Divided on D-Day

by Edward E. Gordon

  Ramsay also knew that the Royal Navy could not provide this expanded naval force due to its many other war theater commitments. When Ramsay turned to Admiral Ernest J. King, the chief of staff of the US Navy, he was reluctant to part with the requested ships. King commented, “There are so many craft involved now that one could almost walk dry-shod from one side of the channel to the other.”21 Some analysts attribute this to King's anti-British prejudices, while others believe that he felt that the Pacific theater took precedence over the needs of the war in Europe. Finally a month after the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington were notified, King responded by handing over three old battleships, three cruisers, and thirty-one destroyers, a more powerful flotilla than Ramsay had requested. This failed to change King's Anglophobic attitudes.22

  Admiral Cunningham also pointed out to Ramsay that German mining of the shallower waters off the Normandy coast posed a great danger to capital ships during NEPTUNE. Ramsay formulated a minesweeping plan with Vian and Kirk for overcoming the German minefields—especially a main barrier within seven to ten miles off the Normandy coast. Their plans amounted to the largest single minesweeping operation of World War II.23

  One safe channel, two miles wide, was swept simultaneously through the main German minefield for each of the five assault forces. This was to be accomplished by one fleet minesweeping flotilla of 255 vessels. Kirk who had previously criticized Ramsay's overly detailed plans now acknowledged “that minesweeping was the keystone of the arch of this operation…. The performance of the minesweepers can only be described as magnificent.”24

  The NEPTUNE phase of the OVERLORD operation was a vast and intricate undertaking. Personality differences caused relatively little friction. Ramsay's ability to forge a single NEPTUNE team structure was facilitated by its daunting scope and extreme urgency. This rarified atmosphere served to impose the discipline and unity needed for producing a final magnificent NEPTUNE operational plan.25

  JANUARY 21—FIRST SUPREME COMMANDER CONFERENCE

  The initial meeting of Eisenhower and his staff with the OVERLORD commanders at Norfolk House on January 21, 1944, had great historical significance. First, it confirmed Eisenhower's important decision as supreme commander to expand the beachhead from three to five landing zones. It was agreed that a three-division assault lacked effective sustainability as the Germans could more easily contain such a narrow beachhead, and readily concentrate a large counterattack to smash it.26 This became one of the key decisions for winning the war in Europe. Recalling the immediate past record of Allied collaboration, it proved little short of a miracle that this cornerstone decision gained approval almost by acclamation.

  Secondly, the conference produced Montgomery's first outline as overall ground commander of the strategy for D-Day and the subsequent Normandy campaign. Montgomery's conception of D-Day was to use overwhelming and focused air and naval bombardments to get the infantry ashore and penetrate the German Atlantic Wall. This would enable British and later American armored units to land and quickly fan out into an initial Caen-Bayeux bridgehead. This lodgment would be about eighty miles long and twenty miles deep from the neighborhood of Caen to the base of the Cherbourg peninsula. (See Map 2.) The Bayeux River would be the separation point with the American army on its right and the British army on its left.

  Caen was to be taken by the British on the first day. It was Monty's number one priority. This would aid in consolidating the beaches and set the stage for the armored units advance to the east. Caen was an excellent hub with good roads in all directions, including Bayeux to the west, another D-Day objective. Taking Caen was also the key to a war of tank maneuver, allowing the Allies to rapidly exit the beaches and move beyond the confining bocage (hedgerows) that checker-boarded the Normandy area.

  The American army's primary objectives were to take Bayeux and ultimately Cherbourg; then moving south and west out of the Normandy region, General George S. Patton's Third Army would march into Brittany and seize Brest and other vital ports. With their supply lines secured, the combined Anglo-American armies would advance from Caen to the northeast toward Paris and the Seine River. After defeating the Germans on the Seine, the Allies would pour through northern France until they reached the German border in the regions around Belgium and Luxemburg. (See Map 1A.) The last objective was to be reached ninety days after D-Day.

  Throughout that day's conference Montgomery emphasized the necessity for a rapid advance to seize Caen and other key British objectives. Monty planned to immediately deploy a British armored thrust from the beachhead to take the city and related objectives, thereby unbalancing the German counterattacks. He stressed that a rapid victory hinged on following a surprise amphibious assault with a lightning armored advance.27

  Montgomery declared,

  In the initial stages, we should concentrate on gaining control quickly of the main centres of road communications. We should then push our armoured formations between and beyond these centres and deploy them on suitable grounds. In this way it would be difficult for the enemy to bring up his reserves and get them past these armoured formations.28

  A major change to the OVERLORD plan that Montgomery initiated was the deployment of several airborne divisions on both flanks of the five invasion beaches. Their mission was to weaken German counterattacks during the initial Allied beach-assault phase. Two British divisions were also to seize the bridges over the Orne River and Dives River that led into Caen, enabling armored units to link up and seize Caen on D-Day. But Eisenhower, Bradley, and Montgomery also wanted to use these airborne divisions to cut the neck of the Cotentin Peninsula and protect the landings at the western-most American beaches.29

  Two days later, on January 23, Eisenhower formally accepted Montgomery's initial operational proposals. From that day on, the herculean efforts began to convert these ideas into a successful written operational plan. Of all the challenges OVERLORD now faced, the vital necessity for a dramatic increase in landing craft topped Eisenhower's to-do list.

  LANDING CRAFT SHUFFLE

  The day after this initial OVERLORD commanders’ conference, Ramsay presented Admiral Cunningham with the new shipping requirements for an expansion to five invasion beaches. While Ramsay endorsed the proposal, he pointed out that the Allies did not have enough landing craft within the European theater to cover all their diverse offensive operations.

  Much of this shortage problem stemmed from the decision that had been approved at the Quebec Conference to launch a diversionary landing in southern France (ANVIL) simultaneously with OVERLORD. Once SHAEF had agreed to a five-division initial Normandy assault, pressure began to build to cancel ANVIL and thus resolve the landing craft problem.

  Eisenhower was reluctant to do so because he thought that forcing the Germans to fight on two fronts would optimize OVERLORD's chance of success. American naval production schedules had been disrupted in April 1942 to give top priority to landing and beaching craft for an earlier cross-channel invasion that was then canceled. The schedule was further upset in January 1943 when building ships for anti-submarine warfare was given top priority.30

  Eisenhower's solution was to request 271 more landing craft and forty-seven additional LSTs from the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington. This move upset Ramsay who thought “the five division assault must stand and ANVIL must be cancelled in order to make it possible to mount it…. Ike must definitely arrive at a final decision…without any more waffling.”31 Ramsay believed that operational planning had to adjust to the actual logistical reality.

  As late as February 6, Eisenhower still advocated launching both military operations simultaneously. For months pro versus con ANVIL constituencies continued this landing craft and LST dispute. By March Eisenhower was vacillating. Finally on March 20 Eisenhower broke the impasse when he announced that ANVIL would not be launched concurrently with OVERLORD. The lack of sufficient sealift also caused the postponement of the Normandy invasion until June 5, and ANVIL was moved back to late summer.r />
  American shipyards began a crash LST construction program. They turned out fifty vessels in April and eighty-two in May. The United States Pacific Fleet also reluctantly gave up 2,483 additional landing craft for OVERLORD. These efforts combined with the dual postponements made a more robust OVERLORD possible.32

  The Americans at last accepted the fact that in some instances logistics do trump strategy. Ramsay expressed his sincere relief: “[I] am feeling more comfortable about the state of things. Heard (March 25) that ANVIL is at last ‘off’. Thank goodness. It only shows how cumbersome is the machine which wields the power…. 6 weeks…it has taken till now to get the decision.”33 This delay in resolving important issues continuously plagued the entire Normandy campaign.

  THE “PORTABLE PORT”

  As Montgomery outlined his operational plans on January 21, he also emphasized the crucial importance of seizing ports. Logistics were the key to the invasion's success. Once ashore the attacker had to be able to reinforce his bridgehead faster than the defender could bring up reinforcements to drive him back into the sea.

  The important lesson of the Dieppe disaster was that the Allies were not going to rapidly capture a major port. Furthermore, they could not prevent the Germans from destroying a port's shipping facilities.34 “Well, if we can't capture a port, we will have to take one with us,” said Captain Hughes Hallett on Mountbatten's COC staff as he returned from the Dieppe raid.35

  Mountbatten first suggested this solution for OVERLORD at the Rattle Conference (June–July 1943). In fact, it was not a novel idea. In early 1917, the British War Office had drawn up plans for building floating docks and breakwaters. During the late 1930s, the Royal Navy had towed such an enormous floating dock complex over ten thousand miles to strengthen Britain's Far Eastern fortress at Singapore.

  In August 1943, General Morgan in his role as commander of the preliminary COSSAC planning convinced the Combined Chiefs of Staff that two artificial harbors, which were code-named Mulberries, were indispensable to OVERLORD. Plans moved forward for the Royal Navy to construct one full-scale harbor in the British invasion sector at Arromanches. A second Mulberry was to be installed for the American sector at St. Laurent. Once in place the two harbors would eventually develop the capacity to receive twelve thousand tons of supplies per day, equal to the seaport of Dover.

  These plans were already underway when Ramsay assumed command of NEPTUNE. At first skeptical about the feasibility of the Mulberries, he became much impressed by what he saw after their installation off the Normandy beaches by mid-June.

  In the end, the biggest headache with the Mulberries was coping with their size. These harbors were so enormous that all of the tugboats in Britain were too few to move them from Scotland's shipyards to Normandy. Additional tugs had to be brought across the Atlantic from the US Eastern Seaboard to complete the pool of over two hundred tugs needed for towing the Mulberries to the Normandy coast.36

  Providing the fuel supply required by a modern mechanized army was another major logistics problem. How was fuel to be delivered without a large port oil terminal? In the spring of 1942, Commander Thomas Hussey, RN, part of Mountbatten's Combined Operations Command, suggested a fuel pipeline running across the bed of the English Channel.

  In December 1942 a trial line was laid across the Bristol Channel. Motor fuel was successfully pumped through it for two and a half months. In June 1943 Geoffrey Lloyd, the minister of fuel, ordered the preparation of two alternative versions now named “Pluto” (Pipe Line under the Ocean). The Admiralty was given the task of laying the pipeline. Ramsay organized a new command—Force Pluto. One hundred officers and one thousand merchant marine sailors installed Pluto and after D-Day kept gasoline products flowing to the growing Allied armies in France.37

  DOUBTING THE MESSENGER

  On February 11, 1944, General George S. Patton picked up General Bradley and drove him to St. Paul's School in West Kensington, Montgomery's London headquarters. There they met with Monty, Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, who was to command the British invasion army, and Major General Francis de Guingand, Montgomery's chief of staff.

  All five commanders realized the opening days of OVERLORD were the most critical. Will the objectives be reached? How fast can all the beaches be linked up for the move inland? Will the initial bridgehead be strong enough to survive the panzer counterattacks that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the German Normandy commander, was sure to mount?

  Montgomery asked his biggest rival, “You’ve seen the Plan, Patton?”38

  “I’ve seen it but did not have much of a chance to study it yet,” Patton answered.

  “Did you like what you saw of it?” Monty inquired.

  “No,” Patton said grinning.

  “It doesn't give me anything to do!”

  Montgomery ignored Patton's deeply felt objection and delved into the plan's details. He lectured Patton on using aggressive tactics. “We must aim at success in the land battle by the speed and violence of our operations.”39

  Though Patton appreciated Monty's new aggressive spirit, he knew from past experience that they were at odds with his battlefield tactics. Immediately after the Battle of El Alamein (October 1942), Montgomery failed to pursue Rommel, although he knew from Ultra intelligence that the Germans had only eleven serviceable tanks with enough fuel for four days. His failure to act immediately meant that he missed the ideal opportunity to destroy the Afrika Korps.40

  Rommel wrote in his diary, “Their command was as slow as ever in reacting. When we embarked on our retreat on the night of the 2nd November, a long time elapsed before the British forces started their pursuit…. Their command continued to show the customary caution and lack of resolute decision.”41

  Montgomery continued his failure to aggressively pursue German forces on the battlefields of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. He repeatedly became bogged down in a succession of encounters. Thus Patton had good reason to doubt that Montgomery now had the key attribute for winning the Normandy campaign—audacity. Six months before the start of the Normandy invasion, Patton thought it was “highly probable” that the British would get “boxed in” in their area of operation and drag the whole operation into stalemate or even defeat.42

  Montgomery's “plan” called for the capture of Caen, about seven miles inland from the Sword invasion beach, on the first day. As Ladislas Farago, Patton's biographer, recounts, Patton believed without any reservation that “[t]his would be too tough a nut for Montgomery to crack.” Patton told Bradley, “I think he's the best general the Limeys have. But he is not a man for fast and bold action. He is a master of the set battle…. Monty is supposed to take Caen on D-Day…. Well Brad, he won't take it…. He’ll take his time and meantime the Germans will get ready for the counterattack.”43

  Montgomery's basic challenge was taking Caen to securely anchor the invasion's east flank bridgehead in order to prevent a counterattack by Rommel. As long as the Germans controlled Caen, the British could not bypass the city to gain access to the open Caen–Falaise plain and its two rivers, the Odon to the south or the Orne to the north of the city.44 (See Map 2.)

  Over the next several months, Bradley often met with Montgomery to solve operational details for OVERLORD. Montgomery's emphasis on the necessity for rapid thrust and maneuver appealed to Bradley. Even though these meetings were stiff and formal as Monty was withdrawn and not usually open to his suggestions, Bradley remained impressed by the “plan.”

  Yet Bradley recognized that it had a number of flaws. He disagreed with Montgomery's analysis that the beach defenses and German counterattacks in the hinterland would be light. Like Patton, Bradley thought that Montgomery was hopelessly optimistic about reaching his first-day objectives. Incredibly, Montgomery even told Bradley that the British tanks would reach Falaise before the end of D-Day!45

  AIR TURBULENCE

  Given the vast scale of OVERLORD, operational tensions were inevitable. However Eisenhower was generally able to secure mult
inational cooperation in most areas. The one major exception was the Allied air forces.

  At the January 21 meeting of OVERLORD's commanders, Eisenhower requested that parts of British air marshal Sir Arthur Harris's Bomber Command and General Carl Spaatz's US Army Air Force Command in Europe be placed under the control of SHAEF to support OVERLORD. They both objected immediately because it would weaken the strategic bombing offensive against Germany, which they viewed as a decisive factor in the total Allied war effort. In some quarters it was believed that air power alone would bring Nazi Germany to its knees.

  To Harris and Spaatz even temporarily allowing their bomber forces to be deployed in tactical operations headed by Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory was anathema. Mallory's main command experience had been with fighter operations. Moreover, due to his prior conduct during the Battle of Britain, Leigh-Mallory was not liked or respected by his British colleagues.46

  British air chief marshal Arthur Tedder was the key person for resolving this impasse. His earlier command of Allied air forces in the Mediterranean had given him both strategic bombing and tactical air experience. He ultimately was acceptable to Harris, Spaatz, and the fighter commanders as Eisenhower's deputy.

  His Mediterranean experience led Tedder to conclude that the most effective tactics for supporting an amphibious landing was isolating the bridgehead battlefield by bombing the enemy's railroad marshaling yards, thus disrupting their ability to reinforce and successfully counterattack. Tedder named this concept the “Transportation Plan.” In February Leigh-Mallory proposed implementing this plan to disrupt enemy logistics by bombing the rail centers for the Normandy area shortly before and after the invasion.