D-Day/Battle Of Normandy

An Overview In the years since 1945, it has become increasingly evident that the Grand Alliance forged between the British Commonwealth and the United States was often beset with disagreement over the correct strategy to insure the final defeat of the Axis powers. Early on, both British and American staffs could agree that Germany represented a greater military threat than Japan, but they did not often see eye to eye on the strategy that would most efficiently defeat the Reich.

The Americans were early and persistent advocates of a direct strategy - a cross-Channel attack that would first destroy German military power in the West, then drive deep into the heart of industrial Germany to end the war. The British, on the other hand, sobered by their disastrous experiences at Dunkirk and Dieppe, preferred to stage a number of small-scale attacks around the perimeter of fortress Europe. They thereby hoped to weaken German defenses before leaping precipitously across the Channel into the teeth of the still powerful Wehrmacht. The British simply could not afford the staggering losses entailed in a frontal assault on the northwest coast of Europe. "Memories of the Somme and Passchendaele," wrote Sir Winston Churchill years later, "were not to be blotted out by time or reflection." British Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), put it more bluntly in his memoirs: "Certain British authorities instinctively recoiled from the whole affair, as well they might, for fear of the butcher bill." It is not surprising, then, that the harder the Americans pressed in 1942 and 1943 for a firm commitment on a cross-Channel attack, the more the British seemed to vacillate.

After a debate lasting through much of 1942, the Americans agreed to postpone any cross-Channel attack in favor of the November landings in North Africa-Operation Torch. The strategic outcome of Torch was what American Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall had predicted. Success in Tunisia-the first the Allies had experienced against the Wehrmacht-inspired Churchill and his Chief of the Imperial Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, to devise a Mediterranean strategy aimed at knocking Italy out of the war and at protecting British sea-lanes to the oil-rich Middle East. The July 1943 invasion of Sicily was followed by the landings at Salerno and Anzio, the collapse of Mussolini's government, and the beginning of the bitter and protracted fight up the Italian peninsula.

Thus it was not until the Teheran Conference in November 1943 that the British, prodded by the Russians, reluctantly agreed to launch a cross-Channel attack, code-named Operation Overlord, in May of 1944 and to allow President Franklin D. Roosevelt to name a commander for the operation. Although both Marshall and Brooke coveted the appointment, had even been promised it, both were passed over. Instead, all concurred in the selection of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then commanding United States forces in Europe. On 14 January 1944, Eisenhower, now titled Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, arrived in London to begin work on the final invasion plan.

Months before Eisenhower's appointment as Supreme Commander, General Morgan and his COSSAC staff had produced a preliminary plan for the seaborne invasion of Europe. Constrained by the range of fighters based in southern England and by the availability of suitable landing beaches, COSSAC planners' options narrowed quickly to the Pas-de-Calais area and a section of the Calvados coast on either side of the Norman town of Arromanches-les-Bains. The Pas-de-Calais beaches, attractive because of their closeness to England and the shortness of the lines of advance to the German border, were rejected because of their limited number, their remoteness from a major port, and their highly developed defenses. Normandy, almost by default, became the designated "lodgment area."

COSSAC planners proposed to land three divisions (two British and one American) abreast onto Normandy's sand and shingle beaches, followed immediately by two more and flanked on the east, near Caen, by elements of a British parachute division. Many details, including the exact landing date, were not specified by COSSAC in order to leave some flexibility to the Supreme Commander. However, the weather, tides, and light conditions required for the landing were outlined and calculated so that the precise calculations for H Hour on D Day could be made in the future. The absence of an adequate port along the Calvados coast led the planners in two directions. On one hand, they specified the port of Cherbourg, located on the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula, as an immediate post-D Day objective. On the other, they began planning for the construction of two artificial ports (code-named Mulberries) to be towed from England after the initial landings.

The Overlord plan also called for the pre-invasion strategic bombing of selected targets in Germany and France in an effort to destroy German tactical aircraft, "since only through air power can we offset the many and great disabilities inherent in the situation confronting the attacking surface forces." Later air strikes would seek to interdict troop movements toward the lodgment area. Bombing patterns were to be carefully designed to avoid disclosing the actual landing sites. The landings themselves would be immediately preceded by massive air strikes at the beach fortifications.

Lastly, the Overlord plan called for feinted landings in southern France and in the Pas-de-Calais area, although the details of neither effort were spelled out. The Mediterranean feint ultimately became an actual landing, Operation Anvil, while the elaborate Pas-de-Calais deception-Operation Fortitude-was maintained until well after D Day.

On 3 January 1944, COSSAC staffer Brigadier Kenneth McLean briefed General Bernard Law Montgomery, recently appointed to command the Second British Army, and General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower's chief of staff, on the various complicated elements of Overlord. Montgomery, as was his wont with plans not specifically his own, objected to various parts, specifically the weight of the initial assault landing. McLean later characterized Monty's position as simply "give me five divisions or get someone else to command." Backed by Eisenhower, he won his point-an additional American infantry division would now be landed at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, covered by two airborne divisions dropped behind the landing beach. However, Monty's victory came at the expense of both Anvil, which had to be postponed until D Day plus 30, and the early May date for Neptune (as the assault landing phase of Overlord was now named) to allow for the production of a thousand additional landing