The Valour and the Horror

PLANS FOR THE ALLIED INVASION OF FRANCE

Even though military resources in Britain were meagre after the withdrawal from France in 1940, British forces soon began to plan a return to the Continent. In September, 1941, the British Chiefs of Staff charged Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten (later 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma), who headed the Combined Operations Headquarters, with investigating the technical problems of amphibious operations. Not long afterward, the British joint planners drew up the first formal plan for a cross-Channel attack. This plan, which was called Roundup, assumed a marked deterioration of German strength. Projecting the use of relatively small British forces, it was designed to disrupt German withdrawal to the homeland in the final phase of the war.

Though American military officers were in England as observers as early as October, 1940, the World War II alliance between the English-speaking nations began to take definite shape only in January, 1941. This was the month when American and British military officers met in Washington for conversations that became known as ABC-1. The agreements reached--that the two nations were to maintain joint planning staffs in Washington and London, and that, if forced into war with both Japan and Germany, the United States would join Britain in defeating Germany first--started the chain of events that led to the eventual cross-Channel invasion and victory in Europe. It was two months later, in March, when Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which authorized the United States to provide war materials for nations under Axis attack. By June, with the American observers in London having become the Special Observer Group, and the British having sent representatives to Washington, the two countries were in close liaison. Though the United States still was not at war, American troops replaced British troops in Iceland in July, 1941, and later in the summer began to construct naval and air bases in the United Kingdom, ostensibly for British use.

Developing Alliance

Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, and the German declaration of war against the United States, as American and British military leaders met in Washington in a series of conferences known as Arcadia (December, 1941-January, 1942), they reaffirmed the ABC-1 decision to remain on the strategic defensive in the Pacific, while defeating Germany first. They decided to wear down German resistance in 1942 by air bombardment, by assisting the USSR, and by trying to gain the entire North African coast, before initiating, in 1943, a large-scale land offensive against Germany across either the Mediterranean Sea or the English channel. They also created the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), consisting of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the British Chiefs of Staff, as the body to assist and advise President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the direction and conduct of the war. The most prominent members of the CCS were Gen. (later General of the Army) George C. Marshall, United States Army chief of staff, and Gen. (later Field Marshal) Sir Alan F. Brooke (later 1st Viscount Alan Brooke), chief of the Imperial General Staff. Because the CCS met only periodically, the American and British members did the detailed work of planning separately. Those most concerned with planning a European invasion were the Operations Division (OPD) of the United States War Department and the British Combined Commanders (the senior ground, naval, and air officers, together with Lord Mountbatten).

Differences between the Allies in general strategic outlook soon became apparent. The British, acutely conscious of the difficulty of a Channel crossing, aware of the need for special boats and equipment, and impressed by the strength of the German Army, favoured a peripheral strategy, including ground operations in the Mediterranean or in Scandinavia, and such indirect methods of attack as blockade, air bombardment, and the encouragement of subversive activities in German-occupied countries. Only when the Germans had been weakened to the point where an invasion would be sure of success, was a cross-Channel attack to be launched. The Americans, more conscious of the needs of the Pacific war, and therefore impatient for victory in Europe, rejected the peripheral areas for major operations, for they believed that only by a showdown in northwestern Europe could the Germans be beaten.

As the first American ground troops (34th Division) arrived in Northern Ireland in January, 1942, the Special Observer Group was redesignated the United States Army Forces in the British Isles. Not long afterward, United States air force contingents began to arrive in England for eventual participation in the bombardment of German-held Europe, and in July American air crews in borrowed Royal Air Force (RAF) planes flew their first mission, a daylight attack against German airfields in the Netherlands. Then, in August, the Eighth Air Force, commanded by Maj-Gen. (later Gen.) Carl Spaatz, carried out the first bombing of Europe by American pilots flying American planes.

Because the Americans still were building up their strength, and because British resources were hardly sufficient to carry out a cross-Channel attack alone, the British chiefs concluded that no cross-Channel operation was feasible in 1942 unless Germany showed unmistakable signs of collapse; even 1943 remained doubtful. In March, 1942, the OPD nevertheless began work on an outline plan for a full-scale invasion of Europe in 1943. The following month, General Marshall and Harry Hopkins, confidential adviser to President Roosevelt, went to London to try to gain British acceptance of the idea. The British agreed not only with the concept but also with a War Department proposal, code named Bolero, for a great buildup of American forces in Britain, with approximately 1 million men to be equipped and trained to carry out air operations in 1942, and a major invasion of the Continent in 1943. To implement the decision, Maj. Gen. (later Lt. Gen.) John C. H. Lee arrived in the United Kingdom in May to activate the Services of Supply. On June 24, Maj. Gen. (later General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived to take command of the European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA).

Approval of the 1943 invasion &endash; landings on a wide front between Boulogne and Le Havre, or Roundup, as it was called &endash; did not solve the problem of what to do in 1942. That summer, President Roosevelt became increasingly convinced of the need for active operations in the European area before the end of the year. The commencement of a new German offensive in the USSR in June and British reverses in North Africa had their effects on his thinking. Fortunately, two decisive naval victories over the Japanese in May and June (Coral Sea and Midway) relieved the immediate threat to Australia and made it possible for the United States to divert greater resources to Europe. Despite the recommendations of General Marshall and Adm. (later Admiral of the Fleet) Ernest J. King, United States chief of naval operations (both of whom considered a North African venture a dispersal of strength), Roosevelt accepted a British proposal to invade North Africa that year (Operation Torch). The CCS appointed Eisenhower to assume immediate control of the planning. The decision to invade North Africa placed the Bolero-Roundup concept in jeopardy. Though planning for an eventual cross-Channel operation continued, Torch absorbed almost the entire effort and attention of the Allies in the European area. The invasion on Nov. 8, 1942, and the subsequent campaign through the winter and spring drained men, materiel, and supplies from the American buildup in the British Isles.

Meanwhile, the British had executed two daring raids against the German-held French coast. In March 1942, specially trained troops called Commandos launched a hit-and-run foray against St.-Nazaire and destroyed submarine pens and other naval facilities. In August, a joint British and Canadian command, with 5,000 Canadians, 1,000 British, and 50 United States Rangers, raided Dieppe in a miniature invasion to test amphibious tactics and techniques. Involving the full use of combined arms and the mass landings of infantry and armour to seize a beachhead, the Dieppe operation was designed not to hold a beachhead but rather to test the ability of the newly developed LCT (landing craft, tank) to land tanks across beaches, to see whether it was possible to capture a port in a frontal assault, to scrutinize the organization of air forces for overhead cover and support, and to test the naval management of a considerable invasion fleet. Of the 6,100 troops embarked for Dieppe, about 2,500 returned, including about 1,000 who never landed. The others were killed or captured.

Plans Developed

When the CCS met at Casablanca in January, 1943, it was a time of optimism. The Germans had been decisively defeated in North Africa, though the campaign would continue until May. The Russians had taken the offensive after stopping the Germans at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), and Japanese expansion in the Pacific had definitely been checked. As a consequence, the greatest obstacle blocking offensive operations against the European continent that year was the relative paucity of Allied resources, particularly the shortage of shipping due to the effectiveness of German submarine warfare.

To make the Mediterranean safe for shipping, the Allies at Casablanca decided to invade Sicily after completing the conquest of the North African shore. By seizing Sicily, they hoped also to remove Italy from the war. To increase pressure on Germany, they agreed to initiate intensified air attacks from the United Kingdom, called the combined bomber offensive (Operation Point-blank). But for a major invasion across the Channel in 1943, the Allied leaders judged their resources insufficient. Though they set up a combined command and planning organization, it was designed to plan for small-scale raids and a return to the Continent in 1943 only if the Germans collapsed. A full-scale invasion was reserved for 1944.

Studying the Dieppe experience, the CCS planners concluded that the strength of the enemy defenses along the Channel coast required an immense concentration of power in the initial assault. Instead of dispersed landings, instead of many separate assaults by regimental and Commando units, it was better to make a single main landing. The beachhead initially secured should then be expanded and developed into a lodgement for the entire invasion force scheduled to follow. The area of initial assault and subsequent lodgement had various requirements. It had to be within range of fighter planes based in the United Kingdom; it had to provide airfields and sites suitable for constructing airfields soon after the invasion; it had to have at least one major port; and the landing beaches had to be sheltered from winds, suitable for prolonged maintenance operations, provided with adequate exits, and backed by good road nets. Furthermore, naval shelling, air bombardment, or airborne landings would have to be capable of reducing or crippling the beach defenses. The area most appropriate for initial landings, the planners decided, was the Channel coast of France between Caen and Cherbourg.