WWII History Facts: Normandy Campaign

D-Day and the Normandy campaign is perhaps the most famous and well known events of World War II. With the fame however, has come the mythology.

In this post I will take you through some interesting facts about the Allied Invasion of 1944, and clear up some common misconceptions.

By 1944 the Germans knew that an allied invasion of France from Britain was an inevitability. However, their defensive plans for this inevitability sucked.

Problems at the highest levels:

Hitler was doped up on a cocktail of drugs, including meth. As a fascist dictator, Hitler was incredibly paranoid that he would be usurped as Fuhrer of the Reich. As such he focused all power with himself, and did not trust his subordinates. To avoid anyone else becoming too powerful, he set up an incredible messy chain of command, dividing his officers and setting them against each other. This made command and control at the higher levels of military command extremely difficult and convoluted. While Allied military intelligence cracked Nazi codes and monitored troop movements, Nazi intelligence was more focused on spying on themselves. Indeed, the British either captured, or turned every single Nazi spy in Britain. This meant the Germans would be unable to properly respond to an invasion.

The Initial Plan:
The Nazi plan was to create a defensive shield on the crust of France, the so called Atlantic Wall. This was manned by the infantry, while inland were stationed 10 "elite" panzer divisions who could react to an invasion and counter attack. However, Hitler refused to give up personal command of the 10 divisions and stationed them too far inland. The result was that when the Allies landed on D-day, the cream of the German army was unable to react.

The Germans really had one chance to defeat the invasion and drive it back into the sea. If they could stop the landings, the western allies would be unlikely to be able to launch another attempt any time in the near future. However, the panzer divisions did not arrive in time to combat the landings.

Hitler's plan gets worse:
After the landings, Hitler still refused to listen to his generals. He demanded that his armies stand and hold their ground in the dense hedgerows of Normandy, rather than retreat to more open ground. The problem with this was three-fold:

1. The German forces were at the mercy of the massive amounts of naval artillery the Allied fleet had amassed.

2. While the hedgerows were good for infantry defence, they were terrible for armored warfare. This was a problem when Germany was fielding its best armored divisions in defense.

3. The insistence on building up troop levels and counter-attacking constantly meant that the German war machine was steadily ground down and latter completely trapped and annihilated.

The Allies by this stage of the War had massive air superiority. On D-day alone the Allies launched nearly 15,000 sorties, the Germans less than one hundred. Allied pilots were extremely well trained and experienced, while German pilots were fresh faced youngsters with barely any training, resulting in extremely lopsided casualties for the Germans.

The Allies were fairly free to maruade across German territory at will, and this massively impacted the German ability to resist. Any German troop movements trying to move during the day were instantly shot up, as well as any concentrations of fuel or spare vehicles. It was basically impossible for the Germans to get fresh troops or equipment to the frontline. Erwin Rommel himself, the German commander in charge of the defence, was put out of action permanently when his staff car was shot up by a patrolling "jabo" (German slang for a fighter-bomber aircraft).

Later in the Normandy campaign the allies would use strategic heavy bombers to literally annihilate large German forces during their offenses, creating moonscapes of craters devoid of trees or greenery.

The German defences, as mentioned above, were divided between two basic kinds of formation.

Defending the "crust" were the basic infantry. Now the high water mark of the Third Reich's army was 1941. By 1944 the Germans had been bled dry by the continuous bloody fighting on the Eastern Front. The German infantry at this point was a shadow of the forces that had so confidently invaded Poland, France, and Russia. Most of the German recruits were either the old or the very young. The other Germans were mostly men that had been badly wounded or were disabled - men with limps and other crippling wounds, one eye, bad eyesight, etc. Other troops were not Germans at all but the so-called "osttruppen" or Eastern Troops. These were Poles, Czechs, Russians, Siberians, etc. Needless to say the osttruppen were really not very enthusiastic soldiers, many had been given the choice of enlisting or being labeled "politically undesirable" - a one way ticket to a concentration camp. These were the forces tasked with holding the Atlantic Wall Crust.

In reserve were the 10 "elite" panzer divisions, most of them Waffen-SS formations. These were the best troops that Germany could muster during the war at this point. Normal divisions in the German army had around 12,000 men. Waffen-SS divisions were much larger, 18,000-20,000 men was more normal. These divisions contained not just panzers (tanks) - including the famous "big cats" like Tigers and Panthers, but also mechanized infantry, artillery, and recon units. The SS-troops were heavily ideological and motivated. The officers and noncoms were generally veterans of the Eastern front and had actively participated in atrocities in the East. Some of these divisions would carry out reprisals during the Normandy campaign against French civilians, literally massacring hundreds of women and children and burning them in a barn.

At this point the bulk of the rank and file were 17 or 16 years old. While they were getting better equipment and better training, the training didn't amount to much. Many German tankers had about 10 hours TOTAL of tank training before shipping out -and this might be the first motorized vehicle they had driven. Most new infantry maybe got around 20 days training. So while the officers were experienced and savage, the regular troopers were teenagers. Its also worth mentioning most SS officers were promoted for loyalty and ideology rather than intelligence or skill.

Contrast this with the average allied infantryman, who had quite literally been training for two years straight just for the invasion of Normandy. The Allies also had a great system of rapidly promoting for merit and quickly weeding out the incompetents.

While these panzer divisions had the fancy toys - the tiger and panther tanks, the hedgerows (bocage) of Normandy meant the tank fighting was mostly at very close range, which effectively negated many of their advantages in armor and weaponry. Additionally, Allied airpower destroyed much of the German equipment as they tried to move to the coast.

The German troops, in short, were far from true "elites". While they certainly could be stubborn defenders, it didn't take much skill to hang behind a hedgerow and shoot a machine gun, even if it did take guts in the face of Allied firepower.

One of the most famous parts of the D-day landings was the assault of the US army Rangers on the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. The rangers had to scale very steep cliffs to destroy German artillery at the top. In film this is shown as a bloody fight with fierce resistance.

In reality the rangers scaled the cliffs and found at the top... very, very few Germans and no artillery. The position had been thoroughly blasted by airpower and naval gunfire, and the Germans had sensibly moved their guns elsewhere. Not a single US servicemen died in the attack up the cliffs.

Now later the Rangers did face a determined counter attack. However, scaling the cliffs was basically unopposed.

We get all our history from movies, and those movies are made in America. More British and Canadians landed on D-day then Americans. The Canadians in particular withstood some fierce counter-attacks with massive German numerical superiority, while the British also launched several massive offences in the Normandy campaign, breaking multiple German SS divisions.

Tigers rule, Shermans drool is a common refrain in certain circles. The German Panzers have a certain mystique. While the German big cats - the Tigers and the Panthers, did have better armor and guns then most Sherman tanks, they really were not better tanks.

German tanks were difficult to manufacture, difficult to drive, difficult to maintain, difficult to repair, difficult to move, and massive gas guzzlers. Its worth looking through these points in more detail.

Tiger tanks were difficult to make, so the Germans only ever managed building around 1,000 - compared to 50,000 Shermans built by the Allies.

Tiger tanks had a complicated gear system which was very difficult to operate correctly, especially for Germans who had very little driving experience even with cars. The Sherman drove more like a car and a simple gear system which was easy to master.

The Tiger had to be taken apart in a very specific way, using specialist equipment to fix anything. Important features were not easily accessible. Shermans on the other hand were highly modular and could very easily fixed. Engine broken? Just take the engine out and bolt a new one in!

Tigers were not designed to be driven to the frontline, only used while in combat. They needed to be carried by train. This might be a problem if your trains keep getting blown up... Tiger II tanks, as is, were too big too fit on regular trains. They had to have special tracks put on to get on the train, and then their battlefield tracks put on at the frontline. And yes this was a real pain.

These tanks also consumed horrendous amounts of fuel, fuel Germany simply didn't have anymore.

They were also mechanically unreliable. Fully half of Tiger Tanks were lost not due to enemy action but due to malfunction, and simply couldn't be recovered. Not a winning design.

Compare this to the outcome of one Allied operation in Normandy which saw almost 500 Shermans knocked out during the offensive. However, 400 of these tanks were recovered following the battle, fully repaired, and returned to the frontline.

In the close quarters fighting of Normandy, the Sherman gun was fully capable of punching through German armor, while the German armament wasn't much of an advantage. The Sherman also had a gyro-stabilized gun, which meant it stayed on target after firing. Shermans could sometimes swiftly send 6 shells into the panzer before the enemy could properly respond. When encounters took place a hundred meters apart, armor often didn't defend from much. The shock of getting hit multiple times would often cause crews to bail out, even if the tank wasn't critically damaged.
The Tigers and Panthers were designed for the wide open Russian Steppes and long range encounters, not for the claustrophobic fighting in Normandy hedgerows.

World War I is often seen in popular eyes as a much more bloody war than World War II. In fact the absolute opposite is true, many many millions more died in World War II.

The Normandy campaign is no exception. The daily casualty rate for the Allies was around 7,000 men per day, on par with a WWI battle. D-day was on June 6th, however the Normandy campaign actually lasted months, going until early August when the German army in France was wiped out. The reality is with much more advanced weapons killing more people is easier. A WWII battlefield was a much deadlier place than a WWI battlefield.

The German refusal to give ground, and their insistence on counter attacking resulting in enormous casualties rates. For the Panzer divisions that started with 20,000 men in June, most were reduced to a couple hundred men in August.

The Allies managed to encircle the Axis forces at a place called the Falaise Gap or Pocket. This was a literal highway of death which saw thousands and thousands of Germans slaughtered. Even for the now veteran Allied troops, used to death and destruction, the devastation they witnessed (and smelt) in this pocket was the most horrific thing they had ever seen. The German army used most horses for transport, and along with the thousands of dead men were thousands of dead horses in a relatively small area.

The Soviet Union was the real nation that defeated the Nazis, and it is on the Eastern Front where the war was really decided. More Russians died in individual battles than total American casualties for the entire war. Now the Western Allies considerably shortened the war by invading Normandy, saving millions of lives. The USA also kept the USSR afloat by giving them tons of tanks, trucks, jeeps, and all manner of supplies. (These conveniently never make the Russian propaganda photos, but rest assured the Russians used thousands of Shermans)

The Normandy campaign has been the subject of multiple movies and TV shows, yet none I feel do it justice. The fighting was horrendous, the casualties high, and the fight took months.

Not only was the fighting horrible, but the devastation to the landscape itself was intense. Scores of ancient Norman villages were totally destroyed, and many civilians died under the rubble.

The Allied strategy was Steel Not Blood. They wanted to keep as many Allied soldiers alive at the end of the day as possible (thousands still died, of course). But the Allies were very sensitive to high casualties. Airpower was one way to reduce Allied casualties. Strategic heavy bombers were used in this campaign (Eisenhower personally didn't like using them, due to their tendency to sometimes drop short) to wipe out large swathes of the German army. Unfortunately this often included civilians and villages the Germans were occupying. These bombings have never really been shown in film, but viewers describe panzers being thrown fifty feet in the air like children's toys. The Germans that survived were driven insane. The landscape was reduced to a literal "moonscape" - the exact word used by those who were there. Everything green destroyed, all the trees destroyed, and landscape littered with mud and craters.

Personally I don't think any film has really captured the horrific scale of this conflict, and all the intersecting lives that were lost.

It's also worth noting that the Western Allies were so successful due to their democratic structures. The Facistic structure of Nazi Germany stifled innovation, leadership and their war effort. Fascistic societies simply cannot cooperate since they are focused on top-down domination. This in stark contrast to the Western Allies.