Countdown to D-Day: how President Eisenhower’s Gettysburg home will mark the invasion

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Countdown to D-Day: how President Eisenhower’s Gettysburg home will mark the invasion’s anniversary
By Sean Adams | sadams@pennlive.com -6-1-19
RE: https://www.pennlive.com/entertainme...niversary.html

Inside the former Gettysburg home of President Dwight D. Eisenhower hangs a portrait of his son, John, when the younger Eisenhower was enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

“Of course, Ike was not able to be there for his son’s West Point graduation,” said Dan Vermilya, a park ranger at the Eisenhower National Historic Site. “In his letters to [his wife] Mamie in the days and weeks leading up [to the graduation], one thing he mentioned was how much he wanted to be there. But he made mention that, sadly, he was ‘a bit too busy with work’.”

That was because John Eisenhower graduated from West Point on June 6, 1944 - the same day that his father, serving as the Supreme Allied Commander for the Allied Expeditionary Force, had ordered the Allied invasion of Normandy against Nazi Germany, commonly referred to as D-Day.

Following Ike’s retirement from service, the Eisenhowers bought the house and adjoining 189 acre farm in Gettysburg in 1950 - the first home that the couple had ever owned since their marriage in 1916. They agreed to donate the home to the Department of the Interior in 1967, though they continued to live there until their deaths - Ike in 1969, and Mamie in 1979. It opened as a National Park in 1980.

Interestingly enough, the home has relatively few items on display relating to Eisenhower’s military service. Despite his preference to be called “General Eisenhower” rather than “President Eisenhower” after his stint in the Oval Office, and despite the flag of a five-star general still adorning the flagpole at his home, he preferred to show off his herd of award-winning Angus cattle that he kept on the property to visiting guests, rather than military trappings.

“When they bought this property they were intending to use it as their retirement home,” Vermilya said. “But first they ended up using it quite a bit while they were President and First Lady. Ike had lived [in Gettysburg] once before, when he was the commander of Camp Colt, a tank training camp out on the Gettysburg battlefield in 1918. Ike was a big Civil War history buff, so of course buying a farm right next to the battlefield was very appealing for him.”

But ultimately, like his son’s graduation coinciding with D-Day, Eisenhower’s life was too intimately connected to the military for his home to not be of interest to those commemorating World War II’s most famous invasion. His bookshelves include numerous books on the war, and on D-Day itself, as well as a collection of books given to him by Winston Churchill, the British prime minster, who visited the Eisenhower home during Ike’s presidency. Another famous World War II ally, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, visited Eisenhower there in 1957, and the former president gave his British counterpart a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield.

“I would encourage visitors who are looking to connect to Eisenhower the general would still come and visit us,” Vermilya. “Here you’re getting a sense of who this man really was, getting to tour his home, see the books that he read. Here, as a site, we do programs discussing his military career.”

Commemorating D-Day in Gettysburg

This year is the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, and the Eisenhower National Historic Site in Gettysburg will mark the occasion with several events leading up to the June 6 anniversary.

On June 1, the site will host a Living History Day, with “living historians” representing soldiers and sailors who participated in the Normandy landings giving presentations to visitors, and with equipment on display from the battle.

That same evening, historian Jared Frederick will host a program at the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center. Frederick, a former park ranger at Gettysburg and current professor of history at Penn State Altoona, has written a book titled “Dispatches of D-Day: A People’s History of The Normandy Invasion," and will present a lecture and book signing.

Also beginning daily on June 1, Vermilya said, the rangers of the Eisenhower National Historic Site will give talks focusing on General Eisenhower and the men who participated in D-Day, “discussing some fo the equipment the soldiers carried, discussing their connection to Eisenhower as the Supreme Allied Commander. We’ll have special programs on Gettysburg during the Second World War, discussing the impact of D-Day on the home front.” The talks will be held through June 6.

At 7:30 p.m. on June 5, the site will host a presentation titled A Great and Noble Undertaking: Prelude to D-Day. The talk will focus on the lead-up to D-Day, rather than the battle itself.

“We’ll be talking not just about Eisenhower’s role in the planning of the Normandy invasion, and everything that went into that - the gears of war turning as they prepared to cross the English channel and break Hitler’s Atlantic Wall," Vermilya explained. “But also discussing some of those who actually took part in it, and highlighting some quotes from soldiers who were involved in the Normandy invasion.”

A walking tour of the Gettysburg National Cemetery will be held on June 6, beginning at 5 p.m. and led by historian Ralph Siegel, a licensed battlefield guide.

“I think a lot of visitors maybe don’t realize that the story [of the National Cemetery] goes beyond the Battle of Gettysburg and President Lincoln’s famed Gettysburg Address," Vermilya said. "There are several thousand graves in that cemetery of those who served the United States in 20th century conflicts. There are actually a fair number of those who were killed in the Second World War, in battles such as D-Day, buried there.”

Finally, another program will be held at the National Cemetery on June 8, with a playing of taps at 7 p.m.

Visitors to the Eisenhower National Historic Site must arrive through the shuttle provided by the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center. Tickets are $9, $5 for ages 6-12 and free for children under 6.

The visitor’s center also has an exhibit dedicated to Eisenhower and the D-Day invasion, as well as how the town of Gettysburg responded to war events and the D-Day invasion. For details,