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I had a cynical acquaintance of mine ask why the allies didn't move the invasion of Normandy either up or down the French beach just a few miles and save several thousand lives in order to avoid the Germans that were in place along the beaches where they expected the invasion. I couldn't answer his cynical implications about our uncaring Generals but I thought perhaps a historian on this site could answer this question.

I've wondered too. Kind of reminds me of the warfare of lining up and facing the enemy while firing into each others ranks.

I'm not an expert, but the entire coast of France was fortified. The Germans, thanks to a long term deception program, fully expected the invasion at Calais. In fact they kept most of their reserves in that area for over 24 hours as they considered Normandy a diversion and not the real invasion.

There are only a handful of places where it could have been done. Normandy was one of the more lightly defended areas. At least with intelligence available at the time. Looking back 70 years later, with the information we have today, another spot might have been better. But they didn't have a crystal ball.

I sure wish they had known that those big guns were not at Point du Hoc as they had thought. Would have saved a 100 or so brave Rangers who took those cliffs for nothing.

The allies had a whole fake army (rubber tanks, etc.) opposite Calais to fool the German spies and even a fake commander (Patton). It worked. Even after the Normandy landing, the Germans thought it was a diversion and the real landing would occur at Calais. The Germans held back valuable forces from attacking the allies for this reason.

They also chose the spots where there was adequate beachs for lands as well as locations the preperatory fire would have been the most effective. Actually one of the German artillery locations that was delivering so much fire on Omaha (can't remember what sector?) wasn't discovered until like 2007 or 08!

But the entire coastline was a fortress!!!

this....the Germans had the whole coast fortified leaving only two spots where it was possible....Normandy and Calais....whole lot was involved in the choice, the features of the beach, underwater features, was it close to roads they were going to need, strategic bridges.....gotta remember at this point in the war Rommel was pretty well in charge of the defense and the man was no fool....there is a reason it was called "Fortress Europe", the Germans had the whole coast where even the remote possibility of a landing happening from Britain locked up fairly tight....yeah in hind sight there was some things that could have been done different but given the info they had they werent even positive they could pull it off at either Normandy or Calais.....

hell they went so far as to covertly steal samples of the sand and mud at any possible landing spot to determine if tanks could even cross a particular beach.....and alot of the American losses fall on the brass, most the Americans turned down the specialty tanks the brits had made that would have made the lives of the troops a whole lot easier....

They needed the deep water port at Cherbourg and the beaches at Normandy were located close to it. Grabbing a beach is one thing, supplying an army long term is quite another. The Mulberries were just a stop gap measure to allow supplies to be off loaded until they could capture the port at Cherbourg. I forget all of the strategic reasons but being on a peninsula they could also cut it off from the main German forces and prevent it from being reinforced during our attack on it. Once in our hands, the peninsula would prevent the Germans from launching a counterattack from any point around 180 degrees.

Remember that a good part of the plan for Hitler's last ditch attack resulting in the Battle of the Bulge was to take the port of Antwerp.

What's that saying - "amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics."

What i never understood is why they didn't have more air cover when they landed. P 47s and such strafing the German lines would have helped.

Size matters...

You need a spot big enough to land AND supply an entire Army...

Cloud cover and imclement weather.

We also had the first hand experience of what not to do.

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/second-world-war/historical-sheets/dieppe

That was one of the reasons Germany did not expect an invasion at Normandy; there was no harbor. The Mulberry artificial harbors worked until we had a foothold. Gerry was quite surprised by Normandy. I would say it saved lives instead of costing lives.

There are still parts of the Mulberry blocks there. I have a picture of me standing on one.

Read Stephen Ambrose's book "D Day" - actually read all of his books. Its a fascinating look into the leadership role Ike played and the sheer logistics of this invasion. Nothing in the history of man had compared as far as men and machinery. It worked. We aren't speaking German.

Ike was truly one of the greatest �managers� of all time. Negotiation the ego of Churchill and Roosevelt and managing to defeat a very experienced German Army that had some great leaders as well (if Hitler weren�t crazy we probably would have had to drop the bomb on Europe).

We owned the skies, but once the allies hit the beach you couldn't strafe and bomb.

One thing I never understood was why the heavy bombers were sent in perpendicular to the coast with orders to wait 30 seconds after crossing the coast before dropping their loads. Doing so put a lot of holes in cow pastures and the cows therein but did nothing to destroy beach obstacles and provide holes for cover.

I would have figured to send them in fairly low, 10 or 15 thousand feet or so in long columns three abreast and parallel to the coast. They cross the channel and then turn parallel to the coast when they reach it. Once a particular column had made their turn and was fully over the beach, the column leader calls "bombs away" and they all drop simultaneously. Maybe use waves of medium bombers, B-25's and 26's, doing the same thing an hour before the landing.

I know night bombing is tricky but the Brits would use Mosquitoes as pathfinders to mark targets with incendiaries, seems like they could have found some way to give the bombers visual clues to their targets.

They could have done that up and down the coast for a few weeks without giving away the location of the attack, the Germans would figure they were just weaken beach defenses all over. Then make a big raid on Normandy the early morning of June 6th. 20/20 hindsight, I know, but the way they did it sure seemed like a total waste of the bombers.


They did get it fairly right at the breakout, concentrating thousands of bombs on one small concentrated area and pretty well pulverizing every square inch of that area.

A good movie to watch is "The Longest Day". It is fairly accurate historically and tells the story from both the German and Allies perspective. Packed with big name actors and entertaining as well. The Germans were quite surprised by our choice of Normandy.

And read the book as well. "I tell you, Lange, the initial twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive. For the Allies, as well as Germany, it will truly be the longest day."

The next time you see your cynical acquaintance, you can tell him:

1. Moving the invasion up or down the coast just a few miles would not have avoided any Germans.

2. The Germans were not expecting us to invade where we did.

3. Our generals were not uncaring.

The rangers took Pointe Du Hoc to take out field guns that weren't there. The Germans had moved them inland and put timbers in their place to fool aerial photography. The intel available was decent for the time but not infallible. Sometimes you have to go with the best option overall which may not be the place of least resistance.