Ever read The Russia House by L Carre? (or seen the movie)
The fellow who runs a publishing house publishing Russian books for the west is given a wad of data from some dissidents where a Russian defence scientist shows that the Russian missiles do not have close to the accuracy to properly take out US missile silos. Essentially, after that the whole plot of the book is “Can we believe this information?”, “is this Russian misdirection to make us complacent?”, etc. - looking for double and triple agents and crosses. The end result is that nothing changes.
The same would apply with D-Day. If the Germans had in some conceivable manner gotten hold of the D-Day master plan, would they believe it? Would they trust it enough to basically strip men and materiel away from other coastal defences? Could they trust it? How would they know it was not an allied plant to divert defence resources?
As I understand it, the Allies spent weeks working up detailed maps of the Normandy coast which involved a lot of surveillance over a long period of time prior to the invasion. If the Germans were told it was going to happen in Normandy, and they noticed a lot of abnormal surveillance they might have put 2 and 2 together.
I’ll put it this way: Hitler and others were still waiting for the ‘real’ invasion to happen in Calais a week after the landings in Normandy, which they were convinced was a diversion.
That’s my guess. It would have changed history, but only delaying the fate of Germany, and putting more of it in the hands of the Soviets. The Germans should be happy they didn’t thwart the invasion!
The A-bomb wasn’t needed in the Pacific either, other than to hasten the inevitable, and save Allied lives. (The guesstimate was 1 million, but that wasn’t backed up by any kind of analysis; it was a top-of-the-head figure from the military leaders, according to subsequent historical investigations for which I sadly have no cites.)
I wouldn’t be surprised if, faced with the prospect of a longer war in Europe, the US would have chosen to drop the bomb on Hitler. But frankly, they might not have had to drop one. After two successful drops on Japan, we might have been able to make a sufficient threat to Germany to get them to capitulate. Facing both enemies, I wonder who we’d have bombed first? Or whether the Nagasaki bomb might have been dropped on Germany?
There is something to this. Following the deception previous to the Sicily landings (see Operation Mincemeat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat ) the Germans did disbelieve some genuine captured plans of future movements they got a hold of shortly after D Day. There was the entire false First US Army Group that was “created” in England including inflatable tanks and phony radio signals designed to convince the Germans that the landing was going to be at Calais, and Hitler bought it. So, there is reason to believe that the Germans would have viewed those plans as just another deception.
However, if Hitler did believe the plans were real, a week would have given them enough time to reinforce the area and possibly push back the invasion. A real sticking point is the use of the Panzer reserve. Rundstedt was convinced, and had convinced Hitler against Rommel’s wishes, that the invasion could not be stopped on the beaches and therefore the bulk of the armor needed to be kept back to respond to the first thrusts inland and well out of the range of the naval guns. So, even if Hitler did accept the plans as real he may well have not chosen the proper response.
Except every german Abwehr agent in england was telling them that normandy was the feint and that the real attack was always the Pas De Calais. Of course they were all actually working under the control of british intelligence but the abwehr didnt know that.
But the Allies weren’t foolish. They knew this would be exactly the kind of thing the Germans would be watching for. So they made sure they did an equal amount of reconnaissance in other areas so the Germans couldn’t figure out which place was the real site.
It was more than just a guess. They studied the casualty rate in recent campaigns like Iwo Jima and Okinawa and projected the same rates to the larger planned campaign in Japan.
What if Normandy was a diversion, but Hitler never fell for it? They keep pumping men and equipment over, waiting for Hitler to bite, and eventually just roll with it…
You’re right. After posting that, I brushed up. I distinctly remember the source of my statement, which turns out to have been bullshit. It’s amazing how much bullshit one can accumulate, listening to talk radio.
Furthermore, there wasn’t one estimate. There were a number of conflicting ones, according to Wiki on Operation Downfall.
Well, considering that the troops and equipment that were supposedly going to be landing at the Pas de Calais didn’t exist, it would have been difficult to have carried out that invasion.
One thing you have to always consider is that the invasion of Europe might have happened a lot sooner except that the Allies, by supporting the Russians, were gradually bleeding the German military of most of its pre-war leadership and talent.
I think the Allies waited until Germany could see that if they moved any forces from East to West, the Russian front would quickly collapse. The timing of the invasion had to me, more or less, in summer, and summer of '43 didn’t have the Germans in trouble in Russia enough to guarantee ultimate success.
the English were not particularly able, after 6 years of war, to participate fully in the invasion. They were ‘happy’ to let the Russians chew up and spit out the Germans, letting the English army gain strength and material.
so, when the Americans and their allies from around the British Empire finally struck, the Germans were in no overall position to push them off the beachheads and back to England. Ultimate victory was assured for the Allies at that point.
Actually Patton was very unpopular with the troops under his command. They felt (with some justification) that Patton was sending them into needless attacks in order to promote his reputation. The saying among his troops was “Our blood and his guts.”
The Americans are on record as favoring a cross channel invasion earlier. Churchill and the Brits disagreed. The Americans had to defer a while. They were ultimately able to convince the Brits because, by that point, Americans were supplying the bulk of the troops and equipment.
What? This isn’t true at all. The Brits were perfectly willing and able to invade. They just wanted to do it from the Mediterranean.
And we did it. In Italy, instead of France in 1943. It still ended up being a tough slog.
But by that point, the Americans were able to basically overrule their British counterparts on the French option. Otherwise, all the troop in Overlord would have been trying to push their way inch by inch through the Alps via Italy.
Which gave the Allies the needed information on those beaches. So if the Nazis had known a week early, and the Allies knew that, possibly Eisenhower would still have done the D-day invasion, but somewhere else?
Hitler made a zillion mistakes, but this wasn’t one of them. His own intelligence apparatus went right up to June 6, 1944 and beyond telling him the Pas-de-Calais was the real target. Hitler was never completely convinced, actually, and was always suspicious the Allies really did intend to invade Normandy.
