Episode 15 - “D-Day”

Summary

EP15 chronicles the Allies’ long-awaited June 1944 invasion of France on the Normandy coast, encompassing the preceding buildup and then aftermath as the invaders moved inland. Though Rodgers's SONG-SEAS and DEATH-DEBRIS themes appear briefly, EP15 stands apart from other Victory episodes for Bennett's extensive and near-exclusive use of Rodgers's new D-DAY theme, especially between 3:42 and 16:18. EP15, with its study “plugging” of a lone Rodgers theme, has a kind of thematic unity uncommon in Victory, and might be what Henry Salomon had hoped for in his original conception of the series, or expected from his musical collaborators: Bennett putting a new Rodgers tune through its paces in each episode.

The program begins with Allied landing craft hitting the Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944, where invading soldiers under fire immediately take casualties. This is, however, merely a prologue to establish EP15's subject and scope, as there's a quick segue at 1:45 back to the Allies’ preliminary January 1943 planning conference at Casablanca, fundamentally a conversation among Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisors. 1942's Operation Torch (EP9) had yielded a solid Allied foothold in North Africa, and the conference led to the “unconditional surrender” policy and agreement that the Sicily-Italy campaign would precede the all-out assault in France, delayed to 1944. We see General Eisenhower in London at 2:17, during the winter of 1943–44, leading staff discussions upon assuming his role as Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.

Bennett's music opens EP15 [A] by previewing the tempo and four-note ostinato bass line of Rodgers's D-DAY—with his own composing above—while holding off the Rodgers tune's actual appearance. Before invasion preparations are detailed, a somber E-flat minor chord at 2:30 (see EP3) and GER underscore reminders of Hitler's formidable Atlantic Wall of defenses on France's coast awaiting the Allies. The all-high-register music at 3:30 [B], as Allied planes exploit their air superiority along France's coast, is reminiscent of Bennett's EP1 writing for the Luftwaffe.

Commencing at 3:42 is a twelve-plus-minute sequence duplicated nowhere in Victory. Bennett notates and labels his elaborations on Rodgers's D-DAY theme as a Theme with Nine Variations, lasting through 16:18.