David Eisenhower speaks about his grandfather and D-Day during visit to UNO

By: Hanna Stock & Phillip Lemen

Many remember Dwight D. Eisenhower as the 34^th U.S. President and his part in the historic D-Day invasion at Normandy during World War II. However, his grandson Dwight David Eisenhower II, remembers him not as a historian but as a person. 

Dwight David Eisenhower II was the oldest grandchild of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, and a frequent visitor to the White House as a boy.

Eisenhower II spoke to a crowd at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) during the 75^th anniversary year of the D-Day invasion. In his own perspective, he answered questions from the audience about his experience and the historic significance of D-Day and his grandfather’s legacy. 

“The aspects of D-Day that will never die is that it stands in the monuments of ingenuity of what America was and the ingenuity of a free society,” Eisenhower II said. 

Eisenhower was a supreme allied commander in Europe, and he had the role of planning and executing Normandy landings. The allies; U.S., Canada, Britain, and France attacked and were successful that day against the German forces. 

“Eisenhower wrote a note that he intended to release in the event that the landings fail,” Eisenhower II said. “it’s a famous note because in it he takes complete responsibility for the failures of the landings, if we were defeated.”

Young Eisenhower II met many of the leading figures from World War II at his grandfather’s dinner table, but he rarely was able to talk with them about the conflict.