I have a question about D day that has always bugged me…probably dumb but I’d love someone to answer. Why did we have to send in all those men, many of our precious soldiers to a certain death there on Normandy shores to face Hitlers huge defenses and pill boxes not to mention their snipers etc. Couldn’t we have put battle ships near the shore and just knocked the hell out of the German defenses with huge guns? Or least do that first and then send men in…when all the germans were destroyed by the battle ships guns. I know we needed to secure that whole area but it just bugs me …please answer ? Thank you Snapshotsid
At great personal peril, that is exactly what we did do. The Allied Navy pounded the defences and then the Armies landed. Do a bit of basic research about what happenedand then come back. No modern war has been one by artillery alone.
we did have battleships there,but just like in the pacific islands,ship bombardment can only do so much,the germans were dug in and the concrete fortifications were several feet thick,just take a look at some of the atlantic wall photos.of course normandy was not as strong as pas de calais area.the marines in the pacific would always bitch about the apparent ineffectiveness of the pre-invasion bombardment.
A better example is probably Passchendaele. OK, it’s from another war, but there the British/Imperial troops had effectively unlimited artillery preparation - and still took horrendous casualties from the German defences.
No. They were unable to use battleships/cruisers for direct fire support. As opposed to indirect fire support, which was what the big guns were for, and really the only thing they could provide since getting in close to visual contact would have meant that the bigger ships in the fleet would have beached themselves…
However, there are several sources on the subject that tell how three very brave destroyer skippers and crews, two American and one Royal Navy, that brought direct fire support to the beleaguered troops on Omaha Beach by firing their 5-inch guns directly into pillboxes and bunkers. Often times positions were signaled by equally courageous soldiers marking them with colored smoke canisters. And even the destroyers were scraping bottom…
Here’s a thread which details the difficulties:
Or even better, add Aircraft Carriers. They can supply air cover while the Battleships supply powerful ground sea support.
They weren’t needed.
A small island commonly known as Britain was the biggest and best Allied aircraft carrier in the area (and probably in the world at the time on a plane per acre basis); at no risk of being sunk like the seaborne variety; and perfectly capable of providing vastly more air support, including bombers, than could the seaborne variety.
During the June 6 D-Day assault itself, a total of 171 squadrons of British and AAF fighters undertook a variety of tasks in support of the invasion. Fifteen squadrons provided shipping cover, fifty-four provided beach cover, thirty-three undertook bomber escort and offensive fighter sweeps, thirty-three struck at targets inland from the landing area, and thirty-six provided direct air support to invading forces. The Luftwaffe’s appearance was so minuscule that Allied counterair measures against the few German aircraft that did appear are not worth mentioning.
Of far greater importance was the role of aircraft in supporting the land battle. As troops came ashore at Normandy, they made an unpleasant discovery all too familiar to the Marine Corps and Army operating in the Pacific campaign. Despite the intensive air and naval bombardment of coastal defenses, those defenses were, by and large, intact when the invasion force “hit the beach.” This was particularly true at OMAHA beach, where American forces suffered serious casualties and critical delays. Despite a massive series of attacks by Eighth Air Force B-17s, B-24s and medium bombers in the early hours of June 6, the invading troops were hung up on the beach. The air commanders themselves had, in fact, predicted that the air and naval bombardments would not achieve the desired degree of destruction of German defensive positions. The Army’s general optimism that air would cleanse the beaches before its
–8–
approach, however, was shattered. Only the subsequent success of fighter-bombers operating against the battlefield would revive the Army’s confidence in air support. Indeed, throughout the post-Normandy campaign–and in the Second World War as a whole–the fighter-bomber proved overwhelmingly more valuable in supporting and attacking ground forces in the battle area than did the heavy or even the medium bomber.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAF-H-DDay/
Bomber
Ain’t it amazing that my first response on seeing your first ever post, in this thread, which pursues another member’s idiotic opinions about aircraft carriers, was that you were depositor under another name, while depositor is aly j posting through a proxy.
You may imagine my lack of surprise upon finding that rather than being in Canberra you are actually located in Dandenong, the home of aly j, the queen of the historically ignorant toothless pre-mixed Jim Beam quaffing baby bonus bogans unwisely granted internet access by an unthinking society and government.
You have twenty four hours to persuade me not to award you enough infraction points to stop you in your latest guise from disrupting this forum with your bullshit.
Actually depositor is an brand new member it’s not aly j
For someone who is neither depositor nor aly j, you seem both extraordinarly well informed and incredibly stupid in putting forward that opinion.
We both know who you are, in your various guises, don’t we?
You now have about twenty two hours to persuade me that you’re not the three people you have just confirmed yourself to be.
Given certain communications from Bomber to me which Bomber chose not to make publicly available, all doubt has been removed about Bomber being aly j.
Consequently, time has been abridged and Bomber is no longer with us.
Way to go there in smelling out the rats RS!
For reference, the Allies had approx. 10,000 casuaties on D-Day which includes about 2,500 dead.
http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/faq.htm
IIRC there were about 1,300 casualties (wounded, dead, missing) per day average in the European theater.
on Omaha they landed in the wrong place. right in front of the German guns. Utah was spot on. if you bring those warships in to close German artillery would blow them to bits. im not sure if any fleet carriers served in the atlantic. they may have all been earmarked for the pacific. good Q.
this picture might show why direct fire had limeted effect on some fortifications.also carriers were not needed for this op,england is one big carrier
Actually it was Utah that was in the wrong place…they landed at Omaha exactly where they intended to. Or did you mean just bad planning?
Look at Tarawa, Iwo and Peleliu, they bombed and hammered those little islands for days, some for months and even with substandard concrete and coconut logs the Japanese were still sitting there ready to fight. It takes men on the ground to win a war.
Iwo:
Initial carrier raids against Iwo Jima began in June 1944. Prior to the invasion, the 8-square-mile island would suffer the longest, most intensive shelling of any Pacific island during the war. The 7th Air Force, working out of the Marianas, supplied the B-24 heavy bombers for the campaign. In addition to the air assaults on Iwo, the Marines requested 10 days of pre-invasion naval bombardment. Due to other operational commitments and the fact that a prolonged air assault had been waged on Iwo Jima, Navy planners authorized only three days of naval bombardment. Unfavorable weather conditions would further hamper the effects of naval bombardment. Despite this, Turner decided to keep the invasion date as planned, and the Marines prepared for the Feb. 19 D-day.
Peleliu:
The Navy began their pre-invasion bombardment of Peleliu on September 12. The Marines landed on Sept. 15th.
The battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland, Mississippi, Tennessee and Idaho, heavy cruisers Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Minneapolis and Portland, light cruisers Cleveland, Denver and Honolulu, three carriers, and five light carriers dropped 519 rounds of 16-inch (410 mm) shells, 1,845 rounds of 14-inch (360 mm) shells, 1,793 500-pound bombs, and 73,412 .50 caliber bullets onto the tiny island, only six square miles in size.
The Americans believed the bombardment to be successful, as Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf claimed that the Navy had run out of targets. In reality, the majority of the Japanese positions were completely unharmed. Even the battalion left to defend the beaches were virtually unscathed. During the assault, the island’s defenders used unusual firing discipline to avoid giving away their positions. The bombardment managed only to destroy Japan’s aircraft on the island, as well as the buildings surrounding the airfield. The Japanese remained in their fortified positions, ready to attack the troops soon to be landing
At Utah the initial landings were off-target/off-marker by a minimum of 400 yards, according to C.Ryan, and later books.
At Omaha each initial landing was off target or off marker by a similar amount.
These figures were hurriedly used in re-prepping both the Iwo and Okinawa landings. No-one had foreseen such large margins of initial onshore error. Source: “To Sea in a Sieve.” - John Bull, ca,1962.
Granted, the bombardments as requested were severely truncated. However, it is almost canon/axiomatic these days that even the requested bombardments would NOT have significantly inconvenienced the defending troops, much less dislodged them from their deep-dug positions. USMC “Chesty” Puller’s book makes a similar point.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
One thing that wasn’t off-target at Utah though were the air strikes. Precision attacks using various fighters and bombers, especially the B-26 Marauders flying unusually and uncomfortably low, pulverized the less fortified machine-gun nests and fighting positions effectively eliminating any serious infantry resistance…
Omaha was a very different story…
In that I concur, Nick my friend.
Re; Utah and Omaha beaches though, I have often been perplexed by Gen. Omar Bradley’s brusque refusal of Brit specialised armour, apart from the DD Shermans (many of which were released into the water too far from the beaches and sank).
Never have understood why wasting lives of troops was more important than American pride, which is how most books I have read characterise that decision.
As regards the B26’s and fighterbomber missions, I have heard odd tales over the years relating to dropped bombs skipping along the floors of a few trenches at Utah, and various German soldiery scattering to avoid same. Always been in two minds as to whether said tales were apocraphal.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
Gold, Sword, and Juneau beaches were relatively flat beaches, well suited for the “Funnies.” Omaha and Utah beaches were not suitable for tanks until exits were achieved.