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Question: D-DAY!. Was the timing more important than the decision!?
Why would Britain and America want to launch D-Day any earlier than June 1944 when the two countries they hated most where destroying each other!?
Hitler had less than 20% of his total forces protecting the Atlantic wall, so it was never going to be that difficult to kick in the door! The Allies knew this and many other things since they broke the German Enigma code!.
Stalin had been asking for a second front since 1942, but there was not that much love for him across the Atlantic!.
The Allies knew from there reconnisance photographs of the concentration camps, yet still no second front until the last minute in 1944 when it looked like Stalin might over-run all of Europe!
Why fight the Nazis' when the Russians are doing it for you!?
Sometimes the timing of a decision is more important than the decision itself!Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
From May 1942 on the British consistently put a check on American folly to invade Europe, before the necessary men and material were built up in England!. Both General Marshall and Admiral King thought a landing could happen on the coast of Brittany!. Once secured Brittany would become a fortified redoubt until enough man power and material poured in!. Once that happened the Western Allies would break out and dash for Berlin!.
I have to give credit to Field Marshall Allen Brooke and Winston Churchill, that scenario was the Gallipoli landing of WWI all over again!. In 1942 America at best could muster 42 divisions to send over to Europe!. A landing made before 1943 was out of the question!. If it failed the propaganda that would have come out of it may have sealed the fate of the world!.
The Soviets may have said enough of this, we are bareing the brunt of fighting and you can't even cross the English Channel successfully!. How much time would a failed landing have given Nazi Germany time to build an atomic bomb!.
The weather in spring 1944 certainly played a factor, May was the orginal month planned but June had better tidal flows!. As for Rommel no one knew he was away for his wife's birthday, until after the war!. And let's look at D-Day, Utah was a cake walk but Omah certianly was not, and I believe the British and Candandian landings were a mixed bag also!. If the 21st panzer division strikes the British beachhead I believe the British are thrown back, and if the rest of pazner resevere was relased within 48 of June 6th D-Day maybe a failure!. There is no doubt some American and British minds were happy to let Germany and Russia slug it out, there is to much evdience to suggest that the Western Allies knew that Western Europe had to be invaded to end the war with a somewhat balance of power established between east and west!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Yes timing was important!. First In order for the allies to land, the tides and moon cycle has to be right!. The weather was also very important!.
Second the troops have to be ready for a costly invasion!. The First Infantry Division fought in North Africa and Slicy before they would fight in D-day!. Third The best commander to lead the invasion must be picked!. Remember the commander of the german forces at the Atlantic wall is the Desert Fox himself!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
The Allies tried an invasion in 1942 to keep Stalin happy!. It was a miserable failure, mainly becasue the planning was left to an incompetent fool and the British weren't too concerned about the fate of the laregly colonial (Canadians) force!.
The static defenses all along the Atlantic wall were formidable and careful planning and lots of specialist vehicles (Hobart's "funnies") were designed and built to meet the task!. When you apply some force modifiers like thick minefields, superior tanks and anti tank guns, extensive bunkers, that 20% is a lot stronger than what appears on the OB charts!.
The Allies were committed to a second front and were desperate to stop Stalin winning on his own, they knew the consequences of a Communist dominated Europe would probably mean the war would have continued against the other major totalitarian force in Europe-the USSR!. Yes, Stalin was disliked, but he was a necsesary evil!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Yes the timing was very important, since there was bad weather on D-Day the enemy did not expect the Allies to launch their attack on that specific day!. also Hitler had not planned on Normandy being the spot attacked, he expected Pas de Calais to be attacked considering it was a shorter trip across the English channel!. Timing was always good because General Rommel had taken leave for his wife's birthday, due to the poor weather conditions he also thought against the possibility of invasion!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
First front Russia!.
Why does no one consider the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy the second front, with Normandy the third front!?
You said "so it was never going to be that difficult to kick in the door!? The Allies knew this!.!.!.
They didn't "know" this and it certainly was not "easy" to "kick in the door" It took thousands of lives and many months to break out of Normandy, and capture the V-1, V-2 launch sites, and finally cross the Rhine!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
You're right that timing is important, but you needn't look into devious motives!. There simply wasn't the capability to invade the previous year, and another year would have left all of Europe under Soviet domination!.
The problem with kicking in the door is that you have to get to the door, and there simply wasn't enough shipping to do the job earlier!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
You are hopelessly wrong!.
In 1942 the British and Canadians had a rehearsal for the invasion of France at Dieppe, this was only one year after the Soviet Union had entered the war on the Allied side and while the Germans were still winning in Russia!.
The Dieppe raid went badly wrong and the Allies realised that several things had to be put in place before an invasion could be successful
These were total air superiority, the ability to supply invasion forces without having to capture a major port, which were all heavily defended, the accumulation of a vast number of landing craft of all types which had to be specially built for the task, the development of special weapons to overcome the beach defences, long hours of daylight to allow maximum fighting time for the aircraft, the concentration of the huge army needed for the invasion in bases in England which all had to be built, the gathering of intelligence about the invasion beaches and the dispersal of Hitlers forces, the neutralisation of the German Navy so it was unable to react!.
Above all the training of the personel who were going to take part in the invasion ( over 600 US troops were killed in a disastrous practice at Slapton Sands in Devon)!.!.
While all this was going on the Allies were fighting a vicious war against the Japanese which the Soviet Union did not have to do and they opened up a second front in Europe in Italy in September 1943 after having totally beaten the Germans and Italians in North Africa!.
also since 1941 the British had been supplying the Russians with war materiel through the Arctic convoys which cost the lives of thousands of British seamen!.
On D-Day the Germans were in extensive and formidable defenses which they had been preparing for three years, they knew every inch of the terrain in Normandy and had long ago worked out the ranges for their guns and the best observation points!. If you go to Normandy today you can still see some of these gun emplacements etc!.
D-Day was the greatest sea borne invasion in history and if it had failed there would be no second chance for years so everything had to be just right!.
As it was, after the invasion it still took seven weeks of heavy fighting to destroy the German Army in Normandy!.Www@QuestionHome@Com