Norman Cota

Norman Cota

Norman Daniel ("Dutch") Cota (born May 30, 1893 in Chelsea , Massachusetts , † October 4, 1971 in Wichita , Kansas ) was a general in the US Army during World War II .

Life

Cota completed his high school education at the prestigious Worcester Academy in Massachusetts and graduated from the US Military Academy in West Point , New York in 1917 .

During the war Cota was from 1941 on the staff of the 1st Infantry Division ("The Big Red One"), from 1942 to 1943 as its chief of staff . From 1943 to 1944 he was the rank of Brigadier General and Deputy Commander of the 29th Infantry Division . As part of Operation Overlord in Normandy on June 6, 1944 ( D-Day ), Cota was instrumental in the breakthrough of the troops that were initially nailed to the beach by the German defenders when the Allies landed on Omaha Beach . From 1944 to 1945 Cota commanded the 28th Infantry Division as Major General .

He retired from active service in 1946 and retired in 1952 as head of civil defense for the City of Philadelphia .

Quote

“Gentlemen, we're being killed here on the beach. Let's go inland to be killed there. ”(Norman Cota, June 6, 1944)

literature

• Stephen E. Ambrose: D-Day, June 6, 1944. The climactic battle of World War II. Pocket Books, New York 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4974-6 .
• Will Fowler: D-Day, the longest day . Tosa-Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85492-855-6 .
• Robert A. Miller: Division Commander. Biography of Major General Norman D. Cota . Reprint Comp., Spartanburg, SC 1998, ISBN 0-8715-2438-4 .
• Cornelius Ryan : The longest day. Normandy, June 6, 1944 . Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-15577-7 .

Movie

The Longest Day (dt .: The Longest Day ), USA in 1962 , with Robert Mitchum as General Cota.