The worst kept secret during World War II was that the Allied forces would have to eventually make an amphibious invasion on the north coast of France. In the earliest years of America’s involvement, we were taking orders from the British who wanted to keep control of their colonies in Africa and Asia—by way of securing the Mediterranean Sea. This meant enduring many costly and slow moving invasions onto various islands and eventually the Italian mainland. On the mainland, Allied forces had to march up and down mountain terrains that make Stairmasters look like an escalator. In fact, WWII was over before we got into north Italy and if Hitler had been held up there, he might have seen the moon landing, it would’ve taken so long. Marching through Italy is like marching from Kansas to California; if you don’t have an elephant or two, it’s a helluva walk.
Once Americans figured out which end of the gun is the dangerous part (around 1943), General Dwight Eisenhower was put in charge of all Allied forces. He was not a particularly skilled war-planner but rather a great people-person who understood that all of his subordinates (Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, etc.) were as smart as they were independent as they were ego-maniacal—which was a butt load. Eisenhower agreed with everybody in early 1943 that the northern France route to Berlin was inevitable and put his men to task, each planning their perfect operations with a near disregard to one another. As the June 1944 deadline closed in, deception operations ran wild including, Operations Fortitude, Glimmer, Titanic, Taxable, Airbourne Cigar, Mincemeat and the whole 23rd HQ Special Troops—a thousand artists/engineers employed by the military to create a fictional 30,000-man division.
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
--Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 1943
Many Germans, to their credit, knew the invasion was coming but had enough problems of their own. Solving several of their problems, they put Erwin “Desert [that tank moved so fast it looked like a 60-ton] Fox” Rommel in charge of defending Nazi-occupied France, kind of. Really, Rommel became more of an advisor who advocated for all of Germany’s forces be placed by the coasts to stop the forthcoming Allied invasion on the beaches. “Fortunately” for the Allies, Rommel had a lot of success throughout WWII up to this point and was envied by his peers and superiors—who felt Rommel hogged the glory. Jealous to the point of not giving a snot about Rommel’s opinions, the German leadership followed Gerd von Rundstedt’s plan of concentrating German forces deep in France so that when the Allies attacked, both sides could have an equal fight and be exposed to more conventional, flanking, movements. The Germans became so distrusting of one another’s competencies that when a secret message was decoded that the Allies were going to stage the landing on June 6th, the warning was disregarded on the grounds that there had been a false alarm a month earlier--and Rommel still hadn’t attached a TPS cover sheet.
So the Allies were just going to walk into France? Seriously, at this point they could’ve built a bridge with no real problems, right? Nope. How to invade France became a catastrophic clash of ideologies. The Americans wanted a quick, direct, big and loud approach to fighting the war—with the benefit of booming our steel, rubber and chemical industries. The British wanted a slower, methodical, indirect war of attrition—with the benefit of controlling more global lands by war's end and keeping immediate body counts low. Could more lives be saved by going fast or by going slow? Frankly, there is no answer today, nor was there one then—so both countries just kind of did what they wanted.
In the last two years of the war, the thought process behind their aerial bombings seemed flipped, though. The British largely bombed German cities with the intention of destroying the public's will to fight. The Americans boasted “precision” bombs that could hit individual factories. Both of these methods proved rather, if not completely, ineffectual. The German people never lost their will to fight but were rather fueled to continue fighting after their houses got smashed. Incredibly, the British did not see this reaction coming, despite that it was the exact same reaction the British public had when getting bombed by the Germans in 1940. Similarly, the American “precision” bombs were largely inaccurate—as hitting the ground within one mile of the target was considered “a success.” To put that in perspective, many American cities now require porn shops to be at least 500 feet (or less than one-tenth of a mile) away from any schools or places of worship.
As a side note, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were meant to demoralize the public (which still didn’t turn on its own government) and provide a clear landing route for the expected invasion through southern Japan.
Back in England, the Allied forces fought over whether to make Operation Overlord (invasion of France) a stealthy, by several nights, invasion or a balls-out, kick-in-the-front-door invasion. Eisenhower, ever one to delegate, let both sides kind of have their way, and so a few paratroopers were sent into France before the beach-storming and a few planes bombed the German defenses the night before over a million men played a role in the original “Saving Private Ryan” opening. As it turns out, the half-assed stealthy approach did little more than wake up the Germans just in time to see the Allied forces (including Canada!) pulling up to the beach honking their Winnebago novelty horns.
Like the movie “Your Highness,” Overlord became an operational disaster about ten minutes in. Also like “Your Highness,” the planners nearly called off the production to order a retreat. Soldiers fell off boats, the nearly unscratched German bunkers gunned down squad leaders and mass confusion was escalated when, reportedly, ice cream machines were mistaken as supply crates and dropped on the beaches during the assault. Staggeringly above expectations, the initial assault cost the lives of over 2,500 Allied soldiers.
The paradoxical strategy and nearly world-changing failure was averted by the troops on the ground, particularly on Omaha Beach, wherein decimated squads united with each other to create improvised teams and hierarchies. Their own lives on the line, the front line soldiers proved much more efficient than their bickering superiors. As a specific example of baffling leadership, General Omar Bradley—knowing he was sending American boys into France—made sure each soldier (along with food rations and medical kits) had some condoms.
"Remember men, the only thing more painful than syphilis is a Nazi shooting you."
--(possibly) General Omar Bradley, 1944
However, the soldiers, before liberating Moulin Rouge, found that the condoms were more useful protecting their guns from water and sand on the beach. One more example of history being too incredible/crude to be taught in high school.
Despite the devastating toll of the invasion, “D-Day” is not actually shorthand for “Doomsday.” Rather the “D” stands for the date of the military operation; and so “D+2” would be two days after the initial operation. This is used so that the operation day can change and people don’t have to all re-synchronize their calendars. And, in fact, the kickoff for Operation Overlord was pushed back a day due to bad weather.
Which was also lucky for me, because the original date (and subsequent anniversaries) would have made this blog post a day late.
Support the troops, forgive the leaders.
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