Excerpts

Introduction Walking along Omaha Beach on the coast of Normandy in France, one is struck by four distinct impressions that come in rapid, logical succession. The first impression is one of awe. The magnitude of the 1st Infantry Division's assault in World War II almost defies description. The terrain, the configuration of the ground, greatly increased the difficulty of the task. The length and width of the beach, the dominance of the bluff that overlooks the beach, the concave shape of the shoreline, which permitted the delivery of direct fire from three directions, the concrete remains of the German defense with its numerous fighting positions along the bluff, the cliffs that flank the coast from which artillery observers could deliver indirect fire to any location on the beach, all combine to create the perception of an impenetrable natural and man-made defense. And this initial impression is incomplete since the numerous arrays of obstacles and minefields are now gone. One can stand on the bluff that overlooks Omaha Beach and visualize thousands of American soldiers and sailors exiting what appear to be tiny landing craft, trying to cross these open stretches of beach in daylight under enemy fire. A basic understanding of the capabilities of modern, rapid-fire weapons suggests the immensity of the task. Of the defense at Omaha Beach, American naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote: "Altogether, the Germans had provided the best imitation of hell for an invading force that American troops had encountered anywhere. Even the Japanese defense of Iwo Jima, Tarawa and Peleliu are not to be compared with these."[1] The second response is emotional. It is a feeling of admiration for the men who fought at Omaha Beach. This is hallowed ground. It would take a poet or a master storyteller, not a historian or a soldier, to describe the spirit of these men. Perhaps the comment of a Union colonel who watched Confederate general George Pickett's division advance on Cemetery Ridge during the third day of the Gettysburg campaign is appropriate. He said: "It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw."[2] These words were spoken not to glorify war but to recognize the spirit of the men who advanced. Above Omaha Beach is an American cemetery. There, one feels deep respect for the men who advanced and died at Omaha Beach. The third thought that comes to mind is, Why here? And why this way? A direct infantry assault against a deliberate defense years in the making, in daylight, following a paltry thirty-minute bombardment appears to be a very costly way to take Omaha Beach. The attack had neither the advantage of darkness nor overwhelming firepower. To explain why the American assault on Omaha Beach received such meager fire support, Morison wrote: [T]he Allies were invading a continent where the enemy had immense capabilities for reinforcement and counterattack, not a small island cut off by sea power from sources of supply. They had to have tactical surprise , which a long pre-landing bombing or bombardment would have lost. . . . Even a complete pulverizing of the Atlantic Wall at Omaha would have availed us nothing, if the German command had been given 24 hours' notice to move up reserves for counterattack. We had to accept the risk of heavy casualties on the beaches to prevent far heavier ones on the plateau and among the hedgerows.[3] One might ask, If tactical surprise was so important, why didn't the landing take place at night, under the cover of darkness? This would have limited the effects of enemy fire and facilitated achieving tactical surprise. To explain why the landing took place during the early-morning hours of daylight, historian Gordon Harrison, in the official history of the U.S. Army in World War II, wrote: "The assault was considered as a frontal attack which was unlikely even to have the advantage of tactical surprise . . . . The task of smashing through enemy beach defenses was to be facilitated as far as possible by naval fire support and air bombardment."[4] In 1944, accurate engagement of targets from the air and sea required daylight. Harrison reinforced his argument by quoting Lieutenant General John T. Crocker, commander of the British I Corps: "The first essential . . . was the development of `overwhelming fire support from all sources, air, naval, and support craft . . . to cover the final stage of the approach and to enable us to close the beaches. This required daylight.'"[5] To this, one might respond, Was it possible to generate overwhelming firepower in less than thirty minutes? Morison did not believe it was.[6] Didn't the U.S. Marines' experience at Tarawa in November 1943 prove that a three-hour bombing and bombardment was insufficient time to produce the quality of destruction necessary to quickly overcome a deliberate defense and limit casualties? Were the battles for the beaches at Normandy based on "tactical surprise," as Morison would have us believe, or on "overwhelming firepower," as Harrison would have us believe, or on some combination of the two doctrinal principles? And if some combination of the two was planned, on what experience was it based? The predominant experience in the Mediterranean theater had been in night landings based on tactical surprise, whereas the vast majority of amphibious operations in the Pacific were based on daylight assaults and overwhelming firepower. The plan for the Normandy invasion did not conform to the British practice of amphibious operations used in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, nor did it conform to the American practice of amphibious operations used at Tarawa, Kwajalein, Iwo Jima, and other Central Pacific islands. Was it possible to achieve both tactical surprise, which was predicated on no bombardment or a very brief bombardment, and overwhelming firepower, which was based on a sustained, methodical bombing and bombardment? Did Allied commanders Bernard Montgomery and Omar Bradley pursue mutually exclusive operational objectives? How did they plan to win the battles of the beaches? The fourth thought that comes to mind is that British and American heroes, Dwight Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Bradley, knew their jobs, and if they believed it was necessary to conduct the assault this way, who are we to argue with them? But Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's most brilliant general, planned and ordered Pickett's charge, one of the most ill-conceived assaults in the Civil War. American storyteller and historian Shelby Foote stated: "[Pickett's charge] was an incredible mistake, and there was scarcely a trained soldier who didn't know it was a mistake at the time. . . . [E]very man who looked out over that field, whether it was a sergeant or a lieutenant general, saw that it was a desperate endeavor and I'm sure knew that it should not have been made."[7] Generals do make mistakes, even very good generals. The plan for the assault at Omaha Beach failed, and American forces had to improvise a new plan under enemy fire. Bradley's own words attest to this fact: "I was shaken to find that we had gone against Omaha with so thin a margin of safety. At the time of sailing we had thought ourselves cushioned against such reversals as these. Had a less experienced division than the 1st Infantry stumbled into this crack resistance, it might easily have been thrown back into the Channel. . . . [M]y choice of the 1st to spearhead the invasion probably saved us Omaha Beach and a catastrophe on the landing."[8] Infantry conducting a frontal assault against a deliberate defense in daylight won the battle for Omaha Beach. The cost of this improvisation was high. Why did the plan fail? Russell Weigley provided the orthodox answer: "The American attack thus stalled throughout D-Day morning, to oblige General Bradley to ponder evacuation. It was painful pondering, in which he might not have had to engage had he himself and all the American planners not so blandly accepted the translation of head-on, power drive strategy into tactics of head-on infantry assault."[9] British historian Max Hastings observed: "V Corps's plan for Omaha eschewed tactical subtleties, the use of British specialized armour, and any attempt to seize the five vital beach exits by manoeuvre. Instead, General Gerow committed his men to hurling themselves frontally against the most strongly defended areas in the assault zone. This was an act of hubris compounded by the collapse amidst the rough weather."[10] This argument is not new. The Australian World War II journalist and historian Chester Wilmot first advanced it in his 1952 book, The Struggle for Europe .[11] Thus, the current understanding of the battle at Omaha Beach has enjoyed considerable longevity. Wilmot, Weigley, and Hastings have placed the blame on the specific tactical plan for the battle at Omaha Beach, as opposed to the overall operational plan for the Normandy invasion. This has allowed them to place the responsibility on the tactical commanders and the American practice of war instead of on the strategic and operational commanders and the Allied invasion plan. They have argued that it was a uniquely American "predilection for direct assault" that produced the flawed tactical plan. The terrible casualties suffered at Omaha Beach were thus the results of bad decisions made by tactical commanders. The problem with this argument is that all of the tactical commanders opposed the plan that was put into practice. If the American tactical commanders developed a bad plan, it was because they were directed to produce battle plans that conformed to the operational plan. The record shows that General Leonard T. Gerow, the commander of the V Corps; General Clarence R. Huebner, the commander of the 1st Infantry Division (ID); General Norman D. Cota, the assistant commander of the 29th ID, which landed with the 1st ID on D Day; and Admiral John Lesslie Hall, the commander of Amphibious Force "O," the naval force that put the 1st ID ashore on D Day, all disagreed with the plan for the assault and fought to change it. They believed that a landing conducted under the cover of darkness had a better chance of succeeding and would result in fewer casualties.[12] Gerow and Hall argued strenuously to change the time of the landing. The decision, however, went against them. The operational plan for the Normandy invasion, which was based on a new, hybrid doctrine, was deeply flawed in numerous ways. If the British and Canadian forces at Sword, Juno, and Gold Beaches and the American forces at Utah Beach had fought German forces of the quality and quantity of those at Omaha Beach on similar terrain, they too would have suffered heavy casualties and faced the prospect of defeat. This work traces the evolution of amphibious warfare doctrine from the interwar period to 6 June 1944 and the development of invasion plans for the continent of Europe from the strategic concept to the tactical battle plans of the regimental combat teams (RCTs) that made the landing. The book begins with a brief narrative of the battle at Omaha Beach. This narrative is not intended to be comprehensive since the battle is discussed in detail in many other works. This study relies on the analytical framework used by most professional military establishments. Since the wars of Napoleon, the leaders of the armed forces of Western nations have recognized three levels of war: tactical, operational, and strategic. Tactics is the art and science of applying combat arms--infantry, armor, artillery, and other arms--to destroy enemy forces. Battles take place on a specific piece of terrain. The configuration of the ground can greatly influence the conduct of battle and can vary considerably from one region to another. The variance in terrain requires the creative application of tactical doctrine. Battles are fought ideally by teams. The division is the largest unit in an army trained to fight as a team. Divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions fight battles. Battles are made up of series of engagements, sometimes referred to as firefights, fought by small units--squads, platoons, and companies. The U.S. Army at Normandy fought two separate battles. The 1st ID fought the battle for Omaha Beach, and the 4th ID fought the battle for Utah Beach. Corps-sized units, organizations of two to five divisions, were sometimes employed as tactical formations in World War II. The V Corps at Omaha Beach deployed three divisions on the same piece of terrain in the same battle to overcome enemy resistance. The tactical commander is responsible for fighting the forces under his command and the forces supporting him. He is responsible for coordinating and synchronizing the employment of air and naval gunfire support in his maneuver plan. Tactical commanders fight battles designed to achieve operational objectives. At the operational level of war, the campaign takes place. A campaign is a series of battles carried out over a large geographical area, such as Normandy. The five amphibious battles and three airborne battles that took place in Normandy were part of one campaign. The operational commander directs and manages the flow of the battle across a geographical area to achieve strategic objectives. At Normandy, Montgomery was the senior operational commander, the army group commander, and Bradley was the senior American operational commander, the army commander, subordinate to Montgomery. Bradley was responsible to Montgomery for deploying and managing all forces in the American sector. The senior operational commander develops the vision for the conduct of the operation, then tells his subordinate operational and senior tactical commanders how he plans to destroy the enemy. His subordinates develop operational plans for their tactical units--corps and divisions--designed to carry out the vision of the senior operational commander. Operational commanders approve tactical plans and monitor the training and preparation of tactical formations. They oversee the battle and provide the combat support and logistical resources the tactical commander needs to achieve the objectives established by the senior operational commander. They employ operational resources such as strategic bombers and naval gunfire to assist the tactical commander in fighting the battle. The operational commander is not on the ground employing infantry and artillery; he is not personally maneuvering forces on the battlefield--that is the job of the tactical commander. The operational commander directs and manages corps and divisions and, in World War II, armies. At the strategic level, the commander is concerned with fighting and winning the war. The strategic commander is ideally responsible for all forces--air, sea, and ground--in the entire theater, for example, Western Europe. He is focused on achieving the nation's or coalition's political and military objectives in the most efficient, least costly manner possible. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, was the strategic commander in the western European theater. The strategic commander develops a vision for winning the war with the forces available to him and is responsible to the political leaders of the nation he serves and to that nation's chief military leader, in the case of the United States, General George C. Marshall.[13] The strategic commander coordinates the campaigns that are part of his larger strategic vision, which he imparts to his subordinate senior operational commanders. He then allocates resources to them to accomplish his strategic objectives. Strategic objectives are the destruction of the enemy's armed forces, the destruction of the will of the people, and/or the destruction of the enemy's government. The American practice of war in World War II was to focus on the destruction of the enemy's armed forces; however, the U.S. Eighth Air Force took part in the British strategic bombing campaign designed to destroy the will of the German people by bombing cities. This system does not always work the way it was designed. Nationalism, disagreements over strategic objectives, personalities and egos, different technologies and doctrines, varying degrees of professional competence, misunderstandings, fear and anger, competition between nations and services, arrogance and contempt, and other factors can erode the effectiveness of this organizational structure, particularly in coalition warfare. Typically, in modern warfare, the loss of a battle at the tactical level does not jeopardize the entire war effort or greatly influence the strategic level. Since wars are made up of numerous campaigns and campaigns are made up of numerous battles, usually no one battle is decisive in modern warfare. There are, however, exceptions. Some battles are of considerable strategic importance. The five battles fought on the coast of Normandy on 6 June 1944 were of enormous strategic importance to the Anglo-American war effort and ultimately the achievement of established political objectives. The Anglo-American commanders conducted multiple landings over a broad front, the doctrinal approach employed in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. This approach permitted the Allies to suffer defeat in one tactical battle and still achieve the campaign and strategic objective of getting ashore. However, if several tactical battles had failed, the entire campaign might have collapsed and the strategy for the conduct of the war might have also failed. Defeat at Omaha Beach would have considerably diminished the margin for success. Each battle at Normandy was of considerable importance to the strategic plans of the United States and Britain. Notes 1. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944-1945 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1957), 115. 2. The Civil War: An Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 232. 3. Morison, Invasion of France and Germany , 152 (emphasis added). 4. Gordon Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack , U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1951), 191, 193, 188 (emphasis added). 5. Ibid., 189. 6. Morison, Invasion of France and Germany , 116: "This `sealing off' of the combat area was very effective and essential for victory; but--owing to the imperative need for tactical surprise--very little had been done to bomb the immediate beach defenses and the Navy was not given time enough to do it." 7. Shelby Foote, in The Civil War: An Illustrated History , 268, 269. 8. Omar Bradley, A Soldier's Story (New York: Henry Holt, 1951), 271, 272. 9. Russell F. Weigley, Eisenhower's Lieutenants (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), 89. 10. Max Hastings, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 90. 11. Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952), 264. 12. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack , 188: "A considerable body of Army opinion favored continuing the pattern of surprise landings under cover of darkness in the attack against the Continent. The whole experience of the Mediterranean theater had been with night assaults." 13. Following the Sicily campaign, Marshall wrote Eisenhower: "My interest is to give you what you need, support you in every way possible, and . . . leave you free to go about the business of crushing the Germans and gaining us great victories" (Ed Cray, General of the Army, George C. Marshall [New York: W. W. Norton, 1990], 384). Copyright © 2001 the University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.