she looks like she came out of central casting from hollywood and she was in aviation having become aviation buff in the 1930s as a young woman. When Amelia Earhart is flying in and june cochran and and all of these women are in the group that will eventually called the 99 ers. And she is just really an expert on early aviation. She notices something on one of her skirt, stereoscopic views. And theyre looking down like this and thats the illustration here. Gotten a betteropy. I could have i couldnt. But that is the v one the buzz bomb. His is shown movie 1965. George peppard and sophia loren. Eration crossbow. And theres also a book by that because the movie. The movie sure. It now its a british. So its better than american movies, especially at the time. But the interesting point here on constance Babington Smith, they show the hardheaded wooden blockheads, she has to go up against, namely professor lindemann, who is churchills scientific advisor. And he is adamant that she doesnt know what shes talking about, that he does. And thats a torpedo, a 30 foot long german torpedo. Well, professor lindemann, ive dealt with those people for 41 years. Its not fun. Theyre a pain that a pill cant reach because are god and they know it. And theyre going to let you know it. And its their way or no way. Well, again, shes titled. She has a brother who looks like he came out of central casting and works in the same general area. And she presents her theory over and over. She sticks her guns. And this is critical because it finally gets to mr. Churchill, as youll in the movie. And he the entire Royal Air ForceBomber Command 800 plus to fly from england over panama and on the North Central german baltic coast and bomb the secret base there. They do so, causing great havoc, great casualties. And it causes the nazi rocket project to go underground down into central germany and southern germany in the hearts mountains and in the four alps. And why is this so important this evening . Because general eisenhower, our when asked the war about the importance of the raid on panama, india said it delayed the german Rocket Program six months in august of 1943. Is the raid if that raid had occurred when it did, the germans would have had literally thousands of these v rockets going into the ports in southern england where the invasion fleet was gathered south hampton, plymouth, etc. And those young men you saw in the first slide going on the troop ships to get ready to go onto the landing boats would have been fishing a barrel and they would have been slaughtered and no invasion have taken place all due to this one woman sticking to her guns. We need some more people like that today. But she didnt do it by herself. There was a whole team in england at bletchley park. Now. If you look at the slide in the upper corner here, you think, well, its a pretty decent ple to wor the whole they didnt work there. Thats for the lord high monkey muck thats for visitors coming in to be shown around. This is where they word unheated huts. Unheated huts. N no ac. Shiftse shts aay,ight hour seven days a week, 3s a year fromepteer. En v day was declared. R of 1945, grit. Itakes grit to go in there every day and put in eight shif it takes perseverance. I had the dishonoand privilege to have a lunch at fort myer withf thladies that worked at bletchley park. She was a scots woman. I wa to meet her in a dark alley. We were talking. Of course. All i was doing was asking a few questions. And then i would her go forth. And one time she stops, looks at me and she gets this very intense look on her face, burning eyes are like being eyes of lasers. And she pounds on the lunch table and goes, we did it before and we can do it again. Hey, works for me. So that was the spirit of bletchley park. Here you the group of women working. There were some men working there too. But the majority were women. And in the lower right corner, what were they working on . The enigma machine. I fool around with an enigma machine before youver try to lift one up. Make certain eaten your ties its like gold. It may look small. Excuse me. Ke a portable typewriter or. Its heavy is led. The germans thought, they were unbreakable. But as you would see in the movie, the imitation game came out in 2014. Again, a superior british movie. I hate to think what it would look like if hollywood did it and see. Of course, their focus is on alan turing. But there were a huge amount of women working there day and night doing this. Now we will come to mr. Churchills special Operations Executive for war heroes of the suite. And that book came out a num of years ago. So you may have to go to ebay to pick it up. The first lady her your left is violet, and im going to mispronounce ball, i believe she courageous bey belief. And she got picked up early in occupied france. Now i say up early in occupied france . She asked, a bored a piper cub size aircraft in the middle of the night fly over the channel and get into a darkened field somewhere in france, hoping to god that her contacts are down there to greet her and not the gestapo. The ss. I mean, thats incredibly in and of itself. And then shes a courier. Shes radio transmitter, and they catch her. Heres why ive included her for dday. She never. Just absolutely incredibly courageous. She never gave away any of the secrets of the so agents and. Operatives in occupied france. So the gestapo and the sick or einsteins and the ss who they were, they executed her at ravensbruck concentrate in camp. The british made a nice movie about her in 1958 and its called carve