It killed men, which were irreplacable but their moral and fighting spirit remained as did their emplaced AT weapons, MG's and tanks. So when the allies did attack German resistance was often too much to allow any major land gain. However the air power and bombs did heavily disrupt supplies, constantly ground down the defenders (but not enough in most places to allow a breakthrough) and more importantly disrupted the germans when they tried to mass armour for counter attacks. Time and again Hastings refers to the germans attempting serious and threatening counter attacks which failed to succeed as troops could not gather to prepare, armour arrived late due to disruption during movement or lacked the fuel to move to other sectors. I don't think he is biased against the allies. I do think that he wanted to down grade all the big talk that came from the air units as it was his opinion that the air damage was not as significant as thought against the front line defenders. I do think he is full of praise for the fighting ability of the german army when faced with superior numbers of everything and that they put a lot of allied divisions to shame. But a lot of that came not from individual training/ability but from their command structure which seem to cope better under fire. FNG
In the case of Cobra, 3rd US Army ripped straight through the German defenders after just a few days of fighting, allowing for dozens of miles of land gain and eventually causing the German front in Normandy to collapse entirely (once operations Bluecoat and Totalize were commenced by the Canadians and British respectively).
Cobra was launched very late towards the end of July and marked the begining of the breakout and German collapse. German resistance on that area had been ground down and shattered not by any previous decisive engagement but by nearly two months of solid attrition, air attack, artillery attack, lack of resupply and just overwhelming numbers. The Allies were always going to win after the first 48 hours on the shore, however the fact that solid resistance lasted 50 odd days is a tribute to the tenancity of the German defenders against overwhelming odds with a solid contribution from the terrain. Therefore sooner or later somewhere on the front the german line would collapse from the sheer pressure, it's just a shame for the british it was in a US sector given the pressure they were applying around Caen FNG
But it was better that the stalemate in the bocage country be ended quickly, if only to reduce American casualties. Every US veteran of the fighting I've ever heard talk about this phase has stated that the bocage was a defender's paradise, and most of them have anecdotes about stumbling into German troops and/or positions without knowing that they were there.
If sufficient landing ships and craft had been available sooner, the troops ready, transport links cut, the Luftwaffe battered into the state it was in on June 6th etc, when is the earliest the weather would have allowed Overlord to have taken place?
For Goodwood, the 11th Armoured Division had a single FAC and this was knocked out within 2 hours and close air support was lost. Was the FAC allocation to other units just as thin and if there had been a more genrous allocation of FAC, would this have helped - the 11th at least were given a very rough time by the 4 88mm guns of the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division.
Forward Air Control was poorly used throughout Overlord. Lack of radios and complicted/restrictive command structures also did not help. FNG
It would have worked unless the germans had their panzer div. in the right spot and if Rommel would have been there
Interesting line from Carlo D'Este's - Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander. Churchill has just mad a remark to assembled Chiefs etc that suggests he is not been too keen on the idea. '"I am hardening to this enterprise. I repeat, I am now hardening towards this enterprise"./ Churchill's turn of phrase unhaoopily conveyed a misleading impression to Eisenhower and other Americans present that he had previously been against Overlord. Fialing to understand that Churchill's statement was mainly one of semantics, Eisenhower took the PM's remarks as a signal that only now was he becoming a bel;iever. Privately Eisenhwer was dismayed by what wa sactually intended as a fighting speach: "I then relaise for the first time that Mr Churchill hadn't believed in it all along and had no faith that it would succeed. It was quite a shocking discovert. Sir Alan Brooke had been extremely pessimistic at all times about our prosepect of fighting through the boccage country and I believe the PM reflected Sir Alan's tactical views"' What is intresting here is the part I have highlighted - Alan Brooke's views on the boccage.
Overlord was originally scheduled for early May 1944. Lack of landing craft caused the delay until early June (originally June 4, weather delays caused the shift to the sixth).
Something that came up in John Griggs book - 1943, the victory that never was - can anyone let me know if there is truth in this. The Dieppe raid was originally planned by Combined Operations under Mountbatten and would have involved attacking in pincer movements around the sides of the town , SO AVOIDING THE SHINGLE. However, Mountbatten was sent to the States to persuade the US to forget about operation Roundup and invasion of the continent in 1943 and the planning was switched to Home Forces who switched to a frontal attack which took the tanks over the shingle.
From Brian Loring Villa's Unauthorized Action: Mountbatten and the Dieppe Raid: "As different agencies made their suggestion, the plan underwent a number of significant changes. COHQ(under Mountbatten) had itself originally favoured one that called for flanking attacks, which would converge on Dieppe from the rear. But it was feared by Montgomery, that the flanking attacks might never develope the steam to take the town, and without that achievment the raid would be seen by the public as a failure. Realizing the much of the projects importance derived from the public perception of it, Montgomery supported the much riskier notion of making a frontal attack simultaneous with the flanking attacks, because this alone might give promise of capturing the town. Since it was becoming so clear that the raids purpose was to grab headlines, one might have expected Combined Operations to make a powerful arguement for the maximum amount of fire support from the air and sea force to insure success. Strangely, when Mountbatten presented the rough outline to the Chiefs of Staff for their approval, he limited himself to remarking that there were many problematic aspects to the raid that would have to be worked out, but he did not then try to extract any substantial commitment of forces." This was for the original Rutter plan. Montgomery wasn't involved in the planning for Jubilee, because he felt the operation had been compromised after Rutter was dismounted. It probably was, the Germans moved two additional Divs into the area shortly before Jubilee.
Good point about the Luftwaffe, I have always heard the 2 planes story, but someplace I read thats a myth. I doubt/know they had little in the way of air attacks going on for them. I dunno the exact true about the numbers, and I cant emeber the source for the revisionist air count.
The Author could find no evidence in the British Imperial Staff archives that Mountbatten had official authorization to mount the Jubilee operation.
