D-Day that should never have happened

As Trump and other dignitaries make eloquent speeches and hail the Normandy Landings, a deeper analysis reveals some unpalatable truths.

D-Day was not a military necessity; it was an unnecessary military gamble that could easily have failed. 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. Repositioning one or two divisions would probably have given the Germans a victory on the Normandy beaches. Less interference by Hitler in the decisions of his commanders might also have given him a victory even after the allied beach-head had been established. 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. 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 sea-power. 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 truth about why D-Day took place was that President Roosevelt believed he could buy Stalin's post-war cooperation.  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."

Antony's Beevor's book, D-Day, debunks certain accepted ideas about the Allied campaign.

Far from being universally welcomed as liberators, many troops had a distinctly surly reception from the people of Normandy. In some communities the devastation was never forgotten. The reason for this was simple. 20,000 French civilians were killed in the two-and-a-half months from D-Day, 3,000 of them during the actual landings.
"Think of the hundreds of tons of bombs destroying entire cities and wiping out families. But the suffering of civilians was for many years masked by the over-riding image - that of the French welcoming the liberators with open arms" Christophe Prime, a historian explained. Many Normandy towns and villages had been literally obliterated by Allied bombing. The bombardment of Caen, Beevor said, could almost be considered a war-crime . The destruction of Caen has long been admitted that it was militarily useless. The Germans were stationed to the north of the city and were more or less untouched. In his book Overlord, Max Hastings described it as "one of the most futile air attacks of the war."

Cpl LF Roker of the Highland Light Infantry is quoted in , Liberation, The Bitter Road to Freedom, by William Hitchcock."It was rather a shock to find we were not welcomed ecstatically as liberators by the local people, as we were told we should be... They saw us as bringers of destruction and pain," Roker wrote in his diary.
Another soldier, Ivor Astley of the 43rd Wessex Infantry, described the locals as "sullen and silent...If we expected a welcome, we certainly failed to find it."

Hitchcock also raises another issue that is mentioned: Allied looting, and worse.
"The theft and looting of Normandy households and farmsteads by liberating soldiers began on June 6 and never stopped during the entire summer," he writes.
One woman - from the town of Colombieres - is quoted as saying that "the enthusiasm for the liberators is diminishing. They are looting...everything, and going into houses everywhere on the pretext of looking for Germans."

The evidence shows that sexual violence against women in liberated France was common. According to American historian, J Robert Lilly, there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war.