 Good day. I'm Colonel Jerry Moorlach, the Director of the Combat Studies Institute. You're about to use a video series which our instructors have prepared for the sole purpose of approving your presentation of M610, the Evolution of Modern Warfare. We've taken care to make the course that you teach as similar to the one taught at Fort Leavenworth as possible and choose to add these tapes to your libraries in order to give you every advantage as you prepare to teach this new course. These tapes are similar to the weekly train-up sessions which we utilize to prepare our instructors here at Fort Leavenworth. My intent for the tape sessions was to provide you insights and tips on ways to approach the lessons of M610 that were not available in the instructor notes. I've drawn various instructors, military and civilian into the sessions based upon their specific expertise and historical background. They were asked to just talk to the lesson structure and content, giving you some additional information on the historical context and differing views on how to approach the lessons. These tapes will provide you a wealth of knowledge and direction that will significantly improve your readiness to teach our new history course. One word of caution regarding how to use these training tapes, they are not designed to be substituted for your instruction during the individual lessons of the course. As instructor preparation tapes train the training material, if you will, they are inappropriate for direct instruction to students and are not intended for that purpose. Our intent with these tapes is to improve your ability to lead the students' seminars by sharing tips and advice from some highly qualified experts. The Combat Studies Institute stands ready to provide whatever additional expertise or assistance that you may require, and we've included the institute's phone, mail, and email contact information on the tape if you should need it. Good luck with the Evolution of Modern Warfare course. Have a good time. I'm Major Randy Briggs. Dr. Mike Perlman and I, for the next 40 minutes or so, will try and discuss what approaches to teaching lesson 10, World War II in Europe, for the MS-610 course. I'll start out by listing the learning objectives. We'll discuss some themes and then proceed through our varying ideas of how you might want to approach this lesson. Over the course of this 40 minutes, we'll try and provide some background information that places the readings that your students have in context. The readings support a look at the European War, basically from Normandy forward to the end of the war. Normandy didn't just occur in isolation. We're going to try and give you some background information that puts that in context. We'll try and give some teaching tips as we go along as well. One thing I think you can do is be aware of that World War II for your students, for most Americans, is ancient history. We just went through the 50th anniversary here over the past several years, and so it's been brought back up. And for most of your students who have been born in the 1960s, World War II is 15, 20 or so years before they were ever born. So just keep that in mind, the challenge to bring it up and make it relevant to today, and I think we'll be able to demonstrate how it is relevant to today. First of all, I'd like to review the learning objectives, and they are to evaluate the planning and conduct of selected operations in the European Theater of World War II. The second is to analyze the joint and combined operation that brought the Allies ashore in Normandy on 6 June 1944. So again, we have the Normandy focus. Throughout the discussion, some consistent themes emerge. One is the difference between the British and the American Strategical Concepts, and we'll get into more of that a little later. The constant, or the Mediterranean Theater, it's always there. Is it the soft underbelly of the axis as Churchill states, or is it a sideshow, or as the Americans, some will come to call it a tar baby? The roles of air and sea power are critical. This is not just an army theater of war, but a joint as well as combined theater. The arguments about narrow thrust versus broad front, as Montgomery terms it, keeping in mind political versus military objectives. And finally, I think, and Dr. Perlman has suggested, this is to try and look at the Allied victory and discuss whether it is due to military excellence on the part of the Allies, or just strictly to their material superiority. So with that said, we'll try and discuss some of the background that leads up to Normandy. And I think we can start with the early war campaigns. Or do you want to try with British and American strategic concepts? Well, we can do that. Okay, that's good. Let's do that. Which I guess boils down to your, I guess the term I'm trying to not think of it is, is your basic idea, what's it called, the strategic concept of how the British or the Americans plan to beat the Germans, who certainly in 1942, without a doubt, a man for man, gun for gun, the best army in the world, and lots of people thinking it may be the best army in human history. With few comparisons. And then the question is, how can you come to grips and beat them? Do you really want to fight army versus army? I have to remember what the British perspective is any time the US army, which believes the only way you can beat an army is to get down on the ground and beat them. The last time they faced the Germans in Europe in 1940, mainland of Europe, they didn't have to get there by an amphibious invasion. The most difficult of all military operation. They were there, they were on the ground, and they got their butt kicked off. And now what? These Americans want to tell them, come on with me, we're going back. I mean, what do you think of that as credibility? Thanks for your suggestion. Guess what? I face these guys for real in 1940. With the French in great depth, and you barely have, what, two to three divisions ready to fight in 42? And you want to go back? And remembering back to the 40 campaign, the British and French actually outnumber the Germans. They have numerical parity as far as aircraft goes. They have more tanks than the Germans do. On paper they appear to have a superior force. Which is why that whole operation was such a shock. It was the numbers. And the American computers of 1940 say the Allies win. And they were crushed. It was what? Four weeks of serious fighting, two more weeks to get to Paris. And you want me to go back? Well, if that's so, then how do the Brits plan to win this war? If it's not going to meet the German Wehrmacht and land combat at the ground? They want to fight them on the perimeter, or the periphery. To atrit the Germans by indirect means, by air power, by peripheral operations, by letting after June of 1941, letting the Russians atrit the Germans. And so that the British don't want to face the German army face to face until that German army has been ground down and worn away. In other words, when we, the British, come to grips as we eventually must with the German army in northwest Europe, it is going to be a German army which is a shadow of itself. We hope. That's our strategy. Our strategy is that somebody or other factors will essentially be them. And our army is essentially a mop-up operation. Now, you need mop-up operations. Without them, you know, there's not a mop-up. But essentially, the decisive factors will be done by other branches or other nations. It will be by, in some cases, the Russians, it will be done by strategic bombing. Which, from 1940 on, is the only way the British have of actually striking at the Germans. Unless you want to put that ground force across the shore. Unless you're unwilling to put a ground force across the English Channel again. The strategic bombing is their only weapon. And there are attempts to do anything with ground forces. Of course, they would argue it's not only our only weapon. Ally, it's your only weapon. Because anytime you start talking about us going ashore, particularly in 1942, the majority of that component is going to be British until 44. Absolutely. Because like usual, World War II is no different than wars like usual in the United States, which is you declare them, and then you prepare to fight them. Right. So there's a year and a half to two years. And you've got two great big oceans protecting you in the meantime. Well, at least protecting you. But we, like usual, will declare a war and then develop a force structure to fight it. Let me digress from this. We digress from the beginning. Sure we have. Let's look at the German strategic situation as the Allies are having this debate. Well, so far we've heard one half of the debate. But the German situation is interesting. There's an article by Michael Geier in this book, Makers of Modern Strategy, which has an excellent discussion of German strategy from 1914 to 1945. And he describes every victory that Hitler gains in the first year and a half or so of the war, first year of the war, as actually worsening the German strategic position. In what sense? He invades Poland. So what does that get him? It gets Britain and France declaring war on him, which he didn't think they would do. He conquers, that's in the fall, summer and fall of 1939. He conquers the low countries in France in the spring of 1940. And what does that get him? It gets him Atlantic ports. It gets him the resources of France. Seems to be great. Only Britain is holding out against him. But now the United States is morally and mentally energized to try and save Britain. And so it gets the United States. Well, the United States really renounces its neutrality. In everything but officially. It does everything but officially renounce. Well, actually it doesn't announce belligerency. But what it does is it gives guns to one side, doesn't sell them, gives them to the British, freezes German assets so Germany cannot buy, let alone get this as aid. The United States is no longer, it's not a neutral, but the United States wants to get security on the cheap. In other words, do it by foreign aid, not by blood. And Franklin Roosevelt, who has sold this land lease to the U.S. public, as a way of effect war on the cheap, is now really before Pearl Harbor caught in his own dilemma. Because the American people say, okay, you've given us security without a high cost of blood. This was your promise. Don't take it away from us. Well, and Roosevelt's big quote, I think it's in the 1940 presidential campaign that he, you know, he's sick of war. I hate war. And I'll never send American boys to war. And so there he is. But that's his rhetoric in the 1940 campaign. But actually, we can get into this. It affects to his military strategy even after Pearl Harbor. Because he's got political responsibility. He recognizes how reluctant the United States was to move from a war of limited liability, which is essentially a lend lease to another American expeditionary army so that until late 1943, planning for D-Day, you've got the U.S. Army on one side, which is the only way to beat the German army is to get down on the ground and beat them. Force on force, power on power. You've got the British saying, oh, no, we would have this again. Franklin Roosevelt as an individual means more to the British side than he does to the U.S. Army side. Well, former undersecretary of the Navy, he's a Navy guy. But he's also a politician and this expansion of a giant new AEF is by no means popular. If we can win this war by strategic bombing, if we can win it by lend lease, let's at least do this. Why mortgage the farm right now and not be able to get off with short installment plan? Well, which makes Marshall's achievement in building up a powerful United States Army all the more remarkable because he's doing it without unified political support. Well, he's certainly not doing it. He certainly has the president who will never confront Marshall directly. Roosevelt will always speak around issues, not giving him the support. But frankly, when it comes right down to it, the U.S. Army kind of ends up in kind of a middle position. It's nowhere, it's 989 divisions actually being planned on 90 divisions. But when the U.S. I think the Second Cavalry Division was never formally activated. I think that's the division that fell out. But when the U.S. Army in the bowls of the Pentagon making their own plans, they're talking somewhere between 200 to 300 divisions. Now that just will not fly. It's made up the differential. Which would still be fewer combat divisions than even the German Army has? Yeah. Of course those divisions. With a much smaller population. Smaller divisions, true. Yeah, no question. Not that much smaller. The differentiation is made up by Russian divisions and U.S. airpower which compensates for some of the lack of numbers we have on the ground. Mike, let me get back to the kind of chronological narrative here. Okay, we've laid out the British strategic perspective a little bit into the American perspective. You can see that there's sort of divided council in the American camp which leaves the Americans at least in the early stages of negotiating with the British for a combined strategy somewhat susceptible to British domination because the Americans are not of one mind. Let's go back and look what's been going on in the war itself. We left off with the conquest of France June of 1940. Within a month, month and a half, Germany starts the air campaign that will be known to history as the Battle of Britain. Supposedly as a prelude to invasion of the British Isles. They lose that air campaign several reasons. Poor tactics, short range of their fighters but the bigger question is were they ever really seriously going to invade? Did Hitler ever seriously plan an invasion or was he always hoping for a reasonable accommodation, a peace with Great Britain that would allow him to control the rest of Europe without interference? Well, apparently the deal that he would have liked to have made at the time is, I guess like many Europeans, they don't know whether England is a part of Europe or not. Lots of Englishmen don't know whether they're parts of Europe or not is that if I could come with quote, a reasonable peace which means England, remember England declared war on Germany and Germany doesn't declare war on England. It's not like Russia, Poland or France. One of Germany's long historical enemies back 400 years. In fact, the English and the Germans were allies in the 18th and early 19th century against the historical enemy of England which has been France. And even into the World War I era the German and British crowns are the Kaiser and the Buddha and they're a cousin and of course everyone's a cousin at that time. But if England in Germany's perspective would come to its senses and make this deal, I don't plan to have a German gowliter or a holocaust of the English citizenry. Let's be sensible. The thing is that Britain for which all of us should be immensely thankful today is that they didn't quote, make this deal because, you know, a deal with... The stiff neck, unreasonable... Well, the thing is, what do you do? You make a deal with this... with this... I'm looking for an answer. Devil, deal with the devil. And you always know it is a deal of convenience meaning that what are we doing five or six years when he gets some later ambition? But the English will not make this deal. They will not revoke the declaration of war and I guess he has lots of hopes. Maybe some strategic bombing will drive the British to their senses meaning that they are a democracy. They can get rid of that Churchill and we could get an appeaser in and we can cut a deal. But they don't. The strategic bombing campaign conducted with medium rather than heavy bombers. They are not built to win the war in Britain. They are built to support the army. Yeah, close air support, Air Force has got a strategic bombing mission and they aren't going to do it too well. So they don't knock the British out by bombing. They try and do it with the Battle of the Atlantic. Churchill will later say the Battle of the Atlantic which runs from 1940 to 43. About 1943. That's the closest or that's the most danger Britain faced was from the Battle of the Atlantic. So that's the only thing you really feared. If the German U-boats control the Atlantic the U.S. could have 8 million divisions showing again that doesn't matter anything they're not going past Brooklyn. Supporting Geyer's point that Hitler is strategically bankrupt starts this naval war with what? Sixty-some submarines with a totally inadequate submarine force to sever Britain's sea lifeline for trade. Now, we need to move along and look at the American side of the strategic debate. Let's look at the U.S. Army perspective and that is George Marshall has built this army from 170,000 in 1940 to by 1944 some 7 million of which about 4.5 million are actually in army ground and are not in the army air force. The army's concept is the way to defeat Nazi Germany is cross the channel at the earliest possible moment come to grips with the German army and defeat it in battle. Some battle of strength on annihilation military strength against their strength and that they look at the British peripheral or perimeter operations the British attempts an indirect approach with the American army does they look at that with great suspicion. Yeah, could I let me define if I can for this indirect or peripheral approach the English perceive that even in ground forces if we control at least the surface of the oceans of the world is that if we can land a force at some place which is difficult for the German army to reinforce North Africa Greece or whatever it would be our first ground team versus their third or fourth this is the thing about getting victories on the board which after the debacle of 1940 makes sense I don't want to have our strength on their strength I want to have our strength even on ground forces on their weakness now the US position in something like that is even if you get a victory against their weakness in a place like North Africa or Greece what have you gotten I mean it's chump change it really doesn't matter there's a reason why they're strong in Northwest Europe that's what's important that's where they're going to be beaten well and of course that's the American position and in the debates strategic debates that occur throughout 1942 the American or the American army position does not prevail and the allies go into North Africa the invasion of or operation torch couple of reasons for operation torch that you can discuss with the students why operation torch why North Africa the British won't agree to any other major operation in 1942 I'm not going to be the senior they're the senior partners simply in terms of investment is that there are more of us being committed than you the other thing is frankly behind the back of the US army is that Roosevelt means more at this period to the British point of view than he does to the US army point of view and there's a strategic need or a political need to maintain a strategic policy and that is the policy of Europe first that has been agreed upon going back to the fall of 1941 meaning that if Roosevelt doesn't come to grips with the Germans somewhere in 1942 then what is going to happen meaning that the Guadalcanal operation New Guinea with MacArthur those guys who are begging for more and more troops and we'll say we need reinforcements because at least we're coming to grips with the enemy we'll create I guess Eisenhower calls he calls them suction cups is that need for reinforcement will preclude the buildup in the European theater to ever get across the channel and which means then I guess if you don't win by strategic bombing you don't win at all so we get sucked into the Mediterranean sucked is a bad word we go into the Mediterranean you're an army officer listen they were a lot more angry than being sucked in at that time this waste of time and resources so the U.S. Army thinks the U.S. Army says we lost our shirts we got our clocks cleaned politically being brought into what is this meaningless diversion of men and resources away from the war that has to be fought sooner or later now I was going to discuss the great war campaigns Battle of the Atlantic as it goes into 43 when we finally turn the tide our operations in North Africa Sicily and Italy we're sort of close on time so let me just very quickly touch on those finally the table or the tide starts turning in the spring of 1943 on the Battle of the Atlantic for a number of reasons escort procedures more destroyers air coverage of the air gap out in the middle of the Atlantic U.S. productivity starts rolling into 43 some of it's doctrinal and training as well North Africa we do great at Operation Torch of course we're only fighting the Vichy French in November of 1942 in February of 43 when the Germans counterattack with not even the first team but they're Germans we get our clocks cleaned at Casser German divisions under obviously a tactical genius Rommel but in effect he is coaching a kind of a little lead team that's a good point world's greatest manager of in effect an undergone an army which is what 60 or 65 percent Italian and even so he exposes a lot of doctrinal weaknesses and the allied forces in North Africa training and doctrinal weaknesses in the American army poor use of the combined arms team the U.S. Army is lucky to hold with tremendous losses in the Battle of Casserine past here's the ironies in fact if the U.S. Army is really unprepared as it was to go to war the Germans in 1942 had crossed the channel that's the eternal point as the U.S. Army wished to what would have happened had this army tried to cross the channel in the fall of 1942 it might have been a disaster in fact let me just say if I may it was expected frankly by Eisenhower and Marshall that it would be a disaster now why would these gentlemen in 1942 in effect set the U.S. Army up for what Marshall well Eisenhower called at the time the sacrificial mission Marshall later called it suicidal in 42 nobody really knows the strength of the Russian army but lots of people who think it's going down the tubes and it will may not last a degree unless it's relieved well that's the whole premise of the proposed fall 42 invasion sludging if the Russians are on the verge of collapse then we must attempt a desperate invasion to try and stay there or if the Germans are on the verge of collapse then we've got to get an invasion so we can mop up the operation it is not the ghastly fight but Eisenhower says I may sacrifice six allied divisions to preserve an 8 million man Russian army this is grim business nobody said it was it was fun it's not a picnic but with this thing it's probably this association it makes him shocking to us today I know when I first in the end I learned something about it I was surprised being a child yes I was once of the Cold War is that there's a very strong alliance between the U.S. Army and the Red Army because the U.S. Army by 42 comes to the conclusion the only way they're ever going to get ashore is if something like 60 to 75 percent of the German Army is in Eastern Europe so in effect now and if we can't get ashore then the only way we can beat them is by periphery pecking and strategic bombing and the U.S. Army you tell them that they think you're some buckle artist the only way you beat the German Army is to beat the German Army okay now in May of 1943 the Axis surrender our counter offensive after the Germans or after the Axis offensive at Casserine traps them in Tunisia eventually they surrender in Tunis in May of 1943 225,000 Axis about evenly split between Germans and Italians what to do next the strategic debate begins again all sorts the American chiefs especially the Army don't want to go any further they now want a 43 invasion but it's too late it's too late to get troops and the landing craft and Churchill's no fool guess what you have gotten two rungs up the ladder what are you supposed to do get off the ladder when was the last time you got off the ladder to move it repairing a shingle in your house let alone redeploying an army so the forces are in the Mediterranean the only way to productively employ them in 1943 is keep them in the Mediterranean which means Greece, Sardinia, no it means Sicily Sicily is chosen supposedly because it won't lead to an invasion of the Italian mainland that's what the U.S. Army hopes Sardinia would be better to invade Italy from which to invade Italy because it's further north up the boot British know something here Italy is run three or run four on that ladder what some will call the Churchill's tar baby the Mediterranean has got us stuck and so we go from Sicily which reveals some more flaws and joint combined doctrine and practices but is successful and lo and behold Italy seems ready to fall out of the war and join the allies and if you go there if you will invade us we will after all you don't expect us to switch sides with Germans here so some would say that Operation Husky the invasion of Sicily was too successful we follow it in September of 1943 with the invasion of Italy and now 20 months of grinding frontal attacks a enemy that always has the high ground terrible terrain position terrible terrain soft underbelly turns out to be hard as a rock and we spend 20 months there what a wonderful economy of force campaign it is for the Germans is about the summary of the Italian something else however is really happening in 1943 which will I hate to say irrevocable because with Franklin Roosevelt nothing is irrevocable but irrevocable commitment to the cross channel invasion enormity which is made at the Tehran conference the first time that Roosevelt meets with Stalin Churchill being there in 1943 Stalin is the great proponent of of the opposite position of Churchill which is to get the Germans in a giant pincer meet to the east you to the west and just grind them and crush them down now 43 is a kind of a transition here for Roosevelt it's where he stops being wholehearted supporter of Churchill which is the Casablanca conference in January where he is is on the Churchill team and by November at Tehran he is on the now one of the things which he does is 1943 is the first year of strategic bombing of Germany and 42 U.S. to the end we had bombing most of it were kind of hopeless attacks on sub pens close air support using bombers in North Africa and in 43 43 the 8th Air Force really starts its strategic bombing campaign without long range fighter escort and it suffers badly to the point where by fall of 1943 the Germans appear to have won the air war well let's put it this thing they are doing more damage to our planes than we are doing to their factories and it means that I had all those great ideas about mop up operations for armies for wars that are won from the sky but like most ideas there was a difference between the concept and the execution the concept was wonderful the facts that weren't very nice back to your point about Tehran that's where Roosevelt promises Stalin that western allies will invade in the spring of 44 Stalin promises who's going to be the commander if you're going to invade well in other words you don't trust me so that's what forces the appointment of Eisenhower name and name appoint a guy in charge get a command headquarters January of 1944 Eisenhower setting his headquarters up in England to supreme commander ally just one thing on the Russian aspect on this with Stalin then promises well is that if you go ashore in France I guarantee it now this is not a guy who's word you actually trust since there are millions of graves in the Soviet Union of people and families who trusted him that not very funny I guess in retrospect as he would say I guarantee there will be no reinforcements let alone from Eastern Europe from Central Europe from Germany meaning that if you go ashore I will keep them tied down I'll keep them on now what happens is the U.S. obviously wants joint planning and specifics to which Stalin is amazingly unhelpful oh yeah Stalin doesn't allow nobody in his headquarters but they do launch their offensive there in the summer of 44 and as Bob Baumann of Combat Studies Institute has said that the Normandy invasion serves as a wonderful little diversion to set up a standard Soviet history is three weeks three weeks after where we spend so much time worrying about getting ashore the U.S. and the allies in general don't worry as much about what you do when you get ashore and we're caught down in the U.S. in particular in I guess the worst terrain in God's earth for this okay let's look at why we why it is we have to invade in the spring of 44 and why do we choose Normandy I mean why invade Germany's going to lose the war anyhow I'm not nearly as sure as you are okay the British say that he's that the sooner or later we can look back on it with 2020 hindsight and say the Germans are going to lose I'm not sure agree okay for wonderful arguments why to invade Steven Ambrose's book D-Day June 6th 1944 is great basically the allies have to come ashore the American strategic concept is finally finally prevails anyway if not if it's not vindicated and that the allies will come ashore they will come to grips with the Germans in 1944 why Normandy a lot of other places do you have a good map go into the low countries well if we had a map back there some considerations that drive Normandy it's got to be within fighter range it's got to be reasonably close to the debarkation points embarkation points for the landing for the landing ships if we do a cross channel we land in Calais we avoid two river crossings the same absolutely they all tend to drive towards the Calais and we would go straight in a great distance we would get a soon liberation of Antwerp as much better road network we'd be within the rural valley the industrial and Germany Calais only has one disadvantage which is the Germans expect it's so good anybody who has any brains the strongest portion of the Atlantic wall is of course built at Calais Normandy meets a lot of other requirements reasonably well and so Normandy is the choice and the other thing is the first issue of any amphibious invasion is getting ashore before you can do anything else the follow up operation is nice but if there is no initial agreement your follow up operation isn't very important this we need to keep in mind that Normandy the Normandy invasion is the key operation of the U.S. Army for this war this is what George Marshall has built the U.S. Army to do to invade a hostile coast in northern Europe and come to grips with the German army and decide the battle in the European theater of the war okay some other points are the timing of the invasion weather considerations tides moonlight time of moon rising all for the various aspects the bomber coverage the airborne drops the landing at dawn at low tide to avoid the beach obstacles of course that means the troops wounded on the beach then drown as the tide comes in we need to and the reading by Dr. Gable supports this the organization of SHAF Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force has a combined and a joint headquarters the most successful coalition force in modern military history I think we can safely say that if you look at that it is not some sort of liaison officers between my army and your army it is a headquarters in which for every British chief there is an American deputy for every American chief there is a British deputy it is really as close as it is interwoven like that so it has some advantages one it gets to form in a country that is not under invasion it is not in contact with the enemy it has time to prepare it gets to choose its time and place of coming to grips with the enemy and there are still some problems within SHAF but all in all it is very successful by the standards of joint combined operations and in addition it is conducting the most difficult military operation an amphibious assault on a hostile shore when Stalin was always complaining about to the allies 42 and 43 and he is complaining to Tehran this is the first meeting that Marshall has with him and he says you don't understand to Stalin this is not a river crossing a failed river crossing is a setback a failed amphibious invasion across an ocean that brings to point something that a resident force author continually makes and that is that the Germans and the allies have a fundamentally different view of the English Channel the Germans view it as an obstacle a barrier, something awful to try and get across the allies look upon it, yes it is that but it is also a conduit it is a highway it is a means of getting where you want to go the power orientation of the allies it is not necessarily the same thing as the US Army this may be some of the difference why we of course in retrospect that is what cheap historians like me do in retrospect but we should have thought far more about the follow up operation than the landing is that the US Army as Army guys do think of water as obstacles if we would have thought about it as an avenue of approach and because of our overwhelming sea and air power we can land anywhere we choose well as an overall organization Shafe is able to think of it in the terms of an avenue of approach but the land, the ground component the Army guys planning the campaign on the ground they are unable to look past what is going to happen what actually it turns out to be I can't remember the predictions we get to about the D plus 5 line by D plus 50 but not only this in terms of casualties I used to casualties are less the expectation about the desert storm those expectations of one third of the initial assault divisions are going to be casualties it turns out to be what about 6% and really only the Americans at Omaha take and this is an accident because what happens is the Americans at Omaha run into an armored division German armored division going from I think it's howling all the way to Brittany happens to be at Omaha beats the worst of all possible luck outside of that yes outside of that this would have been even I hate to say easier but only in the expectation so what happens is the initial assault is far easier than anybody expects and the next two months are absolute hell far greater than anybody expects you know just to digress for a moment Eisenhower's message that he prepares in the event of having to withdraw the assault forces we have a copy of that right outside right outside this room is really indicative of his character somebody has drafted it for him and it says the forces because the landing was unsuccessful the forces have been withdrawn and he scratches that through and he says I have withdrawn the forces mistakes were made he is prepared to own up that it's his decision his failure his decision to withdraw the force okay D plus 5 objectives we don't reach until D plus 50 it's been a terrible campaign following the successful invasion the British are stuck before Khan the Americans are bogged down in the hedgerows and the Germans are defending tenaciously I don't know if anybody has seen pictures I mean I'm I'm a midwest boy I think of hedgerows it's nice little things it's shrubbery Joe Collins sent our commander said the terrain on Guadalcanal which he previously fought is far better for mobility than this stuff the hedgerows are 10 or 20 feet high and 15 feet thick with the soil and there's a German machine gun at the point so the maybe too much attention maybe too much attention paid to the invasion not enough to the terrain mobility requirements of the following operations but then we get the operation Cobra using strategic bombers carpet bombing and close support ground forces and that sets up the breakout let me sum up what Dr. Perlman and I discussed earlier first of all gotta review the learning objectives for this lesson in order to stay on track second the themes Dr. Perlman and I explored with the following the differing British and American strategic concepts starting with the British desire to avoid direct fight with the Germans until it could be a tritted and worn away through air power and other operations which the Americans called peripheral the American desire on the other hand was to come to grips with the German army as soon as possible in northwest Europe the compromise between these positions the first compromise was Operation Torch the compromise ultimately favored the British because it led to further operations in the Mediterranean that the Americans didn't want the mid-war campaigns of the battle of the Atlantic 1943 the turning of the tide in the campaign against the U-boat the North Africa campaign following Operation Torch the American army of course had success in November of 1942 against the Vichy French but it met disaster at Casserine Pass in February of 1943 against the Germans explore the idea of what might have happened had the United States and British invaded northwest Europe in 1942 or early 1943 especially with the Americans review the renewed strategic debate that begins about May of 1943 after the German surrender in North Africa the realization on the Americans part that it's too late to switch all the resources that have been funneled to the Mediterranean to England for an invasion of northwest Europe any time during that year and so ensuing Sicily and Italy invasions also North Africa and Sicily especially reveal flaws in American doctrine and training in US and British interoperability in the interoperability between air power and ground forces the Italian campaign a 20 month grind really it's an economy of force operation for the Germans do the Allies get their monies worth for this campaign the Tehran conference where Roosevelt meets Stalin for the first time and really starts to back Stalin at the expense of Churchill they agree on a cross channel assault in the spring of 1944 the Allies do and also that the Soviets will launch their own attack sometime in the spring or summer of 1944 that will turn out to be Operation Bagration the air campaign 1943-44 late 1943 the US Army Air Force is literally being driven from the skies over Germany and yet by the spring of 1944 has achieved total air superiority so that brings us to the spring of 1944 why do the US and British need to invade Europe in the spring of 1944 once you answer that question ask why Normandy then there is the view that Normandy is the culmination of all the Army's efforts to that date because of this there is a tendency for the Army to look to this battle the battle for Normandy the battle to open and hold a lodgement as the end in itself and so there is a resulting failure to look beyond Normandy to see what the campaign what shape the campaign is going to take after that then there is the breakout in the pursuit after very few of the post D-Day objectives have been made as far as expanding the lodgement area all of a sudden with Saint-Lô the Americans breakout the German resistance in the west collapses and there is the pursuit for the remainder of the summer this pursuit of course is going to ultimately culminate due to logistic factors one of the logistic factors is that Montgomery will fail to secure the Shelt Estuary at Antwerp what effect does this have on the allies as they move into the fall of 1944 of course there is the debate the debate between the idea of the broad front versus the narrow thrust Montgomery frames the debate in these terms the debate is not that simple Eisenhower rather than a broad front actually is proposing two simultaneous axes of advance but Montgomery frames it as broad front versus narrow thrust obviously he prefers the narrow thrust and unimaginative Eisenhower favors the broad front there is Montgomery's failure at Arnhem or the allied failure at Arnhem and the effect that that has on the campaign as summer turns into fall in 1944 resulting in of course the Germans Ardennes offensive the battle of the bulge after this there is more strategic debate about how to end the war once the Germans Ardennes offensive has been contained and finally there are the offensive that ultimately reach into the heart of the third Reich and end the war you can also concern yourself with the legacy of World War II both in combined arms operations at the tactical and operational level the formation of the US Air Force based on what the US Army Air Force did during the war the hostility that will soon develop between the Americans and British on one side and the Soviets on the other leading to 45 years or so of cold war from which we have only in the last decade emerged so again we at the combat studies institute command and general staff college stand ready to assist you any time we can with any questions you may have thank you