Describing characterize the normandy invasion. Why do the allies is exceed . German defensive plan and allied offensive plan. Explain the victory and defeat. Why was the normandy invasion significant . Question number 8. Why was the battle for omaha beach a flawed victory . You have the questions. Those are the questions we want to deal with the. Beach . Read omaha here we go. Let me try it one more time. Common have read how many have read it . About half. Thesis. Someone helping out. What is the thesis there . You are going to help me out. Basicially i basically is saying that the operation failed and the soldiers won the battle or succeeded with the operation and they organize themselves on the beach in the middle of the fire to get the operation underway. Of theis the argument book is that the overall plan for omaha beach failed. The plans the general put together for the fire plan, the fire support plan, all of the airpower, all of those things failed. As a consequence, soldiers were forced to improvise on the beaches there. That is the thesis of the book. That the battle of omaha beach was won by soldiers. It was not won by battleships, it was onwon by soldiers. Why . What is the argan to explain why what isation took the argument to explain why the operation took such a wrong turn it omaha beach . Help me out. Basically, it was the failure of the combined doctoring, both the british and the American Forces as had their own doctrine for Amphibious Assault which failed. It was the first and we ever had to take our combined doctrines or combined operations. Think about when you the normandy invasion, you have combined operations, the british and the americans working together you also have joint operations. Us. Army air force and u. S. Army also has and u. S. Navy to work together. If i gave the british the same problem we had at normandy they would, with one solution. If i gave the americans the same problem, they would come up with a different solution. I gave the french the same problem everybodys looked at war is a little different. We had two different amphibious warfare doctrines. The u. S. Navy and marine corps developed doctrines for the Central Pacific based on the principles of massive firepower. Jima, acalled iowo three or four days of bombardment and then the landing took place. That is not what they did it normandy. If we were the british, the conducttended to operations based on the principle of surprise. They went in with stealth, under the cover of darkness. They were going in against the continent, so they had to have a different amphibious warfare doctrine. We had two different approaches. We have been u. S. Navy and marine corps doctrine and the british amphibious warfare doctrine. What they tried to do at normandy was to merge that into an operational doctrine. What happened is ultimately neither one of these doctrines, bot doctrinesh that they had, the british doctrine were better than what they came up with. That is the thesis and that is the argument we want to make today. However, lets see if we can start this discussion. Class . Ere we last the Strategic Bombing campaign and where else . Stalingrad. This is the full extension of germany. So, you see over here, and there is that vulga. We covered stalingrad the last class. Notice, what are these areas in white . Sweden and switzerland. They are neutral. No, they are not really neutral. They are supporting germany and a number of different areas. That is the full extension. Since that, we did the landings and north africa. Take a look now, this is june 6, 1944. Take a look at north africa. That is all clear and then we went from north africa into sicily, operation husky and then they went from sicily to italy. All that has been cleared now. The germans on this site are the russians on the offensive. Then we had stalingrad you can see the russian advance over here. This is the german empire. This is the way it extended at this point in june. Lets take a look at geography. Notice the difference here. Azi germany and you want to take a look at the difference between English Channel to germany and over here on the Eastern Front. Where you have more space . On the Eastern Front. As a consequence of that, hitler shares the priority. The priority had been on the Eastern Front. The new priority is going to be on the western front. Startsnsequence, hitler shifting divisions from the eastern to the western front. The normandy invasion takes place, there will be 60 german divisions on the western front. That should tell you something. If the germans know where the normandy invasion is going to take place, who wins . Germany. Dr. Germany, thats right. A landing,nduct there will be five divisions, three airborne divisions. We would lose in that case. Surprise is important. The germans have a problem. This is the german chain of command. Heather is at the top. Hitler is at the top. And we have the equivalent of general marshall. Overall responsible for the american war effort. Then we have general rundstedt. He is the theater commander. In that theater he has two army groups, army group b and g. The one we are most interested , under a guy named rommel. He is the one we will be fighting in normandy. Geyr is Strategic Reserve. There are going to lead five or six armored divisions in the rear for Strategic Reserve to respond to different situations. That is the thinking here. Here is the chain of command. You have got the normandy area where the invasion will actually take place. What is the shortest distance between two points . Right there, the difference calais, what and is the difference . You have heard of people swimming the English Channel. That is usually what they do. Shortest distance between two points, where do you think the invasion should take place . The argument would be for the calais area. That would be the argument. It gives you more time over the battlefield. That would be to argument. However, we will take a look here. The germans have a problem. They have constructed this thing we will call the atlantic wall. The atlantic wall will extend all across france and up into norway. They have been building this thing for years now, this thing we call the atlantic wall. It has been under construction. They poured concrete, they put news, obstacles, created types of obstacles to put on the beach, tank ditches. All of those things will be along the coast that they call the atlantic wall. Still they have a problem. Lets think about the german conduct of the defense. They have been on the offense for a great deal of the war. Let me give you two examples. Take 19171918. Germans are excellent in defensive warfare doctrine. They put defense in depth. You have seen the trench systems from world war i. You have that image in mind. Then lets take 1940 with the fall of france. Fastmoving armored formations. There are two concepts, two arguments for the conduct of the defense. There is a debate going on in germany in 1943, early part of 1944, about how to conduct the defense. Rommel has one set of ideas and general rundstedt has another. General rundstedt makes the argument that what we need to do is use the approach they used in 1940 maintain fastmoving heavy armored divisions, those that can reinforce the beach. What he says they need to do is put a thin, defensive perimeter along the coast. Very thin. Know is really need to where the main attack is coming from. Once they figure out where the main attack is going to come from, the main attack will then start. They will let the situation develop, make sure it is the main attack instead of a feint. Maneuver theirto armored formations, those heavy divisions, they want to maneuver those units into place so they can defeat that force. That is one concept for conduct of the defense. General rommel has another vision for the conduct of the defense. He did not think that was a good approach to this thing. When he argued for was more a world war i approach. He wanted to build a Strong Defense along the coast. The longestook day. Then they made a movie about it. Those were rommels words. That is a quote from rommel. He believed the battle had to be won on dday. That was where the battle had to be won. And he believed it had to be won on the beaches. As a consequence of that, what he wants to do is put a strong defensive perimeter along the beaches. He wants to make this as strong as possible along this area. What is in rommels thinking . Rommel has been in north africa, he has fought the british, he is has fought the americans somewhat, and he is of the opinion that air power will preclude mobile forces from reaching the beaches. He believes that if they use the other approach remember, prerequisite for an amphibious operation is . Air superiority . Naval superiority around there, right . Air superiority is something we win by 1944. You are able to interdict those forces. Rommel believes that allied air power is so significant they will not be able to get to the beaches. If you keep the Strategic Reserve far to the rear, they will never make it forward. That is part of his thinking. Rommel will also later be implicated in the plot to assassinate hitler. How many of you have seen that movie . A movie on this scheme that was eventually hatched for this. Rommel at this point is not of the opinion youve heard me say this before, for the russians, stalingrad was the most Important Campaign of the war. For the americans and british, normandy the most Important Campaign. If we had lost, the world would look very different. Lets think about what rommel was thinking at this point in time. He is no longer of the opinion that germany will have a complete and total victory in world war ii. That is gone. The russians have been on the offense, the germans have lost millions of soldiers. He no longer believes there is going to be a complete and total victory in this thing. However, if he can win at normandy, if he can stop the americans and british in the landing, then what he can do it will be six months to a year before they can recharge to start this thing again. If we win on the beaches on dday, what i can do is take my 60 divisions, move them across europe, stabilize my front against the russians, and try to come to negotiate a settlement to end world war ii, were where germany maintains at least part of the area they have conquered. He is not thinking in terms of total victory now, but he is thinking in terms of, i have to defeat the british and americans at normandy. If we can do that, we can stabilize the Eastern Front with those 60 divisions we can move over there, and there is still a good outcome in this case for germany. That is his thinking at this point in time. That is why normandy is very important to rommel, also. The germans think they have be successful here, at least along the atlantic wall. What does this mean for the americans . Were going to talk about the cossacks in the planning of the invasion. 1943, the planning goes into the invasion we will talk about that but normandy was selected because it was poorly defended in 1943. The invasion will not take place for another year. They select it in 1943. When it was selected, it was very poorly defended. Not only was a poorly defended, they had the 716th Infantry Division. 716th had a 50 mile front. At most at what is going to be called omaha beach, they had a couple of battalions. That is when they selected it. A year later, when rommel is put in charge of defenses, a lot of the forces we talked about have been moved forward. Did not give rommel everything he asked for, but he did give him some of the things. As a consequence that, instead of fighting the 716, you see the 352nd here . Take a look at this bottom map. It will be moved forward. We did not know that. We will find it out 24 hours, the First Infantry Division will land at omaha beach. We will learn 24 hours at a time, it will not be the 716, it will be the 352 that has been moved forward. A good quality, full strength Infantry Division is what we end up running into. Part of the thing was an intelligence problem, intelligence failure when you think about the outcome of this thing. Part of it also is rommels concept of the conduct of the defense. During that year he is in charge, not even a full year, he will dig more tank ditches, reinforced the beaches all of those things will take place under rommels leadership. Morrison in his book on the normandy invasion, he wrote the following altogether, the germans have provided the best imitation of help for an invading force that american troops had encountered anywhere. Even the japanese defenses at you at jima, terawa and peleliu are not to be compared to this. The difference was that the navy could pull up to those islands and below the heck out of them for days and days. You cannot do that at normandy, why . If you pulled up to normandy, 10 battleships and cruisers there started to destroy the defenses there, it would telegraph to the germans where the invasion was taking place. The element of surprise is significant in terms of the conduct of this thing. It is important to this. Look at the other side of this thing. You guys ought to recognize this guy. Who is this . Yeah, president ultimately becomes president eisenhower, supreme allied commander. Who is next in the chain of command . His deputy is . Who was he . British deputy commander. General walter smith, he is the chief of staff. Who is he . No, he is an american. Walter smith is unamerican. 1947, he will become the first walter smith is an american. 1947, he will become the first director of the cia. Central intelligence agency. If you take a look at this thing, all of the seniormost Operational Commanders are british. I always get that question, why did the british get all of the seniormost Operational Command jobs . You got unamerican at the very you got an american at the very top of the chain of the command. However, montgomery will be commanding the 21st army group, and under that will be the u. S. First army under general omar bradley, one of the fivestar generals we produce. Then you have general dempsey, a british commander, commanding the british second army, which will land alongside the u. S. Forces at normandy. This command structure is a holdover from the mediterranean theater. Eisenhower was made Supreme Commander also and the british tended to get the seniormost operational assignments. Lets think about this job, eisenhower. Who else might have been in the running for this job . Patton . You could make an argument for patton. Patton will be given a very interesting assignment. He will be put in charge of a fake army. We will call this operation fortitude. It is a planned invasion, but no troops involved. It is a deception plan. Patton is given that assignment. We create the illusion that we are going to attack with another army in the area of calais. Underut a fake army patton, so patton does have a role to play, and operation fortitude is part of that. There is a guy named general marshall. General marshall probably would have liked a job as supreme allied commander. There is also a guy named alan brooke. Head of the British Imperial staff. Both of them would have liked this job. Alan brooke was promised the job several times by a guy named churchill. What do you think . Why didnt he get it . ,y the time you get to normandy american resources, numbers of divisions are starting to dwarf those of britain. When we were in north africa, in sicily, there was relative parity. By the time you get to normandy, the parity is gone. When you take a look at what is going to happen in normandy, you have 60 american divisions and 16 british divisions in europe. Who should be in charge . Yeah, the americans. 60 american divisions, 16 british divisions, and two of those are canadians. They could have gone with either army. However, eisenhower is the guy who ultimately ends up with the job. Marshall roosevelt once said he did not sleep well at night when marshall was out of washington, d. C. Marshall was the guy that has been running the war the whole time. As a consequence of that, admiral king made an argument to fdr that marshall ought to stay in washington, that he ought to stay the guy that is orchestrating the overall war effort of the United States. The guys executing what we call the victory plan. So he did not get the job either. Eisenhower probably third in line for this position. We create this thing called the combined chiefs of staff. These are the orders they gave to eisenhower. You will enter the continent of europe and in conjunction with other United Nations undertake to destroy the german force is. Mission statement. This was about two pages long, telling you how to do it and all those things, but it was a mission statement. It did not tell you how to do it. Mission statement, dont tell me how to do it, just let me go forward with it. That is what they did. However, eisenhower is selected or informed he will be the supreme allied commander in december of 1943. Montgomery, who will command the british effort, he is also selected in december of 1943. The plans were made before eisenhower and montgomery were even selected. There was this thing called the cossack staff, a guy named general morgan, a british to start at the time and american one star called raymond barker, they will be the guys who develop the initial plan for the normandy invasion. When eisenhower is selected and montgomery comes into this thing, the plans have already been developed. They inherit all the work that was done by the cossack staff. The chief of staff, supreme allied commander, that is what the cossack staff stands for. They did enormous research. Thousand mile front. They did research on beaches, quality of the beaches. They looked at fort facilities, thinking about all the difficult things that had to take place. All of the research was done even before eisenhower was selected for this thing. Cossack staff does not get the credit they deserve for this, the planning of the normandy invasion. They come up with a plan. They will have three divisions landing alongside of each other here at normandy. They will have two airborne divisions in this thing. This area right here you see here, this is all flooded out intentionally by the germans. This is where the Airborne Operations are supposed to take place. But this