D-Day 75 Years Later: Part I – Allied Plans

Landing craft and barrage balloons off the Normandy beaches sometime in mid-June, 1944. Source Wikipedia

This week will mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the most pivotal battle in the West during World War II. Normandy, D-Day, Operation “Overlord”, however one names the battle, it conjures images of American GI’s and British Tommies storming ashore in small boats, of German bunkers raining machine gun fire down on beaches strewn with obstacles and littered with dead and dying men. It has the romance of the paratrooper, dropped deep behind enemy lines struggling to survive the night. It is a day filled with heroism and horror. It is my hope to be able to contribute somewhat to the general understanding of the “Great Crusade” which General Eisenhower spoke. Today, I will focus on the Allied plans for D-Day. In the coming days I will write on the German plans to repel the invasion, the airborne landings, the day itself, and the aftermath of the battle.

Through France passes our shortest route to the heart of Germany – George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff [1]

Background:

In December, 1941 the United States formally entered World War II, but had little idea of how to proceed. The war had happened both quickly and slowly for the United States. They had watched as Poland, Norway, the Low Countries, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece had been overrun by the Wehrmacht from 1939 to 1941. The titanic battles of the Soviet Union had gripped Americans in the summer and fall of 1941, but when the war came – at Pearl Harbor – the United States was caught unawares. Thus a little known Lieutenant Colonel named Eisenhower was sent first to Washington and then eventually to London (receiving rapid promotions along the way) to figure out how to get back at the Germans.

The United States wanted to invade France no later than 1943 in Operation “Bolero.” It would consist of 48 Anglo-American divisions. Landing on the French coast – probably near Calais – their objective was probably to seize Antwerp before charging on to Berlin. The war would be over by 1944 at the latest. If a 1943 date was too soon, another operation – “Sledgehammer” – was to be launched in late 1942 to seize Calais or Cherbourg and tie down as many German divisions in France as possible. The British thought all this reckless, stupid, and potentially disastrous. [2] The British instead, insisted on, and got a Mediterranean strategy for 1942 and 1943. This would result in Operation “Torch” in North Africa, Operation “Husky” in Sicily, Operation “Avalanche” at Salerno, Italy, and Operation “Shingle” at Anzio, Italy. These landings proved to be the testing grounds for Operation “Overlord”: Normandy.

In the winter of 1943-1944 the British could no longer keep the United States from planning a cross-Channel assault. The war in the Mediterranean had ground to a halt at Anzio and Monte Cassino. The Soviets were still bearing the brunt of the fighting, and the Americans were willing and able to upgrade the Pacific Theatre if the British seemed unwilling to fight the Germans directly. Thus a hard date was set for the landings: May 1, 1944. Eisenhower would be the Supreme Commander, with Field Marshall Montgomery being land forces commander, Admiral Ramsay as naval commander, and Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory as air commander. General Bradley would lead American forces into Europe.

SHAEF – Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. Front row left to right: Air Chief Marshall Tedder, General Eisenhower, Field Marshall Montgomery. Back Row left to right: General Bradley, Admiral Ramsey, Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory, General Smith. Source: Wikipedia

Sites and Deception:

Shoulder patches of FUSAG – none of these units ever existed. Source: Wikipedia

The next problem the Allies faced was where to land. The Allies needed the beach to be within range of planes taking off from Britain, and there needed to be a sizable port nearby that could be taken from the landward approach. The most obvious point was Calais. The port had good facilities, making resupply and reinforcement easy for the armies that would take part in the liberation of Europe. It was only sixty miles from Britain, making it easy for the navy to cross. Finally it was a more or less straight line from Calais to the industrial region of Germany, the Ruhr, and then onto Berlin. The problem was that if this was obvious to the Allies, then it was also obvious to the Germans and thus Calais was fortified more significantly than any other site on the Atlantic coast. Other sites were in Holland and Belgium, but these were too far from British airfields and too close to German ones. Le Havre and Brest were also considered but they were rejected for either being too hard to attack (Le Havre) or too far from Britain (Brest). This left only Normandy with the nearby port of Cherbourg. [3]

The Allies needed to make sure that the Germans did not go through the same process of elimination that SHAEF – Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force – had done and determine Normandy as the landing point. Eisenhower needed the Germans to react slowly or in the wrong direction. To this end one of the greatest deception campaigns in history was launched. The Allies created entire armies from thin air. In Scotland, the fictitious British Fourth Army convinced the Germans to keep thirteen army divisions, as well as 90,000 naval and air force personnel, in Norway until the end of the war. In the south of England came the truly great deception. General Patton, under intense scrutiny for slapping a soldier in Sicily, was given FUSAG (First United States Army Group) and the bogus objective of Calais. This fake army group was backed up with papier-mache and rubber tanks, cleverly not-so-well camouflaged landing craft, and huge volumes of real, but meaningless wireless traffic discussing the movements of Patton and his army group. The Germans bought the deception and came to believe any cross-channel attack against any point other than Calais was a diversion. [4]

Plan:

Allied plans for the Invasion of Normandy. Source: Wikipedia

With the site of the landings picked out, and all lengths being taken to deceive the Germans as to where the blow would land, now it was a matter of putting together the actual plan. Originally, the plan had called for three divisions – one American, one British, and one Canadian – to land on three beaches. However, both Eisenhower and Montgomery wanted a wider front, and thus expanding the assault force to five beaches, and six divisions. From west to east the beaches are Utah (4th U.S. Infantry Division), Omaha (1st and 29th U.S. Infantry Divisions), Gold (50th British Infantry Division), Juno (3rd Canadian Infantry Division), and Sword (3rd British Infantry Division). Utah and Sword beaches were the expanded beaches and had a tricky problem attached to them. They were separated from the three original beaches by rivers. To address this problem, Eisenhower planned to drop three airborne divisions behind the German lines. The American 82nd, and 101st Airborne Divisions would land behind Utah beach and secure the town of Carentan, while the British 6th Airborne landed behind Sword beach to capture the bridges over the river Orne. Eisenhower hoped that by the end of D-Day, the British and Canadians would have seized the city of Caen and the Americans St. Lo. If all went well, Allied forces would liberate Paris sometime in late June, early July, and be over the Rhine by September. [5] Among Allied troops, the slogan “Win the War in ’44!” gained popularity.

Across the English Channel German generals looked at their maps, and drew up their plans.

Notes:

[1] Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002). 11

[2] Ibid. 12-13

[3] Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994). 72

[4] Ibid. 80-83

[5] James L. Stokesbury, A Short History of World War II (New York: Harper, 1980). 314-315