Operation Overlord Research Articles

The Tehran discussions, formal and informal

A comparative study of memoirs and documentary sources pertaining to the Tehran Conference allows the author to challenge and correct some of the prevalent positions held within both historiography and popular literature on the subject. In contrast with the pervasive assumption regarding the stance of the “Big Three” on the matter of the Second Front (Stalin and Roosevelt were proponents of an expeditious invasion of Normandy, in contrast to Churchill’s ‘Mediterranean-Balkan’ strategy), he demonstrates that the US President, ostensibly under the influence of his military advisers, was initially amenable to supporting British plans. It was only through the persistent efforts of Soviet diplomacy that the American leader was persuaded to join Stalin in prioritising Operation Overlord. The real breakthrough on the Second Front issue occurred during and after an informal dinner hosted by Roosevelt after the first session of the conference on 28 November 1943, which was earlier than had previously been asserted. In the course of these informal discussions, which have been largely overlooked in previous historiography, the Soviets proposed several important projects for a post-war settlement in Europe. These proposals were largely agreed upon by Western representatives. A consensus was reached on the issue of changing the Soviet-Polish and Polish-German borders, which was subsequently updated and ratified at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Additionally, the article addresses other matters pertaining to the Tehran Conference, including discussions on German war criminals, the role of interpreters, and other pertinent topics.

Naval Strategy in the Normandy Invasion

The Normandy invasion, also known as Operation Overlord, was one of the most monumental events in the history of World War II. On June 6, 1944, nearly three million Allied troops crossed the English Channel from England into France occupied by Nazi Germany. The invasion of Normandy opened the way to the liberation of Europe and finally ended World War II. Naval strategy was crucial in this operation to support the landing of troops on the beaches of Normandy. In the context of naval strategy, the Normandy invasion involved coordination between the navy, army, and air force. The writing methodology uses a descriptive method by analyzing the facts that occurred during the 1944 Normandy battle and is supported by literature studies, literature and various scientific journals.

D-Day and the Future of Amphibious Operations

The commemorations of the 80th anniversary of D-Day serve to remind us what an extraordinary operation it was, not only in its planning and execution but also in the good luck which accompanied it. Such conditions are not easily reproducible, certainly not at scale. The technologies of modern anti-access/area denial operations make an amphibious operation of the size of Operation Overlord, particularly if launched over much greater distances than those of the English Channel, unlikely to succeed, argues Hew Strachan. Contemporary amphibious warfare and its related doctrine are therefore focused on raiding, not amphibious assault. ■

Hitlerjugend Waffen-SS Division. Faces of Fanaticism

Research into the different types of fanaticism that animated some of the most notorious elite forces of the Third Reich represents a key investigation tool for any historian who applies hermeneutic and phenomenological criticism of combat motivation and morale among warriors belonging to Waffen‑SS troops. The study below addresses the very specific features of the ordinary fighter conscripted to the 12th SS Panzer Division ‘Hitlerjugend.’ The fierce battles that compounded the Normandy Campaign (also known as Operation Overlord) of June – August 1944 were particularly shaped by the committed and uniquely involved units belonging to the Hitlerjugend Division, alternatively called the Baby Division by their Canadian, Australian and British opponents. These youngsters had been battle‑hardened before their ‘fire‑baptism’ due to a tough and professionally delivered military and propagandistic program aimed at transforming young soldiers into efficient killing machines, sufficiently indoctrinated so that they could perform outstanding duties through morale disengagement under contextual forces. Both theoretical and military training were delivered by a professional officer’s corps, assisted by NCO’s formed of veterans with a long battle experience on the Eastern Front. Cross investigation analyses were conducted with the purpose of gaining a complex view and better understanding of all social, psychological and military mechanisms that worked together in order to obtain Hitler’s ultimate warrior: ‘the Hitlerjugend soldier.’

Operation Overlord: Civilian Photography and Artistic Mediation

In March 1942, the Director of British Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey made a public appeal via the BBC Radio. Godfrey requested listeners to send in holiday photographs and postcards of Europe, particularly places of potential military interest. Over 80,000 people responded with holiday snaps forming a comprehensive library that by 1944 totaled ten million images. Relevant photographs garnered from the public for Operation Overlord were incorporated into military briefing materials, along with maps and zero-elevation aerial photographs, then issued to assault troops in preparation for the invasion of France in June 1944. While the material was largely returned to the British public, over 750,000 images were reproduced and remain in British archives. Over seventy years later, German photographer Simon Menner accessed the Imperial War Museum archive to digitize part of the collection for a photographic project that was not fully realized. This article considers Menner’s engagement with these records as a means by which this obscure national achievement has come to light beyond military history research. It also foregrounds the tension between political conflict surrounding digitization of declassified state and vernacular material, and Menner’s photographic intervention as a protagonist in the ongoing efforts to access formerly secret or confidential government material.

Lessons of World War II and Strategic Planning of the Big Three (1945–1949)

The paper examines how military and political leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain assessed in the first post-war years and in the face of emerging bipolar world order the lessons of World War II, how the latter influenced their strategic planning and forecasts with the emergence of nuclear weapons. The author outlines the key features of this period (1945–1949), including still fresh memories of the unprecedented destruction and losses of the past war, the US ‘nuclear monopoly’, and the absence of a system for nuclear deterrence. The paper provides a systematic comparison of lessons from the past war, learnt by the Soviet, the US and British establishment, identifies similarities and differences between them. The author concludes that WWII was perceived by the political and military leaders of that time as a model of the eventual ‘great war’ in the future, which almost certainly would be ‘total’ and ‘global’ in scope and would demand both thorough preparations during the peacetime and the militarization of civil life. Indeed, the experience of WWII had greatly influenced the strategic and operational planning in the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in 1945–1949. Moscow prepared to face the potential aggression on its Western borders or in the Far East in order to avoid the mistakes of 1941. In Washington the decisionmakers acknowledged the Soviet superiority in conventional weapons and didn’t exclude the possibility that the Soviet Army could quickly establish control over the Western Europe and that the US military would have to retake it in a ‘new Operation Overlord’. The pessimistic outlook of the ‘defense of the Rhine’ was also shared in London, and the British military planned to evacuate the troops to the British Isles (‘shadow of Dunkirk’) and to focus on strategic bombing of the USSR and its allies. Even the appearance of nuclear weapons, that would dramatically alter the strategic context in the following years, played a relatively minor role in 1945–1949. The author concludes that the shadow of World War II and its lessons had a long-lasting effect on the post-war international relations.

Allied Amphibious Doctrine, the Landing Craft Shortage of 1943-1944, and Operation OVERLORD

Allied Amphibious Doctrine, the Landing Craft Shortage of 1943-1944, and Operation OVERLORD

D-Day, Collateral Damage, and the 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare

This paper examines the question of whether the adoption of the 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare as binding international law might have changed the outcome of the D-Day invasion during World War II. The delegates to The Hague conference proposed a severe restriction on the use of air power in urban areas, but the rules were never adopted as international law. Two decades later, the international community’s failure to adopt the 1923 Hague Draft Rules had a significant impact on the D-Day invasion. On June 6, 1944, the Allies mounted the largest amphibious operation in history as 150,000 troops stormed the Normandy beaches of Nazi-occupied France. The landings succeeded in no small part because of the Allied air forces, which mounted a massive interdiction campaign to prevent the German army from rushing to the French coastline and destroying the Normandy beachhead. Operation Overlord, the code name for the D-Day invasion, marked a major turning point in the war, accelerating the collapse of Nazi Germany, which surrendered 11 months later. As the historian Ian Kershaw has observed, Operation Overlord marked “the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.” The D-Day air campaign, however, came at a severe cost for French and Belgian civilians. At least 12,000—and possibly more than 25,000—French and Belgian civilians died as unintended casualties of the Allied bombing campaign. Although the Allied air strikes clearly played a critical role in interdicting the German army, it was by no means clear that the vast scale of the bombing was necessary. Whether the interdiction objectives could have been achieved by a more modest—and less destructive—air campaign was an open question at the time and remains so for many historians today. One of the principal reasons why the Allies implemented a massive area bombing campaign against French and Belgian rail centers was because international law did not provide clear guidance regarding air warfare. But it might have had the 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare been adopted as binding international law. The Draft Rules prohibited area bombing in urban areas, which is precisely what the Allies engaged in during the D-Day air campaign. Had the Rules been in effect in 1944, the Allied air campaign in support of the D-Day operation may well have been much more modest in nature. But would the reduction in collateral damage have come at the cost of jeopardizing the invasion’s success? The story of The Hague Draft Rules and the controversy over the D-Day air campaign demonstrates the unique challenges and inherent complexity of the effort to use international law to protect civilian populations during wartime.

Simulation of Normandy Invasion on 6th of June, 1944

ABSTRACT Vassie, J. and Choi, B.H., 2018. Simulation of Normandy Invasion on 6th of June, 1944. In: Shim, J.-S.; Chun, I., and Lim, H.S. (eds.), Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2018 (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 85, pp. 1071–1075. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Known as one of the greatest military secrets of “Operation Overlord,” the cross- English Channel invasion of the northern coast of France on June 6, 1944, called for the Allies with accurate wave and tidal forecast for landing operation. Times of small wave and low tide were essential for successful landing. We are revisiting forecasts (hindcast simulation) via modern day updated numerical modeling based on coupled tide-wave-storm surge physics. The wind conditions are reproduced by using the meteorological conditions from ECMWF ERA-20C data of assimilation group. An integrally coupled tide-surge-wave model based on the identical, homogeneous and unstructured meshes ...

A Comparison of the Soviet Army and the Anglo-American Army in the Summer-Autumn Campaigns of 1944 during World War II

이 글의 목적은 제2차 세계대전에서 소련군과 영미군의 1944년 후반기 전역을 살펴보면서 소련군과 영미군의 작전 수행 양상을 비교하는 것이다. 영미군의 노르망디 상륙작전에 비해 소련군의 대공세는 제대로 주목받지 못해왔다. 영미군은 기민하게 작전을 수행하는 효율적 군대로, 소련군은 인력과 물자의 우위만으로 작전을 서툴게 수행하는 비효율적 군대로 기억된다. 이러한 인식은 최근의 연구로 허상이었음을 드러난다. 전간기에 소련군은 작전술 개념과 종심작전 이론을 개발했지만, 그렇지 못한 미군은 산업 능력에 바탕을 둔 소모전을 선호했다. 제1차 세계대전의 경험 때문에 영미군에게는 돌출된 진격과 측방 노출을 회피하는 경향이 강했다. 소련군은 1944년 6월부터 종심작전으로 석 달 만에 독일군 3개 집단군을 포위섬멸하는 데 성공했다. 노르망디에 상륙한 영미군은 프랑스 내륙으로 전진하는데 7주를 소요했고, 팔레즈에서는 독일군 주력을 섬멸하지 못해서 연말까지 교착상태에 빠졌다. 영미군의 불충분한 성과에는 다음과 같은 요인이 작용했다. 첫째, 소모전을 선호하고 기동전을 기피하는 경향. 둘째, 군수보급에 관한 집착. 셋째, 집단군 및 동맹군 사이의 조율 난조. 넷째, 전구사령부의 권한 부족.This article aims to review the military campaigns of 1941 implemented by the Soviet army and the Anglo-American army and compare both armies’ ways of war. In the Western world there was a tendency to overestimate the Operation Overlord and underestimate the Operation Bagration. In the similar vein the Anglo-American army was characterized as being effective in implementing the military operations, whereas the Soviet one as being clumsy and unskillful. A closer scrutiny reveals that such an image was just fictional. In the interwar period the Soviet army invented the idea of operational art and the theory of deep operation. In contrast to it the American army failed to develop any significant military doctrines and continued to prefer attrition warfare based on the enormous industrial power of USA. Due to the experiences in World War I, moreover, either British army or the American army had a strong tendency to evade being outflanked by their enemy. In mid-1944 the Soviet army succeeded in crushing the three German army groups within three months by implementing the deep operations based on its military doctrines invented in the interwar period. At the virtually same time the American army and the British army invaded the Normandy in June 1944, and yet they did not overcome the German resistance speedily and took two months to advance inland. In Falaise, moreover, they failed to crush the enemy’s main forces. It was not the end of December 1944 until the Allied armies broke out of the stalemate in the Western front. Their bad performance can be attributed to the factors as follows: firstly, their tendency to prefer the attrition warfare and to evade the mobile warfare; secondly, their obsession with supplies; thirdly, a lack of the co-ordination between the Allied armed forces; and finally, some limitations to the competence of the theater commands.

The contribution of Royal Navy aircraft carriers and the Fleet Air Arm to Operation ‘Overlord’, 1944

This article examines the utility of naval aviation, specifically the contribution of the British naval air arm to Operation Overlord. It argues that while there were practical reasons for carriers not being present directly off the Normandy beaches, British naval aviation supported the invasion both directly (from ashore, and from carriers operating at a distance) and indirectly, over a long period. It was also performing a range of other roles in several theatres. Navies and naval aviation contribute to campaigns in a way that is different to land-based forces; understanding this requires a bigger map and a longer timeline.

The waves at the Mulberry Harbours

The Mulberry Harbours were used during the Second World War as part of Operation Overlord, the invasion of northern Europe by the Allies in June 1944. This commenced with the D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches on 6th June. The harbours played an important role in the history of ocean engineering leading to the development of novel technology and new theory. A severe storm occurred soon after the harbours were deployed leading to the destruction of the American harbour and severe damage to the British one. In this paper, we analyse this storm using hindcast data from ECMWF and SWAN modelling. We find that the waves were significantly more severe at the American harbour than at the British one, which may partially explain why the latter experienced less damage. We also find that the usually quoted figure for the storm severity of 1 in 40 years is a reasonable estimate for a summer storm at these locations.

Treating the Victorian Medical Past in Melissa Pritchard's ‘Captain Brown and the Royal Victoria Military Hospital’

This article examines Melissa Pritchard's novella ‘Captain Brown and the Royal Victoria Military Hospital’ (2011) in its reimagining of the once famous but now demolished major Victorian military hospital of the title. I argue that the Royal Victoria offers a fitting illustration of the conflicted position the legacy of the Victorian scientific past occupies in the present and show how this legacy is explored in Pritchard's story. This conflicted position is layered with a further paradox in the narrative, as the novella picks up the historical thread of the Royal Victoria at the point of its 1944 take-over by the United States Navy as part of Operation Overlord. The novella's return to this 1940s setting is therefore operated via the lens of the Victorian scientific past, a conflation of two distinct time frames which is marked by the deployment of an array of gothic images in the text. Yet, if the neo-Victorian medical gothic mode of the story conveys the lingering, haunting presence of the Victorian scientific past, I show how such ghostly presence is dismissed to be replaced by the more powerful spectre of the Second World War's unresolved legacies in the twenty-first century.

Regional weather and climates of the British Isles – Part 6: Ireland

On 4 June 1944, the lighthouse keeper at Blacksod Bay on the far northwest of County Mayo relayed his usual weather observations to Dublin and on to London. On receiving the report from Blacksod, the Allied commanders decided to postpone for a day Operation Overlord that was to launch the invasion of German-occupied western Europe: a wise move since the Force 7 winds and heavy rain experienced in the Channel the next day could have seriously compromised the success of the operation. Sitting astride the main storm tracks, Ireland has always provided an early warning system, particularly for Britain, of forthcoming extreme events originating over the Atlantic, as well as a shield which lessens their severity. Ireland possesses a rich and varied climate mosaic, a product of its distinctive topography and geography, which interact with airstreams to produce a complex spatial arrangement of climates not often appreciated beyond its shores. In Victorian times the geomorphology of Ireland was taught by an analogy to an apple pie – the hard crusty bits around the edges enclosing a soft centre. This geological legacy of hard Caledonian and Armorican rocks around the perimeter and soft Carboniferous limestones in the centre creates an unusual topographic arrangement (Figure 1). In the west, with only a few breaks in the mountainous edge at Sligo Bay, Galway Bay and the Shannon Estuary that allow easier access for maritime air masses, there are some surprisingly sheltered pockets. The south and north coasts also have their mountain bulwarks in the Cork–Kerry and Donegal mountains and some protection is even afforded to the east coast by the Antrim Plateau and the Wicklow Mountains. A coast-versus-interior geography is, therefore, the chief characteristic of the Irish climate, so that the climate of the Central Plain has more in common with lowland England than with its Celtic neighbours of Wales and Scotland. The legacy of past weather observations

OPERATION OVERLORD - A SYNOPSIS OF THE D-DAY LANDINGS

Arguably the most famous date of the Second World War is the 6th June 1944, better known as D-Day, the date on which the Allies returned to the continent of Europe in Operation Overlord, the greatest amphibious assault ever mounted in the history of warfare. In the first two hours alone 156 000 Allied troops went ashore, forming the vanguard for the army of over two million men that was to follow. Although the officers who planned the invasion predicted that the Allies would suffer a tremendously high casualty rate, the inescapable fact was that in order to come to grips with the German Army and destroy it, sooner or later it would be necessary to invade the mainland of Europe. The enthusiasm with which this concept was embraced usually varied in proportion to the distance of the individual from the potential invasion coast.

The tide predictions for D-Day

Based on the physics of Newton and Laplace, the big brass tide-predicting machine designed by Lord Kelvin was crucial for the success of the Normandy invasion in World War II.

Anzio: Italy and the Battle for Rome -1944, and: They Fought at Anzio (review)

Reviewed by: Anzio: Italy and the Battle for Rome -1944, and: They Fought at Anzio Mannie Liscum Anzio: Italy and the Battle for Rome -1944. By Lloyd Clark . New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-87113-946-7. Maps. Photographs. Appendixes. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. Pp. xxiii, 392. $25.00. They Fought at Anzio. By John S.D. Eisenhower . Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8262-1738-7. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xii, 306. $34.95. Although generally overshadowed by Operation Overlord and subsequent fighting in Northwest Europe, the preceding Italian Campaign (June 1943-June 1944) has received considerable attention over the past sixty-odd years. Lloyd Clark's Anzio: Italy and the Battle for Rome -1944 and John S.D. Eisenhower's They Fought At Anzio represent two recent examples. Both books provide a modicum of 'new' material while presenting concise historiographies of the Italian Campaign, from the invasion of the Italian mainland to the fall of Rome. Academically inclined readers are likely, at least initially, to judge Anzio somewhat frivolous for its obvious lack of traditional footnotes. Fortunately, Clark does not forego referencing altogether, but rather provides a 'Notes' section (31 pp. total) at the end of the book in which abridged verbatim quotes from the passages being referenced are presented (by page number), followed thereafter by the relevant citation. Upon closer examination readers will find that about half of Clark's citations are to primary unpublished sources, thus demonstrating that the research for the book was in fact impressive. One example of Clark's use of 'fresh' material is his handling of the period from the end of the third battle of Cassino (23 March 1944) to the final push against the Gustav Line and breakout from the Anzio beachhead (Operation Diadem, initiated 11 May 1944). Devoid of large engagements, this period has been given little attention in most accounts of the Italian Campaign. Yet, an entire chapter of Anzio (Chapter 8, pp. 225-262) is used to describe the World War I-like trench stalemate that dominated this period as both sides licked their wounds and prepared for their next moves. Clark weaves together recollections of average G.I.s and Tommies to humanize and give lively voice to the day-to-day tasks engaged in by the men, from reconnaissance patrols to taking part in sports and various non-combat work details. Both Anzio and They Fought at Anzio should be lauded for presenting the Italian Campaign from a multi-national viewpoint, although Eisenhower's book is more consistent and thorough than Clark's in this regard. As one example, while both books are sprinkled with information from German sources, Chapter 5 (pp. 35-48) of They Fought at Anzio is devoted wholly to discussing the establishment and defense of the Gustav Line with a substantial portion of the text representing the viewpoints of General der Panzertruppen Frido von Senger und Etterlin (commander of XIV Panzer Corps/Tenth Army). Eisenhower also gives fitting coverage to the actions of the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC) in the mountains of Liri Valley that, [End Page 271] while not the main effort, was ultimately vital to breaking the Gustav Line. Although cursory in his mention of the FEC (one and one-half sentences total), Clark still accomplishes more than many of his British contemporaries, such as D. Graham and S. Bidwell [Tug of War - The Battle for Italy 1943-45 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1986)], who tend to entirely disregard the FEC actions. As to coverage of combat, Anzio presents fairly detailed descriptions of action (regimental level and lower), while the same events are dealt with in broader strokes (often regimental level and higher) in They Fought at Anzio. Combat passages in Eisenhower's book are supplemented with descriptions of personalities and relationships between commanders involved, pre- and post-engagement information, and personal recollections of those lower in rank to give humanity to the overall story. Two sources Eisenhower repeatedly draws from are the memoirs of nurse Lt. Avis Dagit Schorer (Half An Acre of Hell, Galde Press, 2000) and armored infantryman Lt. Lloyd Wells (Anzio to the Alps, University of...

Science on the Normandy Beaches: J.D. Bernal and the Prediction of Soil Trafficability for Operation Overlord

Science on the Normandy Beaches: J.D. Bernal and the Prediction of Soil Trafficability for Operation Overlord

Norman's war: Norman B. Kornfield, M.D., World War II physician-anesthetist.

Norman's war: Norman B. Kornfield, M.D., World War II physician-anesthetist.

In the shade of overlord

At Tehran, 1943, Stalin promised to support Operation Overlord with an attack on his German front. He did nothing of the sort. Instead he tried to conquer Finland and sent his peace feelers to Hitler. His moves took foe and friend alike with surprise and reactions were generally inadequate. Finland's defense was on the verge of collapse through an oversight by the Supreme Command and the negligence of the Commander of the Naval Forces. It seems that Stalin hoped for a failure of Overlord and did what he could to bring it about. With the Anglo‐Americans thrown off Normandy he would have got a chance to dominate Europe north of the Alps.