I'm speaking from a logistical and tactical viewpoint rather than whether or not there was sufficient resolve on the part of the leaders. There is no practical way to re-embark the soldiers and withdraw from a too hot beach. The same factors that make the beach too hot..interlacing machine gun fire..pre-registered artillery etc. make the beach too hot to load the men back onto landing craft and return them to the ship. They would have to be abandoned..something few Allied leaders would contemplate. BTW the Normandy landings were never considered to be the "final blow" to the enemy. It was well known that there would be many months of hard fighting to follow and Normany was just the first step in delivering the final blow.
A landing in itself obviously isn't the final blow, but considering the previous campaigns in North Africa, Sicily and Italy this one was planned to go straight to the German industrial heartland and thus end the war, not to achieve some far-fetched or local goal in the gradual weakening of the enemy.
In his book 'Overlord' Max Hastings says that the Forward Air Control lessons learned in the dessert weren't introduced until weeks after the landings - this seems to be an amazing oversight.
I have that Max Hasting book from the library to read, is it any good? It looks a bit dry. As for the objective of Overlord it was clearly to open a second western front against the Germans which would be able to swiftly free France and a obtain a significant cross chanel port to support the armies. The Italian front was facing stiff resistance and the country being narrow and mountainous was not good for the allies who had considerably more resources and wanted to spread them across wide flat fronts. I agree that for the Allies to invade prior to the spring/summer of 44 would have invited defeat. Especially when you consider the thought and planning that went into it and what such a hard battle it initially still was. If they had invaded in in 42 or even 43 there may not have been any mulberies, fuel pipe, the luftwaffe would have been stronger, no DD tanks, less resouces (men and planes) available for the airborne opps, less organised french resistance etc. All these things whilst being only a small part in themselves took time to plan, build and deploy and would have been either missing or rushed if the invasion happened earlier. Any the the combination of these all added to the chance of success. It was an inspired descision by Churchil to delay the invastion as he was straining for revenge and the Americans were begging to get into the fight. However he knew that the risk was to great and failure would have extended the war even further whilst more resources were gathered to try again. However the failure of an eariler invasation would not have been the end for the allies as England was secure and Germany was always on the back foot after invading Russia. FNG
From memory, not bad, i'm reading it again and will follow this with Carlo D'Este's 'Decision in Normandy'.
Well, I now know. (thanks to FlyPast's D-Day 60th Anniversay edition, kindly lent to me by my good friend Josh.) Luftflotte 3, which was based in the relevant area, had the following numbers of servicable aircraft on charge on the 1st of June: Fighters: 173 Fighter-bombers: 77 Recon fighters: 42 Bombers: 448 Recon: 85 Nightfighters: 150 A grand total of 975 planes. Before anybody starts up about losses to allied attacks on the German bases... By 30th June they had: Fighters: 148 Fighter-bombers: 75 Recon fighters: 25 Bombers: 282 Recon: 87 Nightfighters: 136 These figures obviously include replacements for aircraft lost in combat, which totalled: Fighters: 150 Fighter-bombers: 44 Recon fighters: 15 Bombers: 144 Recon: 9 Nightfighters: 46 Say around 800 usable combat planes on 6th June. That would have made a sizeable impact on the invasion fleet, and would have distracted an awful lot of the Allies' aerial support, which was rather useful for the troops on the ground. Yes, the allies had rather more planes on hand, but still...
According to Mr Hastings in Overlord the Allies did not believe they had Air Supremecy at the time of the invasion. The German response came as quite a welcome shock. Also according to Mr Hastings the Germans had very little to put into the air. Remember there is more to aircraft than the planes. Their pilots would have had limited experiance, be in short supply with limited fuel. There air bases would have also been targetted. The Allies planed special AA defences for the beaches so even if the Germans did try to attack their damage would have been nominal. FNG
I was at the Natural History Museum in London a few weeks ago looking at the books in the British Geological Survey shop and they had one detailing the geology of the Normandy area and the plans for airstrips, fuel and ammo dumps, vehicle storage areas etc - made for some interesting reading.
There is a documentary out on DVD called "D-Day: Down To Earth". This is the story of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which was the last to jump into Normandy on June 6th as part of the 82nd Airborne Division. It was also the most scattered, a distinction I'm sure they would have preferred to miss out on. The documentary tells not only of the regiment's service in WW2, complete with veteran accounts of the actions, but also shows how the unit vets also caused a monument to their fallen companions to be built in France. It seems that 182 paratroopers (some of them from the 101st Airborne) were accidentally dropped near the town of Graignes, well south of where they were supposed to be. They liberated the town and were aided by the French townspeople in finding lost equipment and men, as well as being fed and housed by them. An SS regiment attacked on June 11th and was held up for two days, during which time Carentan was captured by the Allies. The SS troops did eventually force the Americans to withdraw, leaving their wounded and a doctor behind. The SS then executed all of them, plus several of the townspeople, including two Catholic priests. I highly recommend this documentary.
Are you sure the regiment was the 507th? Historically the components of the 82nd Airborne were 504, 505 and 508 PIR along with 325 GIR. The 101st Airborne had 501, 502 and 506 PIR and 327 GIR.
It was the 507th. The regiment was detached from the 82nd after Normandy and assigned to the 17th Airborne Division, with whom it took part in the massive airborne landings on the east bank of the Rhine in March of 1945.
Rhino hedge cutters The 'Rhino' hedge/bank cutters weren't used until COBRA, what would have been the effect if they had been used right from the start on the 6th June?
When did Cobra start? I was under the impression that that was the first widespread, official use of Rhino, and that troops in the field had been rigging similar devices anyhow. Although once more I'm sure I'll be corrected on this.
True, but if the idea had been thought of before hand then they come have come equipped - the troops practiced on landing on beaches that were as close as possible to the beaches they landed on but from what I've read, for many units the area they trained on for the following fighting didn't bear much resemblance to the actual ground conditions they fougnt on - I think Max Hastings points this out in Overlord and Carlo D'Este says much the same in Decision in Normandy.
IIRC COBRA started 25th July and Rhinos seem to have given the US armour a lot more flexibility in manoueuvre while the German armour was still resricted.
All kinds of devices were used even before the policy of attaching these hedgerow-cutting devices to tanks was made official. In the end they helped, but they didn't determine the ouctome of Cobra. This offensive started with massive artillery and air support upon weakened and exhausted German units, which were ordered rigidly by Hitler to stand their ground. Can you say pulverize?
According to good old Max the attack started with a massive bombing of the allied assault troops! This seems to be a common theme with all the allied offences in Normandy. Those fly boys, you have to love them As for future plans, I get the impression from Max's book that the Allies never really gave much though to what happened after they secured the beach and started to push out. I guess they assumed that once the beachheads were secure it would be just another battle and standard tactics and weapons would apply. FNG
I wasn't think so much about the outcome of COBRA, more what would have been the effect of US armour having the ability right from D-Day to manoeuvre in the way that Rhinos seem to have given them while German armour was initilly confined by the boccage.
I'm beginning to think that mr. Hastings is a bit biased against the Allies. The massive bombardment the American air force threw at Panzer Lehr division definitely hit its target; however, a few of the IIRC 4000 planes involved accidentally dropped their cargoes too close to the American front lines. Friendly fire did indeed occur, however the vast majority of the bombs were responsible for over a thousand casualties among the already shattered elements of Panzer Lehr.
