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D-Day 1944

© Ralph Zuljan

The Anglo-American military staff responsible for the invasion of northern Europe was announced in December 1943. An American, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was given supreme command of the Allied forces. A British marshal, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, was designated as his deputy. Also prominent among the senior leaders of the invasion was Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. "Monty" was formally responsible only for British ground forces but he also had a significant impact on the overall operational plan and ultimately commanded all of the ground forces in the critical first months. The Allied Expeditionary Forces staff reflected political choices as much as it did military realities. American human and material contributions to the war effort were relatively greater compared to those of Britain and the selection of an American for overall command reflected this fact. British commanders, many of whom had military experience that exceeded that of their American counterparts, were forced to accept American superiors -- some for the first time. The ultimate success of the undertaking depended as much on the willingness of the forceful personalities involved to cooperate as it did on the material capabilities of the combined armed forces.

The challanges faced in planning the cross-Channel invasion were enormous. Unlike any of the previous landings the Allies attempted, here the Germans were known to have a distinct advantage in reinforcement capabilities because they already had a large number of combat units deployed throughout northern France -- they were waiting for an invasion attempt to take place. A satisfactory balance had to be struck between the weight of Allied forces available for the initial landings and the ability to deny significant reinforcements to the German forces. Since the size of the landing force was fixed by the amount of transport available, the more successful Allied efforts were in denying German units near the target beaches reinforcement, the more viable the relatively small initial invasion force would be. A massive bombing campaign against the road and railway networks in France was aimed at significantly reducing the German ability to move additional units towards their beach defenses. Sabotage and intelligence gathering (on the location German units in France), by the French resistance also contributed to the Allied effort to limit German reinforcement capabilities.

Also critical to the success of an invasion was the ability to deceive the Wehrmacht's intelligence gathers and its leadership about the target location of the intended landings. Failure to do so would negate any efforts to deny local forces reinforcements and allow the Germans to allocate the bulk of their available forces near the invasion site. Such a situation probably would have ensured an Allied failure since their logistical limits for mounting the operation were relatively small in comparison to the German forces available in northern France. To keep the Germans guessing until the last possible moment, an entire "paper" army was created in Britain under the command of George S. Patton (probably the most prominent American general in Europe not to be given a role in the Normandy invasion).