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"On D-Day, one in every 12 American Soldiers was a combat engineer. He carried the same basic load of equipment and ammunition as his infantry counterpart, plus 40 pounds of explosives." the frst time since the war began, the 20th Combat Engineers supported the 1171th Engineer Combat Group and aided in bridge reconnaissance and minesweeping operations. By 18 June, the battalion had planned and rigged the demolition of all bridges in the vicinity of Castillon, Rouxeville, and Foulognes, the new footprint of 1st Army. Sherwood B. Smith, "Defenses of the Normandy Peninsula," The Military Engineer, No. 232, Volume 37, February 1945, pp. 49–51. The Corps of Engineers is as old as the U.S. Army itself. A small percentage of engineers are responsible for feld fortifcations and demolitions. These engineers are commonly referred to as sappers, an occupational term in armies around the world for soldiers whose main purpose is to provide mobility to maneuver forces. It is the responsibility of the sapper to aid the infantryman with attacks to maximize his efforts in manipulating the characteristics of the offense: Fred Majdalany, The Fall of Fortress Europe, Hodder and Stoughton, London, England, 1969. ■ Surprise. ■ Concentration. ■ Tempo. ■ Audacity.16 On D-Day, tempo and audacity carried the day. The tempo that the engineers achieved allowed the infantry to maintain the initiative and disrupt enemy forces as prescribed in Army Doctrinal Publication (ADP) 3-0, Unifed Land Operations.17 Landing on a beach and breaching obstacles under heavy fre that resulted in 40 percent casualties was the defnition of audacity. As stated in the same publication, audacity is a simple plan of action, boldly executed. The actions of the 20th Combat Engineers and sappers that fateful day proved how well-trained engineer battalions can lead the Army to successful lodgments and then fght as infantry when necessary. Their versatility and agility contributed greatly to the massing of combat power on the objective. Within days, the engineers had transitioned once again from the tactical offense to stability and reconstruction operations for First Army. In the words of the renowned correspondent Ernie Pyle, "Even the infantry took its hat off to them—for not infrequently, the engineers were actually ahead of the troops." 3 4 Berger, 1994. 5 Smith, 1945. 6 7 Records of the German Army High Command (OKH), (Microflm), Combined Arms Research Library, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 8 Berger, 1994. 9 Blanche D. Coll, Jean E. Keith, and Herbert H. Rosenthal, The Corps of Engineers: Troops and Equipment, Offce of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., 1958. 10 ADRP 3-90, Offense and Defense, 31 August 2012. 11 Coll, Keith, and Rosenthal, 1958. 12 Berger, 1994. William C. Johnson, History of the U.S. Army 20th Engineer Combat Battalion, Follow the Wavy Arrow, S.N., 1948. 13 14 Coll, Keith, and Rosenthal, 1958. 15 ADRP 3-90, 2012. 16 Ibid. 17 ADP 3-0, Unifed Land Operations, 10 October 2011. Major Lucitt is the executive offcer of the 35th Engineer Battalion, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He attended the Infantry Captains Career Course, the Royal School of Military Survey, and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Endnotes: 1 Sid Berger, Breaching Fortress Europe: The Story of U.S. Engineers in Normandy on D-Day, Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa, 1994. Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day, Simon and Schuster, New York, New York, 1959. 2 May–August 2013 Engineer 15