The Allies Were Well Prepared for an Assault on Nazi Occupied Europe on the 6th June 1944

8/19/2019 The Allies Were Well Prepared for an Assault on Nazi Occupied Europe on the 6th June 1944

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‘The Allies were well prepared for an assault on Nazi occupied Europe on the 6th June

1944.’ How far do you agree with this statement?

I largely agree with the statement that the Allies were well prepared for an assault on

Nazi occupied Europe on the 6th June 1994. The D-Day landings, although bloody, were

pivotal moments in the liberation of Europe. The success of the European campaign and

the initial landings in Normandy are predominantly the result of the preparations,

plotting, and planning that took place prior to the 6th of June, and so the level of

preparedness can also be directly linked to the degree of success that the Allies achieved.

The most important factor in preparing for an assault of Nazi occupied Europe was

ensuring that Allies would catch the German forces off guard. Operation Bodyguard, as

the Allied deception was codenamed, was ultimately very successful for a number of

reasons. Such a huge assault would be impossible to hide, and so the primary issue

facing the Allies was convincing the Germans that Normandy was not the real landing

site. One solution to this was Operation Fortitude, which was designed to give the

appearance that the Allies were to attack Norway (Fortitude North) or Pas-de-Calais

(Fortitude South). As part of Operation Fortitude, General Patton was responsible for

one of the largest decoys in military history – a phantom army. The Allies prepared for

an assault on Nazi occupied Europe by acting as though they were preparing for an

assault on a different set of beachheads. Using inflatable tanks and aircraft, the Allies

were able to fool German air reconnaissance, even going so far as to create fake tracks

from where the tanks had been moved during the night. The most convincing part of thelie was the radio traffic in and around Dover. This trickery clearly worked, as the

German forces were not as heavily deployed in Normandy as they were in Pas-de-Calais.

This demonstrates that the Allies were well prepared for an assault on Nazi Germany,

as they had made their entry point into France safer, and therefore easier to recapture.

The Allies were also well prepared for an assault on Nazi occupied Europe because, on

the 6th June 1944, the Germans believed that the Normandy landings were not the real

invasion thanks to a British double agent, codenamed Garbo. Garbo’s deliberately leaked

intelligence, prior to the assault, was enough to persuade the Germans not to focus the

majority of their forces on the D-Day assault. In fact, the lie was so effective that the

Germans continued to expect the ‘real’ assault until September of 1944. This, as with

Operation Fortitude, shows that the Allies were well prepared for an assault on Nazi

occupied Germany as they were able to move the majority of their troops into France

without the Germans seeing it as a major threat, thereby making the operation more

successful.

Further successful preparations include the effective use of paratroopers and gliders to

capture or destroy strategic positions before the assault began on the 6th June 1944.

Merville gun battery posed a serious threat to British landings on Sword beach with an


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effective range of 8 miles, and so, in preparation for the assault, the 9th Parachute

Battalion was dropped into France to take the site. The operation did not go perfectly to

plan, as one of the silent gliders had broken its tow rope before even leaving British soil.

The other two gliders were unable to find the drop zone, and so the troops were

scattered. However, the preparations still went well, as the Merville gun battery was

eventually taken early enough to ensure the success of the assault on Sword beach.

Gliders were also effectively used in the capture of Bénouville Bridge (later Pegasus

Bridge) on the 5th June 1944. Since the bridge crossed the Caen Canal, its capture was

very important in the success of the preparations for the assault on Nazi occupied

Europe. Seizing the bridge, which took the Allied forces a mere ten minutes, meant that

the German forces could not advance towards the Normandy beachheads quickly enough

to repel the assault. Despite minor mistakes during the process, these strategic assaults

made the assault on Normandy easier for the Allies, and shows that they were well

prepared, because without the capture of these positions, the Allies would not have been

able to assault Nazi occupied Europe as easily as they did.

The Allies were also well prepared for the assault on Nazi occupied Germany because of

the ingenious technologies they had devised for the assault. One such device was the

Duplex Drive Tanks, which, though the use of a ‘flotation screen’, allowed tanks to be

transported directly onto the beachheads with the infantry. Through this, the allies were

able to give their infantry more support without risking the landing craft in the arduous

process of deploying a tank directly onto the shore. This therefore demonstrates that the

allies were well prepared, as the Allies had a more effectively defended force during their

assault, having already learned where the gaps in their defence was from previously

successful amphibious attacks such as Operation Torch or Husky in the Mediterranean

Theatre. Further, other vehicles in Hobart’s Funnies show that the Allies were well

prepared for the assault on Nazi occupied Europe. The Crab (a Sherman tank with an

attached flail cylinder) was used to detonate mines, while the Bobbin was one of the

modifications affixed to Churchill tanks, which allowed the tank to lay a canvas ‘floor’ to

support heavy vehicles on loose sand. Both of these vehicles demonstrate that the Allies

were well prepared because they had had the forethought to develop technology to solveany challenges which might face the troops during the assault on Nazi occupied Europe.

On the other hand, it can be said that luck played a large part in the success of the D-

Day landings. The best German commander, Erwin Rommel, was away from his post in

France for his wife’s birthday. By the time the news reached him, he was too far away to

reach Normandy before the assault was underway. Equally, Hitler, who was commander

of the Panzer Unit at the time, was sleeping when the Allied assault began. With

express instructions that he was not to be woken, but that the German tanks were not to

move without his permission, the German armour was rendered ineffectual andimpotent. However an oncoming storm should have postponed the allied assault on the


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6th of June 1944 until the next full moon with low tides at noon and good winds for the

gliders, which is why Rommel felt able to leave France. It was only the preparedness and

skill of Captain Stagg which allowed the Allies to take advantage of Rommel’s absence.

He spotted a window in the storm, which would allow the assault to continue. This

shows that the Allies were well prepared, because their experts continued to find ways to

ensure the success of the assault, even when it seemed as though there could be no

solution.

It can also be said that the Allies failure to capture certain first day objectives shows

that they were not well prepared. Caen, which was supposed to be taken on 6th June

1944 proved to be more difficult to capture than first expected. The battle should have

been less than a day long, but due to the high level of German defence (particularly

Panzer divisions), it actually lasted for two months. This appears to show that the Allies

had failed to assess the German tactics and were, as a result, not well prepared.

However, the Battle for Caen was enough to distract a large portion of German forces,

thereby making the American assault in the West more easier, as had to fight a lesser

German presence. Therefore, despite the loss of 200 tanks, the fact that Caen wasn’t

successfully seized on the first day, it can be said that the Allies were tactically well

prepared, as they had successfully evaluated the city as a strategically important

location.

In conclusion, I largely agree with the statement that the Allies were well prepared for

the assault on Nazi occupied Germany because they had considered every angle of theissue. Without the careful, preliminary planning, the assault would have met with fierce

resistance at its earliest stages. Granted, there were heavy casualties on Omaha beach,

but the overall losses were much lower than the projected figures. Even in circumstances

that seem to be the result of pure chance, it can be said that the Allies used their

preparations to make the most of a fortunate situation: Lucks is where preparation

meets opportunity. The D-Day landings were incredibly successful, and allowed the

Allies to break into Western Europe, which would not have been possible if not for the

incredible levels of preparedness in all aspects of the assault.

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The Allies Were Well Prepared for an Assault on Nazi Occupied Europe on the 6th June 1944