A study By William F. Moore, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF 'OVERLORD: The Unnecessary Invasion” concluded that the Normandy Invasion was not necessary, based on Russian success against the German Army on the Eastern Front and the ability of the strategic bombing campaign to destroy German war support industries. American and British planners believed that it could easily result in a catastrophic defeat for the allied forces. Such a result would, as a minimum, have lengthened rather than shortened the war and could well have caused incalculable damage to the allied cause.
The historical record shows that by the end of 1943 the German Army had been beaten decisively on the eastern front and that it could not resist the increasing power and tempo of the Soviet advance to Berlin. It also shows that by early 1944 the American and British strategic bombing campaign was systematically devastating the German industrial base and that defeat or total incapacitation of the German war machine was inevitable. Germany's complete economic collapse was only a matter of time. Without her industrial base, Germany could not have supported her forces in the field. Gen Curtis LeMay who was commanding the Eighth Air Force at the time has stated, "Neither for that matter, did I agree with the decision to invade Europe. I believed that once we had the complete upper hand in the air we could have waited for an inevitable German collapse." LeMay and other air commanders argued that the preparatory bombing of France for D-Day was a needless diversion. He has commented that without interruption, the strategic air forces could have completed the destruction of Germany before Normandy. His observations were consistent with assessments made by high ranking German officials.
Aligned alongside Stategic Air Command were other military planners. Lt Gen John Hull, chief of the Operations Division Theater Group, felt that a cross-channel Invasion was not necessary. They recommended adoption of the British strategy of peripheral operations in the Mediterranean, continued strategic air operations against the German homeland, and continued use of dominant allied seapower. They advocated a relaxation of the total commitment to OVERLORD. They were supported by Admiral Cooke of the Joint Staff Planners. The British were consistently opposed to OVERLORD. They continued to advocate more limited, less risky operations in the Mediterranean and against the Balkans which may have brought Turkey into the war on the allied side. With victory over the Germans practically in the allies' grasp due to successes in the north Atlantic, on the Eastern front, and in the strategic air campaign, the British saw no justification at for risking an avoidable defeat which could have had catastrophic political consequences. The American Joint Chiefs stated:
“It is apparent that the British, who have consistently resisted a cross-Channel operation, now feel OVERLORD is no longer necessary. In their view, continued Mediterranean operations coupled with POINTBLANK (the strategic bombing of Germany) and the crushing Russian offensive, will be sufficient to cause the internal collapse of Germany and thus bring about her military defeat without undergoing what they consider an almost certain "bloodbath". ”
Stalin was receptive to British overtures concerning short term military operations in the Balkans or a possible expansion of the Italian operation instead of OVERLORD. Stalin's attitude changes have been attributed to the huge success of the Russian Army in its 1943 offensive. By this time; Stalin apparently felt that British and American assistance was becoming less critical in defeating the German army. However at the November 28, 1943, the summit at Tehran preferred OVERLORD as the primary offensive for 1944. Even so on his return to Moscow from Tehran, Stalin commented to Marshal Zhukov, "Roosevelt has given his word that large scale action will be mounted in France in 1944. I believe he will keep his word. But even if he doesn't, we have enough of our own forces to complete the rout of Nazi Germany."
D-Day was not a military necessity; it was an unnecessary military gamble that could easily have failed. Why did US strategists not accept British recommendations for a less risky Mediterranean/Balkan strategy that would have left the western forces in a much more favorable post-war position relative to the Russians? The answers to these questions have political as well as military dimensions. Some assume the allied decision to proceed with OVERLORD was based on a desire to limit Russian territorial gains to eastern Europe. Had British and American strategists been truly Machiavellian in their deliberations concerning OVERLORD, they would have deferred the invasion and waited for a later opportunity when they would have faced little or no opposition then implemented a contingency war plan known as RANKIN which provided for a very rapid invasion and advance across France in the event of an imminent collapse of the Germany. There is no question that Hitler would have expended his last resources fighting the Russians for Berlin rather than British and American forces for France and western Germany.
The truth about why D-Day took place was that President Roosevelt believed he could buy Stalin's post-war cooperation.
The annual commemorations of D-Day is based upon fostering an illusion that Germany was defeated during World War II by American fighting forces ably assisted by the British, and these forces were primarily responsible for destroying the German Army in 1944 and 1945 after the successful amphibious landing on the coast of Normandy. The exploits of Eisenhower, Patton and Montgomery as they swept across France and into Germany following the breakout from Normandy have become the stuff of legend, as well as the subject of numerous books and movies. Unfortunately, history shows these views concerning American and British supremacy and the importance of Normandy and the Western Front to be inaccurate. It was primarily the efforts of the Soviet Union army and its industry in the East which defeated Hitler.
Taken from here
A previous SOYMB post on the Normandy Landings here
How will they be remembered?
ReplyDeleteRising sea levels have washed the remains of Japanese second world war soldiers from their graves on a low-lying Pacific archipelago, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands has said. "There are coffins and dead people being washed away from graves. It's that serious,"
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/06/rising-seas-wash-japanese-war-dead-marshall-islands-graves
Have to agree with you here. But then why did Operation Overlord go ahead despite its drawbacks? Was Roosevelt really that naive concerning Stalin's intentions? Sometimes it appears that operations like Overlord have so much momentum because of the vast amounts of resources invested, and also there are those planners whose personal success and careers are tied to the operation being carried out successfully. It could have been a lot worse. D day could have failed as Lieutenant Colonel Moore pointed out in his paper, and that would have been disastrous. I would like to point out one other aspect of this that is rarely mentioned; the Allies never target the train tracks leading to the concentration camps. The excuse I have read is that a proposal to do this was rejected because such bombing would take away resources from strategic bombing that was crucial to ending the war. Yet, we see that Operation Overload was in and of itself a major diversion of resources that extended the war and the suffering of those under German occupation. Sad.
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