D-Day Coincidences

I am currently reading "The Longest Day", written by War Correspondent Cornelius Ryan. This book is regarded as the definitive, non-fictional accounting for the activities in Normandy on June 5th through 6th, 1944. According to Ryan’s research, the day of June 6th, all of the commanding officers of the units stationed throughout the Normandy area were called away for a training exercise simulating an Allied invasion of Normandy! Due to the long distance, and difficulty of travelling to the city where these exercises where being held that day, many of these commanders had left the night of the 5th, putting them outside of effective range of their commands.

In addition, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was actually on leave from June 4th through the 6th, far away from the area of his command of the Atlantic Sea Wall. Finally, the German Air force was down to less than 200 fighters in all of France, and had dispersed the last operational wing of 126 aircraft, to airfields closer to Berlin, to provide defense against bombers, leaving the French coast to be defended by 2 aircraft...that's right 2!

Now knowing these facts, and coincidences that led to the Germans being horribly undermanned and without their command structure in place for the invasion, I wonder if there was something else going on. Was this an effective operation mounted by MI-5 or the OSS to influence German Command to make these moves around this timeframe (remember, the invasion was originally planned for June 5th, but was postponed 24 hours due to bad weather), or was it sabotage from within? Shortly after the invasion, an assassination attempt was made on Hitler, known as "Operation Valkyrie", there was a group of German officers who had been plotting against Hitler, to include Erwin Rommel.

Of course, this could all be just an incredible set of coincidences, and a blessing from God, allowing the Allies to mount the invasion with the lowest amount of casualties possible. The invasion still took thousands of lives, as the Atlantic Wall defenses were formidable, but the result, with an effective command and control structure and German Air Cover, could have been much, much, much worse. One last thing to consider was that there was a break in the weather on June 6th, 1944 that gave them just enough time to mount the attack and unload the material needed to support the beachheads. Shortly after the invasion, a set of Gales hit the Normandy coast, and destroyed most of the temporary "Mulberry" port facilities, making it much more difficult to unload equipment, until the capture/liberation of port facilities.

What do you guys think? Was this set of coincidences the result of an Allied Intelligence Operation, sabotage or just God's grace?

allied intelligence

"An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. The first Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I. This model and its variants were used commercially from the early 1920s, and adopted by military and government services of several countries — most notably by Nazi Germany before and during WORLD WAR 2 Several different Enigma models were produced, but the German military models are the ones most commonly discussed."

Source: wiki

The decision to invade on June 5/6 of 44 had nothing to do with the location of the Generals and Commanders, but was due to 2 primary weather concerns- 1, a late rising moon, and a low time around the dawn, that would expose the mines and other obstacles placed by the Germans on the Seawall.

I take it from your response that they knew of the training excercise due to Engima, but that's not my question. Foreknowledge of these excercises is one thing... but did they actually make this happen themselves?

reply to post by Hoosyourdaddyo


the locations of the german commanders was really of minimal relevance all german units in contact with the enemy [ allied forces ] responded efficiently and fought effectivly

the biggest advantage the allies had in the efficency of the german chain of command was hitler - the stupid little corporal 1000 km away - who insisted on interfereing in stragegy and tactics

no one but hilter could authorise deployment of the panzer reserves and units from other army group areas

so all units outside the immediate normandy theatre stayed put - as hitler believed the allied disinfo of FUSAG and the planned pas-de-calais landing

Great book, I've read it a couple of times, his books "A Bridge Too Far" and "The Last Battle" are also very good reads for anyone interested in WWII history.

In answer to your question, Allied Intelligence a couple of good weathermen and luck.

The Intelligence part was getting the Germans to believe that the Allies were going to land in the Calais area by creating a fake army (FUSAG-First U.S. Army Group) commanded by General George Patton directly across the channel from Calais. Another coincidence is when Hitler was in discussions about the future invasion he pointed to the Cherbourg Peninsula (the invasion beaches) and said this is where the allies will land but later changed his mind and agreed that the invasion would occur around Calais.

The weathermen and luck come from the great weather forecast that Eisenhower got that gave him the window he needed to launch the invasion while the german weathermen forecast overcast and rain which allowed Rommel to take leave to visit his wife for her birthday.

reply to post by CynicalWabbit


Yeah, the infamous "3rd Army" "Commanded" by Patton was a huge key. The Germans, being very much convinced that Patton was the most brilliant General and thus the one whose Army would be the main thrust of the attack were badly fooled by this move.

I guess they way underestimated the power of a slap, eh?

They had a right to be afraid of Patton, he was the most aggressive of the top commanders and was always on the attack. One of my favorite Patton comments was when he was told that his gas supply was being cut for Montgomery to launch Operation Market-Garden. "My men can eat their belts but my tanks gotta have gas"

Disinformation was key in the run up to operation overlord. A number of double agents were either caught or killed with false invasion plans about their person. These plans indicated that the invasion would come through the Calais area.

Prior to the invasion of Sicily the British Secret Service used a Dead Tramp to fool the Germans into believing the allies would invade Greece. The Germans fell for it. www.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by Welshextremist


I have to agree.

Weather and light (moon) may have been one factor but it also highly likely that these "exercises" were also a large factor.

D-day was delayed twice right? Were these "exercises" delayed as well?

ALS

As a Canadian, when I hear the questions about the success of D-Day, I always refer to the raid on Dieppe in August of 1942. It was a full frontal assault on a fortified position. My uncle Tom McQuaid was P.O.W. in Dieppe and told me that this was a necessary catastrophe and that if it had not happened, the success of D-Day might never had happened. This is what they learned....

Lessons Learned from Dieppe

Dieppe was a pathetic failure. Sixty years later, it seems obvious that Jubilee was a bizarre operation with no chance of success whatsoever and likely to result in a huge number of casualties. In August 1942, British and Allied officers did not have yet the knowledge and combat experience to make a proper assessment of the risks of such an operation. This catastrophe was useful precisely in providing that knowledge which was later to make victory possible.

The Dieppe fiasco demonstrated that it was imperative to improve communications at all levels: on the battlefield, between the HQs of each unit, between air, naval and ground forces. The idea of capturing a well-defended seaport to use as a bridgehead was dropped after August 19th, 1942. In addition, the raid on Dieppe showed how important it was to use prior air bombings to destroy enemy defences as much as possible, to support assault troops with artillery fire from ships and landing crafts, to improve techniques and equipment to remove obstacles to men and tanks.

The true meaning of the sacrifices made at Dieppe was made obvious two years after this ill-fated date, when on D-Day the Allies gained a foothold in Europe to free the continent from Nazi aggression.

Canadian General H.D.G. Crerar says D-Day would have been a disaster were it not for the lessons of Dieppe. Among those lessons: don’t assault a fortified fort; rather, attack on the beaches, give infantry support and plan it all down to the last hand grenade.

wwii.ca...

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Never Forget Dieppe!!!


If you want the best documentary on WWII, may I suggest "The World at War" which aired on A&E. It is available from TimeLife in an 11 dvd set. It was the best $150.00 I ever spent.