The Super Summary of World History

by Alan Dale Daniel

  Yet another missed opportunity for Japan. Remember Savo Island? The Japanese cruiser force battered the Allied cruisers guarding Guadalcanal’s supply ships. The transports were dead ahead and unprotected when the Japanese admiral failed to advance and destroy the cargo ships. The reader may recall that at Pearl Harbor Nagumo failed to launch a third strike, fearful of being detected by the missing US aircraft carriers. Another missed opportunity was the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese invasion force turned back after the encounter with American carriers, an encounter the Japanese had not lost. Admiral Yamamoto wanted the fleet to continue on and invade Port Moresby. Had they done so, the Japanese stood an excellent chance of capturing the last Allied bastion on New Guinea. Then, Kurita’s Leyte retreat. At three key moments a major tactical victory was within the grasp of Japanese admirals, and they missed each one (the Coral Sea, Savo, Leyte). What caused the lapses of judgment on the part of these men? In each case the missed opportunity was substantial, and nothing stood between them and victory. Couple the destruction of fuel and harbor facilities at Pearl, the capture of New Guinea, winning at Guadalcanal, plus winning at Leyte, and Allied plans could have been significantly delayed.

  The individual decisions of four admirals dramatically hurt Japan’s cause. History illustrates that often a few people control the hinge point of events. Different decisions by these four men, while not winning the war, would hand their leaders a better chance at controlling later events. The strategic decision for or against war is the most critical because it is foundational; however, numerous poorly made decisions at the decisive point of battle can doom any nation. The Allies made good decisions throughout the war at the strategic level,[302] and the Allied fighting men made good decisions at the tactical level. Given the totality of decisions made by the Allies and the Axis, the Allies did far better.

  Submarine Efforts—Axis and the Allies

  Any discussion of the Pacific and Atlantic wars must refer to the US Submarine efforts against Japan and German efforts in the Atlantic against Britain. At the start of the war, US Navy torpedoes were defective. Reports of their defectiveness reached ranking admirals in the navy, but they were ignored. Only after the admiral of the submarine forces threatened to resign were tests run on the torpedoes, and they were defective. The problem was the magnetic detectors on the warhead that were supposed to recognize when the torpedo was directly under a ship failed. In WWI the torpedoes had mechanical detonators. The torpedo hit the side of a ship, the mechanical detonator fired, and a hole was blown in the ships’ side. Between WWI and II, torpedoes were improved and a magnetic detonator was invented which detected when the torpedo was beneath the keel of the ship causing the torpedo to explode. This difference was critical because when the torpedo exploded under the keel of a ship it broke the ship’s back (so to speak), the ship would sink faster, and it would take fewer torpedoes to sink a ship—usually only one (for a merchant ship).

  The Germans encountered the same problems with their torpedoes; thus, they switched to WWI mechanical detonators and the German submarines had to fire more torpedoes to sink a ship when one should have sufficed. German Type VII subs only carried twelve torpedoes. A German investigation discovered the officers in charge of testing the torpedoes in the Kregsmarine were the same people that investigated any later-alleged flaws. The quality control testers covered up the fact that the detonators were malfunctioning. In Germany, these men were quickly put to death (after a trial, of course). In the US, Navy investigators determined the men originally in charge of testing the torpedoes were the same men looking for later problems with those torpedoes. If these men disclosed the flaws in their original testing they could get into trouble, so they kept quite. Do the facts ring a bell? Only here, the US Navy failed to outwardly punish the men. They just fixed the problem and moved on.

  The US Submarine service was terribly hampered by these malfunctioning torpedoes. Submariners risked their lives in the Philippines, for example, to get shots at Japanese ships landing troops on Luzon only to have the torpedoes breakdown. At Guadalcanal, US Coastal submarines operating in The Slot recorded several kills. This got the US Navy wondering why the coastal submarines were having so much more luck than the fleet submarines. No one thought to look at the torpedoes, although suspicions were growing. The small coastal subs were using World War I torpedoes because they were second class fighting machines, so they got the old stuff. The old stuff worked and gave the Japanese a lot of headaches. The new stuff did not work and gave the United States a lot of headaches. Fixing the torpedoes led to spectacular kill rates for US Submarines after 1943. The Japanese failed to concentrate on protecting their merchant shipping, and US Submarines began slaughtering their transports. By the end of the war, US Submarines effectively cut off ocean transportation to Japan.

  Germany fared poorly in spite of great efforts. Effective code breaking, anti-submarine technology, convoys, and new fighting methods ended Germany’s chance of an undersea victory in 1943. Ultra and the defective German torpedoes were key elements in their downfall, along with the Allied decision at Casablanca to defeat the U-boat threat first.[303] The Japanese constructed excellent long-range submarines and possessed the best torpedo of any combatant. In spite of these wonderful weapons, Japanese tactical doctrine on how to use submarines failed them. Based on their ancient warrior’s code, enemy soldiers were the main targets of attack, not supply lines. As such, the Japanese totally misused their submarines by confining them to attacking warships instead of cargo ships. If the Japanese had placed a number of submarines between Hawaii and the US West Coast and attacked Allied cargo ships, they could have significantly hampered Allied operations in the Pacific.

  Hammering Toward Victory—Europe

  1944-1945

  D-Day and Beyond

  Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

  —Sir Winston Churchill

  Background to D-Day

  Stalin kept pressing the Allies for a second front. Easy for Stalin to demand, but an invasion of Nazi occupied Europe was going to be a huge, costly, and risky undertaking. Yet it had to be done. A failure to invade France had the potential of leaving all of Europe in Soviet hands after the war. England and America realized the Soviets were gaining strength and would defeat Hitler. The only issue was the cost of victory. On the other hand, if the D-Day invasion were a failure, or if the Allies refused to invade, Stalin might choose to quit if Hitler offered a good-enough deal. If that were to occur, two mass murderers could rule Europe for decades.

  The English, led by Churchill, wanted to put off the invasion until 1945 and continue to raid the periphery of the Third Reich. This strategy of waiting and raiding served the British well for hundreds of years. It worked against Napoleon of France, Philip of Spain, and others. In World War I, the British committed their army to the continent, and the cost was horrendous. The British now returned to the ancient formula and thought by using their control of the sea and raiding ability they could hurt Hitler’s forces and save their own for the final blow—when the “right” time arrived. The Soviets saw this as stalling, and constituted attempts by capitalist powers to bleed both Hitler and the Soviets white, then step in and claim all of Europe for their spoils.[304]

  America had a different history and experience with war. The American Civil War formulated the ideas of war in the American military mind. Like Grant during the Civil War, the United States wanted to go straight at the enemy and destroy him as quickly as possible. US Generals disliked the periphery strategy of hitting the enemy here and there while waiting for the decisive moment to engage. The United States wanted to go ashore in France and have it out with the Nazis. They did not care to let the Nazis and Soviets k
ill each other off for a year or two before proceeding into France. In essence, the US wanted to win and go home.

  Churchill could not fathom the American interest in an immediate sea assault on Nazi-occupied France. He knew casualties would be high, and the risk of a total defeat on the beaches was ever present. American generals could not understand England’s reluctance to hit the Nazis and drive them into oblivion. America had great confidence in its ability to destroy the Nazi army, but the British were more cautious. England was driven to near defeat in 1918, chased off the continent in 1940, and mauled in a large raid on the French port of Dieppe in 1942. The Americans had initially taken a beating in North Africa, but they looked at the experience differently. In American eyes they had learned, then turned, and destroyed the Nazis in Tunisia. Note how a different history results in different decisions and outlooks.

  In a series of Allied conferences, the Soviets demanded, and then received, a guarantee from the Western Democracies to invade Nazi-occupied France in 1944. The British loathed the decision; but as Roosevelt and Stalin reached an agreement they went along. It was a good decision for the future of the world. The invasion of France freed Western Europe, saving it from occupation by the Soviets. As the aftermath of the war would demonstrate, this was vitally important.

  General Dwight D. Eisenhower led the largest amphibious operation the world had ever seen (and is still the largest to this day). The planning for the assault was intensive. Just getting the troops to the beaches was a monumental undertaking. The Allies needed a new kind of ship for that job, one that could disgorge huge amounts of supplies as well as vehicles, artillery, and even tanks directly onto the beach. The ship was designed by the English and constructed in America—the LST (landing ship tank).[305] This ship became so important that the invasion itself came to depend on the numbers available. Operation Neptune was the code name for the task of getting the assault troops across the channel to France and bringing on the follow-up forces and supplies for the many divisions ashore in France. Neptune was an unqualified success. Not one ship was lost to enemy action crossing the channel.

  Once the Allies were ashore they had to build up their forces more rapidly than the Germans. If the Germans could bring more troops to the invasion zone than the Allies, they could overwhelm them. Allied air power could close off the invasion beaches from German reinforcements by destroying all the rail lines, bridges, and roads leading to the invasion area. The problem was the air commanders did not want to give up their heavy bombers for this task. Author Harris, chief of Bomber Command for the British, steadfastly contended his air raids would win the war, and to divert his heavy bombers for even a few days—much less the weeks needed by Eisenhower—would hurt the war effort immeasurably. Harris argued, but Ike (Eisenhower) won and the bombers bombarded the area behind the landing area (as well as other areas to throw the Germans off). This air campaign was one of the most successful of the war. After the raids were over, the bridges were down, the railroads mangled, and roads destroyed over a vast area of France near the invasion point of Normandy.

  Normandy was not a perfect spot; overall however, Normandy was the best beach area the Allies could find. Other beaches had heavier defenses, lacked sufficient beach exits, and were beyond the reach of air cover, among other evils.[306]

  Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery decided a minimum of five divisions would go ashore on D-Day with more to follow as soon as possible. Prior to these men touching the shore, three airborne divisions would jump into France behind the beachheads to secure vital bridges, causeways, and road crossings (eight divisions total in the first wave of assaults—over one hundred thousand men). They would slow or stop advancing German units trying to reach the beachhead. It was a tall order for the paratroopers.[307] The paratroopers would go in at night, and the invasion would begin early that same morning. The ground troops had to reach the paratroopers before the Nazis could show up in force and demolish them.

  The beaches were Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Utah and Omaha, on the right (if you are on a boat facing the land from the sea), were American sectors; Gold was British; Juno was Canadian, and Sword (the far left beach) was English. One division would go ashore at each beach with other divisions ready to follow on as combat allowed. The three paratroop divisions were the 101 (American), 82 (American), and the 6th (English). The airborne Americans would land behind Utah and Omaha while the English paratroopers would land on the left flank of Sword (looking from the sea) to secure vital crossing points over the Orne River and to stall Nazi attacks on the flanks of Sword.

  In June of 1944, the Germans were in a poor position to defend the continent from invasion.[308] Allied aircraft ruled the skies and Allied ships ruled the sea. This prevented German reconnaissance flights or naval reconnaissance. Unknown to the Germans, all their agents in England were working for the Allies, and the Allies were reading the German codes in real time through the Ultra decrypt program. The French Resistance was feeding additional intelligence to the Allies and they performed key acts of sabotage. The Germans were blind and deaf while the Allies had eyes and ears everywhere.

  German generals could guess where the Allies might strike. They knew the Allies demanded air cover, and that limited the places the Allies would land. Beach exits, tides, defenses, phases of the moon, weather etc., all played a role in the German analysis. However, weather was one part of the equation where they came up short. All the Nazi weather ships were destroyed by the English Navy. (The code breakers again) The Germans had problems knowing what the weather would be on any given day along the French coast. The Allies would know because of extensive weather stations at sea and ashore.

  The Germans guessed that either the Pas de Calais in the north of France near Belgium or Normandy near Cherbourg were the likely landing areas. The Germans heavily fortified the Pas de Calais beaches because they thought this was the most likely landing spot. They were “aided” in this analysis by an elaborate Allied deception plan designed to make the Germans believe Pas de Calais was the invasion beach. General Patton was put in charge of a large fake army with dummy tanks, trucks, and troops that were visible everywhere. This deception worked so well the Germans thought Normandy was a ruse for a number of days after the landings.

  Germany’s fundamental problem was how to defend the long coastline of Western Europe. One way is to keep a large reserve behind a weak outer line and counter attack wherever the invader strikes. Another is a cordon defense, where strong units are placed around the boundaries of the area to be defended with the goal of stopping the attacker at the boundary, then driving him back later with units assembled from other areas of the boundary defense. Two great German generals, Rommel and Von Rundstedt, disagreed on how to mount the defense of France. Rommel wanted a cordon defense because he believed Allied air power was so potent that it would shoot the German reserve troops to pieces before they arrived, and airpower would prevent the move from their reserve positions to the beachhead in a timely manner.[309] Von Rundstedt, very old school himself (anyone with “von” before his name was going to be old school), thought the large reserve was best. He disliked cordon defenses, as most modern military men do, because of its inherent inefficiency and lack of striking power on offense. Von Rundstedt thought the counterattack was the key. He did not want men all over the place knowing about 90 percent of them would be in the wrong spot when the attack came. Rommel insisted the battle must be won on the beaches on the first day of the invasion. Once the Allies were ashore in force, he thought, it was over because Allied air and sea power could continue to deliver troops to France without interruption, and Germany could not match the Allies’ power. Because of the lack of German intelligence and reconnaissance capability, Rommel opted for the cordon defense as his only alternative if he was to stop the Allies on the beaches.

  Want to guess who settled the argument? Adolf Hitler—who else? Hitler divided the strategic baby and allowed Rommel to reinforce some of the beach areas with a lim
ited number of troops, but also allowed Rundstedt a reserve. The problem was the reserve could not move unless Hitler himself gave the word. It could not be any worse. The Germans had no coherent strategy for defense, and their main units assembled for counterattack were in the hands of a man hundreds of miles away (and not very rational . . . to say the least).

  Figure 69 The D-Day Plan

  The Atlantic Wall Breached

  As the invasion loomed, two things happened that changed the course of the battle. First, the weather changed for the worse. A large storm hit the channel and made an invasion impossible. Then the Allied weather advantage came to fruition. Allied weathermen told Ike and his commanders a window of “good” (well, good enough) weather would appear on June 6, 1944 and last for a few days. Ike polled the commanders and then said, “Go”. The room cleared and the invasion was on. The second thing that occurred was the veteran German 352ed division had moved into the Omaha Beach sector undetected by the Allies. On the German side, the bad weather gave them a break, or so they thought. Rommel went home for his wife’s birthday, and a lot of other generals and their staffs took time off. Lack of weather information had changed the course of the war. Allied surprise would be total.

  Figure 70 D-Day Plus Six