This month we will be commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the day the Allied troops landed in France to begin the counter-offensive against the Nazis. Facing them was a vast defensive network of artillery, gun emplacements, mines and other deadly obstacles stretching from the west coast of France up to Norway, known as the “Atlantic Wall”. Ernie Pyle, a war correspondent who was there at the time, said that the Allies attacked “with every advantage on the enemy’s side and every disadvantage on ours.” Pyle concluded, “Now that it is all over, it seems to me a pure miracle that we ever took the beach at all.”
We will be rightly admiring the bravely of those who attacked against such great odds, as well as the intelligence of those who devised both the invasion and the equipment needed for it. But will God get any credit for the success of D-Day and its aftermath?
Invoking deities in battles is probably as old as human conflict itself, with victories being seen as evidence of the superiority of one nation's god(s) over another's. When Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked Judah, his commander said to the people of Jerusalem ““Do not listen to Hezekiah [king of Judah], for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?” (2 Kings 18:32-33) In this case God did indeed deliver Judah (2 Kings 19:32-37).
Things get a bit more complicated however in the age of Christendom when the nations fighting against each other claimed to follow the same God, most famously perhaps with the Spanish Armada aiming to reclaim England for the 'true (Roman Catholic) faith' but being defeated in part by a 'Protestant wind.' And in World War I both sides claimed God was on their side. However, in World War II the Nazis rejected the traditional Judeo-Christian God and their policies made it easy for the Allies to claim that they were fighting against an evil regime. So, coming to D-Day it was natural for the Allied hierarchy to invoke God to their cause.
Eisenhower requested to the troops that “all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking”; Montgomery told the troops, “Let us pray that the Lord, mighty in battle, will give us victory”; Roosevelt offered a prayer rather than a speech saying “In this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer”; and George VI said “I desire solemnly to call my people to prayer and dedication.”
Arguably the prayers worked. The bad weather, which had led to the invasion being postponed, abated but also meant the Germans were not expecting the invasion. Indeed a lot of their commanders left for war games exercises in Brittany, and Rommel, who was in charge of the Normandy defences, decided to travel 500 miles to Germany to celebrate his wife’s birthday. As Pyle observed, although still horrific, Allied casualties “were remarkably low—only a fraction, in fact, of what our commanders had been prepared to accept.”
So did God intervene miraculously on the Allied side on D-Day? The Bible reveals a God who cares about what happens in the affairs of nations and will intervene (Daniel 2:20-21), but we ought not to be too quick to recruit God to our cause. As George VI wisely said on D-Day: “We are not unmindful of our shortcomings of the past and present. We shall not ask that God may do our will, but that we may be enabled to do the will of God; and we dare to believe that God has used [us] as an instrument for fulfilling his high purpose.” And when he does use us as an instrument we should, as Churchill told the House of Commons after the war had been won, “give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance.”
