I’ve done quite a bit of reading over the years about World War II. The subject has fascinated me since I was a young boy. Recently I’ve been reading a few books about the landings on D-Day and a few “what if they had tried this” scenarios crossed my mind. Purely speculation on my part, but I have thought of two strategies that m very simple, but both seem as if they would have been very useful if used. The ideas of course weren’t, so there must be a major flaw in my thinking.
1: During the landings it seems that most of the wounded and killed were done so during the crossing of the open beach. The area between the landing craft and the seawall offered almost no cover. It seemed that once a soldier made it to the seawall his chances of survival increased dramatically. Would it have been beneficial if the Allies had laid down a very thick smoke screen prior to the LCPs making their way to shore? Even if this hindered the soldiers who were landing from seeing well it would provide them concealment up to the seawall. Even if they couldn’t see would it really have mattered? Just keep pushing forward until you get to the wall. Lift the smoke screen after the last wave hits the beach. This wouldn’t prevent the Germans from firing on the advancing force, but they would have been limited to spray and pray. I’ve always wondered why this wasn’t done.
2: The Germans were certainly aware that there was going to be a seaborne invasion. Granted they didn’t know it was going to happen at Normandy, but they did have defenders there. It seems obvious that any invading troops were going to head for the protection of the seawall and mass there prior to pushing inland. I’ve always wondered why in preparation of the beach defenses why the Germans didn’t bury tons of explosives in the seawall, these to be detonated once the invading troops bottleknecked there.
Possibly rambling questions, but do either seem stupid from a tactical standpoint or are there major flaws in my thinking?
Any smoke screen would hamper artillery spotting and close air support, both areas where the Allies had huge superiority. Add to that the confusion landing under fire with no visibility. Earlier operations in Italy had shown just how hard it was to get troops ashore in an orderly manner and anything that would detract from that was to be avoided. And I doubt whether it was technically feasible anyway.
The Germans had no idea where the landings would take place so unless every possible landing place is trapped how could they ensure the masses of explosives would be any use at all?
I don’t think it’s because smoke would hamper supporting / prep fire (NGF, arty, CAS). If smoke would be more effective, then it’s cheaper than prep fire and safer too – no danger close missions. I think the real reason is, that’s a LOT of smoke that’d be needed for an invasion of that size. I don’t think it’s practical. Further, you have to know what the wind conditions are. If there was even a mild breeze that day, the smoke wouldn’t last long, requiring even more smoke. That much smoke, even if possible, would also make the amphib assault and beach landings unsafe. You might lose more troops to drowning instead of the way it was done.
Assuming ze Germans had such explosives along the entire length of the Atlantic Wall (in addition to the six million mines they already laid). What happens after they denonate them? The Allies had more than one wave landing on the beaches. All they would have done is killed a lot of Allies and destroy their own defenses.
The Allied air forces and naval artillery were supposed to bombard the beaches prior to the landings in order to destroy obstacles and create shellholes for cover. For a variety of reasons (e.g., bad visibility, poor timing, fear of hitting friendly troops), this was either done poorly or not at all. The aerial bombs largely fell too far inland, and the naval gunfire was halted prematurely or too focused on destroying the big bunkers overlooking the beach.
In other words, certain elements of an elaborate plan failed to come together the way they should have, a common occurrence in war. Smokescreens might have been of some benefit, but given the already chaotic situations in some sectors (Omaha Beach in particular) it could well have confused the troops coming ashore (and bombardiers, and naval gunners) to the point where nothing worthwhile was accomplished while casualties continued to mount.
Quick question… does anyone know off hand if the casualties at Utah and Omaha Beaches were in line with other amphibious landings in WWII, such as Tarawa, Guam, Iwo Jima, Saipan, etc…?
I just wonder sometimes if D-Day wasn’t really any more of a per-capita (?) bloodbath than the others, but because of the sheer scale it just looks bloodier.
Also, Rommel had far less time to prepare the wall than he would have liked. The wall was by no means complete and possibly he would have liked some of the remedies you propose.
However, I’m not sure some of your assumptions are totally correct. There were a hell of a lot of deaths after the soldiers were ashore and behind the seawall- they still had to get around a bunker system. A lot were killed even getting onto the beach- the above mentioned stakes with mines did a lot of damage to the landing craft.
One thing though is that I don’t believe you can characterise the landings as one similar operation. For instance, Utah beach suffered less than 200 casualties out of 23,000 men landed- these losses were extremely light. Omaha Beach, OTH suffered heavy casualties- heavy for the Empire/ USA forces (I say that in the sense that the Soviets probably would have found them acceptable).
It’s a mixed bag- what you say may have been better- having the Panzers available to attack immediately without Hitlers approval may have been another option that was even better.
I’d think smoke would only have had a limited effect. It’s most effective when you’re trying to conceal a single mobile target.
But the landing beaches were full of targets (albeit moving ones). The Germans didn’t need to aim at individual soldiers. They knew where the beach was so all they had to do was cover it with machine gun fire and mortar rounds.
For number 2. The Germans could have set charges at the wall and killed perhaps hundreds. They would have also given the Allies a free breach to exploit.
It’s wasn’t an out of line per-capita bloodbath. Partly, our experiences in the invasion of Sicily and Italy helped with the Normandy landings. I believe those were worse, in terms of per-capita losses in the initial assault.
But the sheer scale of the landings and the strategic significance does make it more prominent.
The casualties were much lighter at the British & Canadian D-Day beaches: Sword, Juno, Gold.
Those beaches weren’t any less defended than Omaha and Utah Beaches. Why did more US Americans get killed/wounded than the Brits and Canadians on the same day under the same conditions? Unsurprisingly, that’s a controversial question.
The losses on Dday were really nothing scary- unless of course you were one of the casualties. There were approximately 10,000 Allied casualties. (2,500 dead).
30 years earlier on the first day of the Somme the Commonwealth suffered 60,000 casualties. At Stalingrad, the Soviet losses (over a longer period) are unimaginable.
Utah casulaties were fairly light. On Omaha the inexperienced 29th Infantry Divison made a meal of it. It was also defended by the 352nd German Division, a new formation made up of Eastern Front Veterens.
The US forces in Normandy were almost all very green. The 1st Infantry Division and the following up 9th Infantry Division had fought in Africa, but otherwise most of the commanders and soldiers had never fired a shot in anger. I blame Genral Marshall, especially as there were experienced units and formations available.
Normandy had about 1700 casulaties per day which was about what Ypres had. the Northern France campaign (after Normandy breakout) had a casulaty rate higher than Somme 1916.The worst however in Europe for the W Allies as a casulaty rate was Salerno. 100,000 casulaties in Fifth Army sector alone.
The 352nd was the best German unit defending the beaches. It put up a lot more fight than any of the others. Simple bad luck for the guys assigned to that beach.
Smoke would have aided the Germans more than the Americans since they would not have been harassed an accurate naval bombardment. They had enough gunfire pointed at the beach that they could have just randomly fired into the smoke and gotten pretty much the same result. German soldiers would have been able to just sit on the bluff and point down and shot along the direction of the grappling ropes and ladders trying to scale the bluff; it would have been a turkey shoot for them.
