The 9th at Normandy

'My God,I wish we had 9th Australian with us this morning'
Major General Freddie de Guingand, Chief of Staff,Allied Land-force Headquaters, D-Day 1944.

This comment has intrigued me for years,but I've never come across any situations where it was put forward.

I'd like to flesh it out myself,but I think I'd let it fall into some kind of Aussie-wank before long. What I'd like an opinion on is weather or not it could have made any major difference on the day.

It would have been one of the most combat hardened formations there and it's repuation could have had a negative effect on German morale(the division that had beaten Rommel twice etc)

On the other hand the nature of the fighting in Normandy often put the Allied attacking forces at a great disadvantage and other veteran formations,such as the US 1st division and the 50th (Northumbrian) still had a tough time on the day.

So what do you think? More meat for the grinder that was Normandy,or the feather that breaks the German's back?
 
It was the bocage terrain that gave even the most hardened of Allied divisions hell. Maybe the Australians could have expanded the British beach head by a bit more by the end of D-Day given their reputation, but other than that, there's not much of a difference. No taking-of-Caen-by-the-end-of-the-first-day type of thing.

Anyway, welcome to the forum, comrade! :D
 
Thanks for the welcome and your opinion,The Desert Gott was my first favourite coming here.

I agree with your comment,From some of the reading I've been doing on the British front at Normandy I'd say even with the 9th division's capabilities, the best they could have done was speed up the capture of Caen by maybe a few days or weeks at best.

Still,can you imagine what Rommel and the 21st Panzer would say meeting their old Aussie friends?
 
If the 9th Australian is to be active in the early campaign it basically means that they would have to come ashore on D-Day which leads to a few options:
1. Add another beach for the Australians although I'd think that landing craft would be a critical issue
2. Swap them out for a british or american division?
3. Go back to some of the early D-day proposals. At one point there was a proposal for Canada to take 3 of the 5 beaches in discussion...adding in the 9th Australian and ??? for the other two would be more of a throwback to ww1 stormtrooper/shock troop tactics.

Interesting quote that I hadn't heard before...
foresterab
 
Keeping an AIF Division in the war against Germany is a hard ask, it totally goes against the political objectives of Curtin in bringing back the Australian army from the Middle East in 1942/43 (and in this he was supported to the hilt by Menzies, his conservative predecesor as PM).

The great irony is that the Australian land forces were no longer to be used in strategically important operation in the Pacific after Operation Cartwheel ended during the months before D-Day. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that MacArthur had no use for the Diggers once New Guinea had been secured, and that they spent the rest of the war in mopping-op campaigns.

Personally I think a failed D-Day could give the Australian government sufficient impetus to send one of the AIF divisions back to the Mediterranean theatre, to reinforce the New Zealand Corps, and the broader Eighth Army, in Italy. In this scenario we could have elements of the Rats of Tobruk coming face to face with the Red Army somewhere north of the Po in early 1945. But no Rommel, I'm afraid.
 

Markus

Banned
The Brits got the nice beaches(the ones with girls), so the Aussies won´t be needed there. But I´m fairly sure they would have prefered a french beach(and the girls) to New Guinea where the VD-rate was ZERO(guess why?). ;)

At Cean Monty could have needed more infantry, especially that kind of infantry(elite times ten). The Aussie would have taken terrible casualties but they might have managed to break through and thus reduced the overall casualties.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
A combined Australian/Canadian Corps would have been a significant force to be reckoned with on the North flank, especially if it was under Commonwealth (as opposed to British) command. A Commonwealth Corps might have actually been able to Caen on D-Day just because the Commonwealth officers showed themselves to be willing to accept heavier losses than their British counterparts in order to take critical position (much like American units).

It is completely understandable why the British officer corps would want to minimize losses, given their collective experiences in Flanders, but it resulted in, at least in significant elements of the High Command (including Mongomery), a lack of aggression at the most inopportune moments, including outside of Caen. Australian, Canadian, and even South African commanders showed quite a bit more aggression when the need and opprotunity presented.
 
One thing to consider is the existence of the AIF Armoured Division, never deployed overseas in toto, and in fact reduced to a Brigade Group during 1944. That's either another British Empire armoured unit, or a pool of men who can be fed into an AIF infantry division serving in the ETO (like many of the jungle fighters of the 3rd New Zealand Div. were fed to the 2nd Division in the last year of the war.)
Keep this idea of reinforcements in mind...

A combined Australian/Canadian Corps would have been a significant force to be reckoned

I agree that such a corps (army?) would be a first rate force, but the Australian division(s) would have problems very similar to the Canadians when it came to replacing casualties. IOTL the Canadians staff complained about the inability of their government to release men from the home army to send to Europe. IIRC, there was a dual volunteer requirement for the Canuck soldiers--they first had to join the army, through volunteering or conscription, then they had to volunteer to join the expeditionary force overseas. Needless to say this was not a very rational use of manpower by Leviathon At Total War.

After '43 men conscripted into the Australian Military Force could not be sent north of the equator (though none had ever been sent that far north before '43), not unless they either volunteered individually for AIF units, or the AMF unit they were serving in was transferred en masse to the Australian Imperial Force (and I think there was some weird system that relied on the compliance of the majority of AMF men in said units--more than 50% had to volunteer to become AIF for the designation change to take place.)

Anyway, by 1945 our hypothetical AIF division is suffering from the same manpower shortages as the Canadians and British. And unlike the British it's not because the home population can no longer produce enough fresh men fit for frontline service--it's the Canadian problem of politics interfering with strategic needs.
 
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