D day, p.1
D-Day, page 1
1: “OKAY, LET’S GO”
2: “I SEE THE TIDES RUNNING RED WITH THEIR BLOOD”
3: “OUR SITUATION IS BECOMING EXTREMELY DIFFICULT”
4: “THAT GUY . . . AIN’T GOT NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF”
5: “EVERY MAN WHO SET FOOT ON OMAHA BEACH. . . WAS A HERO”
6: “WE MIGHT JUST BE ABLE TO DRIVE THEM BACK IN THREE DAYS”
7: “THE HOUR OF YOUR LIBERATION IS APPROACHING”
COPYRIGHT
A brisk breeze left over from the English winter blew through an open window of the British War Office in London in May 1944. It whisked twelve pages of densely-typed orders from a desk, blowing them onto the crowd of pedestrians on the pavement below. People in the office - from senior officers to typists - raced down to the street. These free-flying sheets were top secret, the plans for the imminent invasion of German-occupied France.
Eleven copies of the document were recovered quickly, but the twelfth could not be found. Two agonizing hours passed. Finally, a British sentry, standing duty on the opposite side of the street, turned in the missing copy, which had been handed to him by a stranger; to this day, no one knows the identity of the passerby who held the fate of the war, indeed the world, in his hand. War Office officials breathed a sigh of relief and went back to work.
Time and Tide
The war in Europe was nearing its fifth year. It had started on September 1, 1939, with Germany’s invasion of Poland, and it soon pitted all the world’s great powers against each other. The nations were divided into two military alliances. Germany, Japan, and Italy made up the Axis powers. At the war’s start, the Allies were France, Poland, and Great Britain. The British Commonwealth, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa later joined the Allies in declaring war on Germany.
The German incursion spread to the Western European nations of Denmark and Norway in 1940, where it dealt losses to the Allies. These defeats brought Winston Churchill to power, replacing Neville Chamberlain as Britain’s prime minister. Germany next struck at France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
Britain, after rejecting an overture by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, was bombarded by the Germans in air attacks. The British put off the assault by the German Luftwaffe in May 1941, and that same month, sank German the battleship Bismarck in a battle in the Atlantic.
In June 1941, the Soviet Union was overrun by Axis forces from Germany, Italy, and Romania, compelling the Soviets to join the Allies in the fight against the Axis powers. By that December, the Allied nations were made complete. The United States, which had to this point remained mostly neutral, was spurred to war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The decision to invade Nazi-held Europe across the English Channel had been made in April 1942. At that time, Allied war policy was being directed by what United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt later termed the Big Three: the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.
During 1942, the Axis was on the march. Germany and its allies had driven back efforts by the Soviets to reclaim territory in central and southern Russia. The Axis grip tightened with the seizure of Russian oil fields, and its forces advanced toward Stalingrad and Moscow. By the time the Allies had assembled to plan the invasion, the Nazis had penetrated 1,000 miles of the Soviet Union.
The Allies agreed a decisive victory against Germany was needed. But there was disagreement among the Big Three about how to pursue it. The Americans were determined a strike at the heart of Germany through France. Among those advocating for the plan was Dwight D. Eisenhower, at the time operations division chief for the War Department in Washington. President Roosevelt had sent U.S. Army General George Marshall to London to win Churchill over to the plan. Churchill and his generals favored invading through France, but argued for time, calling first for peripheral attacks on other fronts and a bombing campaign against Germany to weaken Nazi resistance. The Soviet Union argued for the necessity of a second front. In the end, Britain’s Churchill set the pace, persuading the Americans to focus an assault on the Axis forces occupying North Africa.
The delay was advantageous to the Americans, giving them time to train and test their unseasoned recruits. The Allies determined they had neither the troops nor landing craft to attempt the cross-Channel invasion in 1942.
In the next two years, circumstances began to favor a full-bore invasion. The Russian Army held, and Hitler’s mulish refusal to pull back decimated valuable Nazi divisions on the overextended front. The Royal Air Force beat back German air attacks on England itself, and new waves of Royal Air Force and American Army Air Force bombers dropped their deadly payloads deep into German territory.
There had been thoughts of launching a European invasion in 1943, but the decision to attack in North Africa did not leave enough Allied strength for a strike into France. The North African landing of American troops and the continuing grim vigor of the British desert fighters destroyed the German and Italian armies there. By the end of 1943, British and American troops had driven deep into southern Italy. In the Pacific, United States forces had rallied and were relentlessly island-hopping toward the Japanese homeland.
Another vital factor was turning the war in the Allies’ favor: the conversion of American industry to a war footing. Guns, ammunition, tanks, planes, ships, uniforms, rations – the equipment of war without which no army can operate – poured out of American factories and were sped to the war fronts around the globe.
The United States even shipped and established entire factories overseas. In Iran, for instance, the military set up an airplane assembly line putting together fighter planes which were in combat over Stalingrad less than twenty-four hours after Russian officers accepted delivery at the plant. The American mass-production economy that Hitler had scoffed at was proving to be one of his most dangerous enemies.
Even though the tide was turning against the Axis, the cross-Channel attack had to be made, and it had to be made successfully in order to cripple the German war machine on the Continent. Unless Hitler’s army was forced to fight its enemies in the west as well as the east, the war could drag on indefinitely.
The Allies faced a grim problem. A failed invasion attempt would deal a crushing blow to morale throughout the free world. It would mean an immense loss of life among the assault forces and the destruction of weapons and equipment that would take years to replace. In the wake of an unsuccessful cross-Channel attack, Germany planned to transfer as many as fifty divisions from France to the Russian front. England would lie vulnerable to the onslaught of a new arsenal of secret weapons which the Germans were preparing to launch from French bases – V-1 jet-propelled “buzz bombs” and giant V-2 rockets. The invasion was a necessary and dangerous gamble.
Taking Command
Invasion planning began immediately after the go-ahead in 1942. General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in England that June to head the United States Army in the European Theater. Direction of the North African landing was still ahead of him, and he did not assume supreme command of the European invasion until January 1944. At the time of his arrival in 1942, United States forces in the British Isles amounted to only two incompletely trained Army divisions and a handful of Air Force detachments.
Eisenhower, given the nickname “Ike” in childhood, was the descendant of German immigrants. Born in 1890 the third of seven boys, Ike grew up in Abilene, Kansas. As a freshman at Abilene High School, he nearly lost a leg when a knee injury became so infected that a doctor proposed amputation. He graduated from West Point in the middle of his class in 1915.
When Eisenhower gained national prominence during World War II, he was considered a more-than-able training officer with a keen sense of army maneuvers. But his lack of combat experience drew criticism from more seasoned commanders, and earned Ike a reputation as a glad-handing bumbler. In fact, he was a dedicated and demanding perfectionist. Late to bed and early to rise, he smoked four packs of cigarettes and drank fifteen cups of coffee a day. Genial and kind, famous for his signature grin, Ike inspired trust. At the same time, he had an explosive temper, often on display when his patience wore thin, which was often.
The United States’ mission in North Africa, designated Operation Torch, provided Eisenhower valuable training in combat command. A lieutenant general, he directed the American army to land in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942. One of his field commanders, Omar Bradley, had been in his graduating class at West Point. Another was George S. Patton. Together, they wrested control of all of North Africa from the Axis powers, emerging as effective combat leaders.
Eisenhower commanded two more seaborne invasions, in Sicily and mainland Italy. As he had with the North Africa campaign, Eisenhower considered the missions distractions, but he conducted them capably, and learned a great deal.
Ike’s proven ability to lead earned him the appointment by President Roosevelt to Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. A month later, he took charge of the entire Allied Expeditionary Force, arriving in London in a dense fog in January of 1944. Eisenhower wasn’t the leader the Allies expected. They thought that George Marshall, by then the president’s chief of staff would take charge. But Roosevelt decided Marshall was needed in Washington.
The British resented being led by an inexperienced general from the come-lately United States. The sentiment was echoed by British columnists, which led Eisenhower to write in his diary, “They don’t use the words initiative or boldness in talking of me. It wearies me to be thought of as timid, when I’ve had to do things that were so risky as to be almost crazy. Oh hum.”
Two of Ike’s detractors were top British generals, Sir Bernard Montgomery and Sir Alan Brooks. The pair ridiculed Eisenhower, and conspired against him, saying “he knows nothing whatever about how to make war or to fight battles.” Their prominence in the British army meant they could confide in Churchill, who was sometimes complicit in their schemes against Eisenhower. The British generals’ dislike for Ike likely had more to do with their belief that Britain should command its own armies than with Eisenhower’s inability to do so.
Although he had never seem combat himself, Eisenhower was respected by the frontline commanders he had directed. He was not a warrior, but he had a military mind the Allies needed.
To win the war, Eisenhower believed, America and Britain would have to work together. He tamped down his temper and exercised rare patience, winning this particular battle with diplomacy and restraint. He would come to count many from the British army among his most loyal deputies.
The bulk of the combined British and American invasion planning was both complicated and routine – the endless collection of more and more troops and equipment in England, and the endless conferences of top-ranking officers of both armies with each other and with the proud and temperamental Free French movement of Charles de Gaulle. There were decisions to be made coordinating the invasion plans with other war efforts around the world, and the never-ending evaluation of reports on everything from German strength across the Channel to long-range weather forecasts. Literally over and above all this were the RAF and the USAAF, bombing German targets, photographing enemy installations and supply lines, and keeping a constant watch on the distribution of Nazi power along the French coast.
These phases of invasion planning were conventional. There were others that deserve to be called fantastic. One scheme, attempted but never put into operation, involved freezing sawdust and ice together to form a floating platform that could be used as a temporary dock and even a landing strip for small planes.
No less fantastic, but quite workable, were the huge floating steel-and-concrete artificial harbors called Mulberries, designed to be towed into place after the landings. With such harbors, supplies and fresh troops could easily and quickly be brought ashore. There were also Gooseberries – artificial breakwaters made up of decommissioned ships to be sunk offshore to ensure sheltered water for the landings. Another innovation: Pluto, the code name for under-Channel pipelines through which fuel for tanks and trucks could be pumped directly from England without danger of German air or submarine attacks.
All these, and many other unusual and specialized inventions – such as amphibious tanks and small, this pieces of aluminum foil, called chaff, which could be scattered from planes to confuse German radar – were included in the invasion planning.
When General Eisenhower took active command at the beginning of 1944, one of his first acts was to enlarge both the striking force and the target area. Later events were to prove the wisdom of his decision.
Stockpiling
By this time, there could be little doubt in anyone’s mind, Allied or Axis, that an invasion was going to take place. German submarines sank 3 million tons of Allied cargo in 1943, but this was a small loss compared to the shipments that arrived safely.
Merchant ships, military transports, and luxury liners carrying thousands of soldiers zigzagged past mines and U-boats, unloaded at British ports, steamed back to America, and returned swollen with new loads. England became a giant arsenal, stockpiled with more than 2 million tons of weapons and supplies. Many joked that the island would sink under the weight of men and equipment were it not for the counter-pull of thousands of huge antiaircraft balloons that floated overhead.
The man in charge of the Army’s most vital and thankless task of supplying the invasion force of tens of thousands of soldiers was Lieutenant General Brehon Somervell. His Washington office was in the year-old Pentagon building, which he had envisioned and helped design in 1941. From there, the hard-boiled Somervell often unceremoniously cut through red tape to accomplish perhaps the greatest feat of logistics in military history.
Somervell wasted little time with bureaucracy, officers he deemed incompetent, or the chatter of critics. He was quick and ruthless in dispatching the first two. For the latter, he adopted the philosophy of Abraham Lincoln, who is misquoted on the wall outside his office: “If I have to read, much less answer, all the criticisms made of me and all the attacks leveled against me, this office would have to be closed for all other business. I do the best I know how, the very best I can. I mean to keep on doing this down to the very end.”
In fact, Somervell had very little time to waste. In 1943 alone, he was responsible for the shipment of 21,000 boxcars, stocked with more than $23 billion in equipment and supplies, to the Allies in London. The sheer volume, evident in just a cross-section of the supply lists, is nearly incomprehensible:
91,000 bazookas
9 million gas masks
36 million pairs of goggles
21 million rifle grenades
98 million pounds of chemical-warfare defensive agents
13.5 billion rounds of ammunition
20,000 tank guns
It wasn’t all weaponry, of course. The stockpiles also included 17 million neckties, 52 million pounds of soap, some 109 million rolls of bandages, and 617 million sulfadiazine tablets (an antibiotic).
To assess the needs of the Allied forces, Somervell sent his Director of Plans and Operations, Major General LeRoy Lutes, to London. A small, wiry man with a voice to match, Lutes was a master of efficiency and quick to take action. His ability to survey a field and organize a supply list on the spot made him an essential part of Somervell’s team.
American soldiers laid seventeen miles of railroad track dubbed the SS & VV (Sling Something & Vinegar Valley), upon which fifty olive-green boxcars left empty and returned laden with supplies. Cargo ships unloaded tanks, jeeps, and guns. Sixty-five-ton diesel locomotives, tank cars, and 300-ton floating cranes arrived unassembled – work quickly taken up by swarms of American and British soldiers.
The Allies’ needs were constantly changing, often at a moment’s notice. Rush orders were sent to Somervell in Washington, which, as time grew shorter, became more difficult to fill. But Somervell spared no effort or expense to get the soldiers all they needed to increase the odds of victory. A last-minute order for 2,000 medical kits sent Somervell’s staff scouring; sixty hours later, the kits were on their way to London. An out-of-production factory was quickly brought back on line to fulfill a request for 30,000 rounds of ammunition. Almost as quickly as orders were filled, new ones arrived. It was costly work, which earned criticism from Senator Harry S. Truman: “I will say this for General Somervell, he will get the stuff, but it is going to be hell on the taxpayer.”
Motor parts, tires, and mountains of food and fuel packed hastily assembled storage buildings. Nothing was wasted; even the wood from emptied crates, covering a ten-acre field, was either burned as fuel or used to build barracks furniture.
The Allied camps in south London teemed with the work of preparing a full-scale invasion, not the least of which fell to quartermasters, engineers, ordnance men, and a wide variety of specialists. In a stable, printing presses churned out maps. Plans were laid out on desks and blackboards on the second floor of an old brick schoolhouse, where, on the floor below, classes were conducted as usual.
Deception
There was not even much doubt about the timing of the invasion. It was almost certain to be in the spring or early summer of 1944. Weather made any earlier date unlikely.
Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the brilliant German commander of the North African desert war, serving on the French coast by that time, noted constant invasion alerts in his diary throughout March, April, and May. Germany military-intelligence officers reported that Allied troops across the Channel were in a “high degree of readiness.”
There was also little uncertainty about where the invasion would take place. Any force from England almost had to strike between Brest and Calais – an impressively long stretch of coast, but by no means impossible to defend. The Pas-de-Calais region closest to the British shore seemed the most heavily guarded, but the Germans also built a so-called Atlantic Wall along the length of the Channel front.
