DBWI: What if the D-Day Landings had succeeded?

As we approach the 63rd anniversery of the guilty verdict in Gen. Eisenhower's courts-martial for negligence and deriliction of duty in the matter of the failed assault on Normandy, a couple questions come to mind:

1) What if Eisenhower's invasion plans for France had succeeded? Would we still have had to nuke Berlin?

2) Are the current efforts of Eisenhower's familiy to have the President exonorate the late general justified?
 
1) I think the answer to that question depends on how soon the invasion forces could have linked the beachheads together. If they do it quickly, while the Wehrmacht was still reeling from the audacity of an invasion of Normandy, there is a possibility that the invasion plans could have been carried out.

Obviously, the farther along the invasion gets, the more Wehrmacht units get pulled from the Eastern Front, and the simultaneous push by the Soviet Union might have had more 'oomph'. It would have been a long, brutal and bloody conflict, but I think a successful invasion would forestall, if not fully eliminate, the need to use nuclear weapons on Berlin.


2) Obviously, the efforts are justified - it was his plan, but not entirely his fault the invasion failed. That, I think, can mainly be chalked up to the quarrellings of his subordinates, mainly Montgomery and Patton.
 
Of course, being pressured to go ahead despite the very suspicious weather didn't help much either. Had Ike put off even a day or two, the first invasion wave could have reached the beaches during a lull of good weather.
 
Eisenhower may have got a lot of blame at the time, but with the perspective of history we can see that no Allied general would have been able to defeat the German army in the West, until after the atomic bombings severed the German supply lines and destroyed the German's morale.

Look at what happened in other fronts in the European War:

North Africa: Despite having sea and air superiority and the Axis forces in theatre being largely without supplies, out numbered, and being mostly inferior Italian forces, with only a relatively limited number of Germans... the British and Americans struggled to defeat the Germans. What happened when there was a stand-up fight of Germans vs Americans: Kasserine Pass

Italy: Italy is a peninsula surrounded by sea. Again total Allied sea & air superiority. Painful, inch by inch advance up the peninsula. What battles typified the struggle: Monte Cassino, Anzio

Russia: Yes the Red Army did gradually overcome the Germans, but only at a tremendous cost in blood. No Western army could have accepted casualties of that magnitude.


Want more evidence?

Compare tanks: Tiger & Panther vs. Sherman

Plus of course the Germans were on the defensive, had the advantage of interior supply lines, and had the massive Atlantic Wall defenses too. The allies meanwhile were crossing a sea, were relying on unproven floating port technology, and had to trace their supply lines back across the sea to Britain, or in many cases from there back across the Atlantic, and then thousand of further miles by rail, to the US factories.


Put simply, there's no way any Allied general could have overcome all these disadvantages. At least not without Russian-like casualty numbers.

And BTW don't believe those who claim the Allied bomber offensive against German cities should have been reduced to allow bombing of railways and other installations in France.... that would simply have made the waste of resources in the invasion into an even bigger waste. It's worth remembering that it was the bombing of German cities (admittedly with the help of atomic bombs) which was what finally broke both German (and in 1946, Japanese) resistance.
 
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No Eishenhower's family's efforts are NOT justified! The man let crucial intelligence about the landing's TRUE date and site slip, then did nothing to change either one upon finding out about the security breach, AND THEN he allowed the invasion to go on during a massive storm!

Granted, even if he had waited until the weather let up some the next day, Rommel and the Wehrmacht still had made the necessary preparations.

Dwight Eisenhower and SHAEF made several crucial miscalculations, and Rommel made them pay. 63 years, 550,000 American casualties and a nuked Berlin later, they should STILL pay. They will probably never know how close they came to losing the war.
 
Now, guys, lets be fair here. Patton went on to redeem himself in the Fortitude Campaign in Norway, yes, once again with heavy naval and air superiority. Montgomery, after the debacle, was given an administrative role far away from any active command.

Question 1: This would have changed the entire course of the war. The USA had been very eager to land in France--indeed, a follow up operation, "Anvil" had been planned in the south of France. The Two invasions might well have captured a good portion of the Wehrmacht.

Also, the Red Army paid a extremely high price in the Eastern Front--a Price that would almost certainly have been lessened if Rommel and Rundestedt were left in the Western front after the threat of invasion was over. Indeed, had it not been for the Nuking of Berlin, its quite possible that the German Line on the Vistula and in Moldova might have held, even against the sheer numbers of the Red Army.

I don't know that we HAD to nuke Berlin. But there was some cold-war politics behind it--the Soviets were furious over the failed second front--and they were going to demand most of Europe as their share of the spoils. The USA would never allow this.

As for 2, I still think it would have been possible to launch D-Day. It would simply have relied on numerical rather than strategic superiority. That's not how the USA fights, and it probably would be unacceptable to the American People. The Technical superiority of the German Army and its battle tested Generals could be overcome--I refuse to think that they are miracle workers who yield only to cheap WMD.

D-Day could have been done so much better! The Failure of the paratroopers to seize their objectives, the lack of air support due to cloud cover during the operation, and the poor co-ordination between the UK and the USA doomed the operation. We should be thankful that Iwo Jima and Okinawa were not handled in the same shoddy fashion.

I really do wonder whether George C. Marshall could have done better than Eisenhower--he wanted the assignment, but FDR had his favorites and Ike was a poor choice.
 
My guess is that without the urgency to deliver nuclear weapons on Germany in 1945, the US may not have allowed Lancasters to be outfitted to carry them. But, once Lancasters were carrying them, there was no stopping the RAF from dropping them in all over the world. Too bad Lancasters couldn't range Japan from available bases, or the RAF would shoulder all the blame for the 30 or so uses of nuclear weapons within a year. Two many German, Chinese, Malay, Burma, and other cities were nuked. My guess is that if the landings had been successful, we might have been lucky to only have to use one or two bombs from specially equipped B-29s flying out of the Marianas.

Who knows, Sir Arthur Harris may not be seen as the complete maniac as he is now seen.
 
My guess is that without the urgency to deliver nuclear weapons on Germany in 1945, the US may not have allowed Lancasters to be outfitted to carry them. But, once Lancasters were carrying them, there was no stopping the RAF from dropping them in all over the world. Too bad Lancasters couldn't range Japan from available bases, or the RAF would shoulder all the blame for the 30 or so uses of nuclear weapons within a year. Two many German, Chinese, Malay, Burma, and other cities were nuked. My guess is that if the landings had been successful, we might have been lucky to only have to use one or two bombs from specially equipped B-29s flying out of the Marianas.

Who knows, Sir Arthur Harris may not be seen as the complete maniac as he is now seen.

Unfortunately, the United States plays a heavy part in this role as well. Desperate to continue the "Strategic Offensive" against Germany and Japan, the USA continued to provide the UK with Atomic weapons, roughly 60 in total. We may have saved a few pilots, but no one knew about radioactive waste.

If only the US Army had been able to get beyond Northern Italy and Greece in Europe. It was well into 1946 that the United States reached the Brenner Pass, and seriously, fighting the Jerries over the Alps was a crappy way to fight. Makes the Pacific theater look like a sideshow.
 
This thread illustrates exactly my point.

The only American/Allied successes, on land (prior to D-Day II) against the Germans in were in Norway, Greece and Italy. What do all have in common? Not good tank country (nullifying the German's advantage in tanks) - but sea control vital - both of which obviously plays to the Allies' strengths. Any even with these advantages, these campaigns were close run things with extremely heavy Allied casualties. Think for example of the Battle of Athens - nearly 100,000 American dead, and the city virtually destroyed.

It's not popular to say it, but the German army was simply considerably better, man for man, than the Allies' armies. Better tanks. Better training. Better tactics and doctrine. And don't forget that by late 1944, the Germans had considerably better small arms too* - the MP3010 Assault Rifle and the Panzerfaust 250.

France was a whole different kettle of fish from the Norway/Greece/Italy ("the peninsula campaigns"). France is mostly good tank country. And it wasn't in some isolated peninsula or corner of Europe that was best accessed by sea - you can drive a tank from Berlin to Paris with no trouble at all - there are numerous good roads and other land transport links. That's why I don't think that any conceivable Allied invasion of France could have had a realistic chance of success.

====
* Yes I know acting Chancellor Speer rushed these programs into mass production after Hitler was wounded in that RAF bombing raid in June, but despite what some historians claim, I think Hitler would have done the same. Hitler may have been completely evil but he wasn't a fool (we've all see the Munich trial footage) -- so undoubtedly he would have seen the Wehrmacht need upgrades to its ordinary weapons, not just a few "wonder weapons"
 
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hammo1j

Donor
I wonder if there would still be an Israel if there had been more Jews left. Over 11 Million died in the Haulocaust.

Germany took more than 2 million bombing causualties. The first bomb failed to kill Hitler in his deep bunker. Poison gas filled V2's rained down on London.

On the fourth raid in January 1946 the high flying B29 was intercepted by Me262's of the elite JG44 unit and destroyed before it could drop its bomb. The Germans demanded an immediate cease fire or the bomb would be used against London. Fortunately a Mosquito interceptor was able to destroy the Me264 over Dover on the night Feb 14 1946. Or so we think, since the crew had orders to detonate their bomb to prevent it falling into enemy hands.

It was only in June 1946 assisted by tactical nuclear weapons that D-Day II succeeded.
 
Another thing worth remembering: Those Nazi Werewolf units were still carrying guerilla attacks on allied forces as late as 1962, 15 years after the formal surrender of the Wehrmacht. I think that shows just how fanatical the Germans were. Again, another reason why D-Day I had long odds against it.
 
I wonder if there would still be an Israel if there had been more Jews left. Over 11 Million died in the Haulocaust.

Germany took more than 2 million bombing causualties. The first bomb failed to kill Hitler in his deep bunker. Poison gas filled V2's rained down on London.

On the fourth raid in January 1946 the high flying B29 was intercepted by Me262's of the elite JG44 unit and destroyed before it could drop its bomb. The Germans demanded an immediate cease fire or the bomb would be used against London. Fortunately a Mosquito interceptor was able to destroy the Me264 over Dover on the night Feb 14 1946. Or so we think, since the crew had orders to detonate their bomb to prevent it falling into enemy hands.

It was only in June 1946 assisted by tactical nuclear weapons that D-Day II succeeded.


(psst: there were only 9 million Jews in Europe)

back on topic:

We may or may not have needed the A-bomb but what happend to Ike was terrible. He lost a battle, yes, but that doesn't mean he deserved what happend afterwards. His "accept the blame" letter was the equivilent of falling on his sword.
 
(OOC): So, are we assuming that when D-Day failed, there was no landing in southern France either? Odd... I'd have assumed that with the Germans all in the north, a landing in the south would be the next logical step...
 
(OOC): So, are we assuming that when D-Day failed, there was no landing in southern France either? Odd... I'd have assumed that with the Germans all in the north, a landing in the south would be the next logical step...
(OOC): Well considering that the more northern units could be brought down to reinforce the south, coupled with the fact that the allies took a huge morale hit, it would seem that it was indefinately postphoned. Eventually nukes would have made the invasion unnecessary as with Japan OTL.
 

hammo1j

Donor
Everybody seems to assume that if the Allies get nukes it will be all over without an invasion against an Intact and Willing Germany. Remember OTL that nukes were taking 8 weeks or so to produce and there would be the question of Japan. Also without the air superiority enjoyed over Japan dropping it is not a foregone conclusion.
 
My 1st thought was that if the Normandy landings had succeeded the main effect would have been to have pushed the western-Soviet demarcation line east a little. Say the western allies reaching the Elbe and liberating much of Austria rather than basically the Rhine and Netherlands being the westernmost positions. We might even have rescued Denmark from Soviet occupation.

Don't forget, while a serious military defeat the failure of the landings may have saved a lot of western lives. If you think of the scale of the fighting, or what happened in the east when the Germans swung the bulk of their western forces east. Hitler's last offensive, in the Vistula bulge only delayed the Red Army a bit but did cost both sides a lot of men. Even as late as May 45, when the allies landed in both north and south France simultaneously, the Soviets had seen the defeat of their offensive on the Oder line. As it was the Germans were so exhausted by those battles that they collapsed rapidly and the war was over by the end of July, apart from the last fanatical resistance to the Soviets. However some military experts have speculated that if the 44 landings had succeeded you might have seen 6-9 months of very heavy fighting in the west and possibly as many as a million western military casualties. Instead, between the exhaustion of the Germans, the withdrawal of most forces east and the desire of many Germans to surrender to western powers to avoid capture by the Soviets it saw much less combat and only about 150k casualties.

On the other hand. If you think about reports from the interrogation of prisoners in 46-48 a lot of the Red Army officers especially thought the defeat in Normandy showed that western powers didn't have the military skills and simply guts to stand up to serious fighting. They also felt that the west had avoided fighting to throw even more of the burden of the war on the Russians. As such there was the bitterness and overconfidence without which Stalin might had moderated his stance on the disputed areas of the western Rhineland and northern Netherlands. He might not have tried seizing them by force in April 46 if the west had shown more experience of defeating the Germans in ground fighting, as well as not demobilising so rapidly. Europe might have had peace earlier, rather than the 28 months of fighting until the armistice at Riga with his successor that ended the conflict. True it would have been a peace that left far more of Europe under Communism but another 12-15 million people died in those years, including the 6 nuclear strikes on Soviet cities.

Steve
 
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