Is D-Day Overplayed?

I havent been to Europe in a few years but ever since Saving Private Ryan came out here in the USA, D-day is everywhere!

-SPR made millions.
-HBO(a cable TV station) came out with an amazingly successful mini-series about the 101st Airborne divisions drop over Normandy and the subsequent battles they fought in through the rest of the war.
-The History Channel is FULL of D-day shows.. too many to count. :dizzy2:
-A visit to the local bookstore will yield tons of d-day books, often cheaply done to boot.

Americas affair with ww2 is a great thing imo, but it seems said affair only extends as far as the normandy invasion.

Id like to start seeing some shows on the Eastern Front (where my family fought), italy, and the pacific.

D-Day was an amazing and very important operation, but i think there are more important, and frankly more intresting battles that get little to no attention.

I hate to say it, but im bored of D-Day stuff. :embarassed:

I am totally suporting your post!!
I believe that, although it was very important, the D-day invasion was not as important as it seems.
If Overlord have never happened then a southern France invasion (combined with operation in north italy) would have the same results than D-Day. And even more, because Hitler and his generals thought the only way a big invasion may came was across the English channel.
In my belief Hitler lost the war the minute he invaded Russia. (He may have taken moscow but Stalin would have fought to the end in other city like Stalingrad and pushed back german's armies)

Bye

PS: Panzer Jager, can you tell more about your family during WWII? I'm interested.
I've lost my grand grandfather in WWI building by disease making fortifications in Italy to stop germans.

I agree about D-Day. When the anniversary came up there was so many docs and such portraing it. BBC Hisory Mag even had a big issue with D-Day 1944, and "kinda" D-Day 1204, when the English lost Normandy to the French. That had some impact too.

But for me I got fed up with D-Day when I saw Axis & Allies: D-Day.

Band of Brothers is IMO and my friends, much better than Saving Private Ryan btw.

Yes and no. I personally see it as one of the most critical battles of the war. That said, there's only so much you can go over before it gets old.

At least old war movies actually talked about Italy/N. Africa.

PS: Panzer Jager, can you tell more about your family during WWII? I'm interested.

Sure. ~:)

My grandfather was the oldest of three sons. He entered the heer in '37 i believe and joined the 2nd panzer division as it was coming into its own. He participated in the invasion of poland, then france, and finally the lower countries and greece, all in panzer II's. Luckily for him, his tank and most of the others from the division were loaded onto a transport to italy, and promptly sunk by a british mine. ~D Why lucky? Because they were refitted with panzer IV's. He missed the beginning of the invasion of russia, but was soon sent there. He fought in many hard, and mostly defensive battles until he was finally killed at Kursk.

The second oldest brother was also in the heer. He had a somewhat less intresting carreer... being a behind the lines supply officer. He was, however, also killed on the eastern front. We think by partisans, but dont really know.

The youngest of the brothers was probably the most dubious. A member of the 3rd SS division "Death's Head" and proud of it. Needless to say he was killed in the Demyansk Pocket.

Yes, D-Day was very important. No, it is not overplayed. Yes, everything else IS underplayed. I have no problems with how much attention is devoted to D-Day, I just wish there was a lot more attention devoted to all the other important moments as well. Many people and nations who go unrecognized these days.

I think the war in Europe in general gets a disproportionate amount of attention, particularly when anniversaries come around. Why is there a big media circus surrounding the D-Day anniversary but not the anniversaries of the battles of Iwo Jima or Okinawa? In a way it's a shame for the veterans that fought in those battles.

D-Day was a risky choice, as most defences were on that part of the coast - even if Normandy was slightly less defended. Attacking southern France only would have been another problem, as the area is really mountainous, while once you've pierced the "bocage normand", the soil is flat till Berlin, minus 2 or 3 rivers.....

When the S-France landing did happen, German defences were already stretched, so the french army over there did advance pretty quickly - with the precious help of US air force. But with all the defences there, the area would have been overcrowded, & really tough to advance in. D-Day was the risk to take. Congrats Mr Eisenhower.

Of course it's hyped to sell tickets but in my opinion nothing in military history compares to D-Day. Think about the logistics involved to get the ships, planes, and assault troops across the channel and into action. It boggles the mind.

I always say that the Soviets defeated Nazi Germany and could have eventually won without a second front. But i don't know if they could've won without the threat of a second front. Regardless, less than a year after D-Day, Germany was in ruins.

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Id like to start seeing some shows on the Eastern Front (where my family fought), italy, and the pacific

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If you're interested in the Eastern front from a soldier's perspective may I recommend the following books from my favorite author on the subject:

Few Returned: Twenty-Eight Days on the Russian Front

The Red Horse

The Last Soldiers of the King: Wartime Italy, 1943-1945

The US also sent troops into Operation Anvil, the landing in southern France, from Italy. Believe the first US troops to disembark in southern France were native americans.

And the books by Sven Hazel are awesome, if u want to see the world war from a German soldier's point of view. He was a Danish soldier in the "punishment battalions". Good read!! His description of a flame thrower is good "Even the Devil would shake in fear, if he had seen a flame thrower being used"

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I always say that the Soviets defeated Nazi Germany and could have eventually won without a second front. But i don't know if they could've won without the threat of a second front. Regardless, less than a year after D-Day, Germany was in ruins.

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its all conjecture there allready were 2 Fronts (Afrika and Russia) before D-Day so its hard to see if it would have had much difference - its almost universally assumed that Germany never could have crushed Russia without aid and Russia would have eventually pushed them out and then moved on to crush them but how long it would have taken is another thing - D-Day is considered more about Keeping Western Europe Free of soviets rather than free from Nazis nowadays...

I dont think D-day gets to much attention, its the other battles that gets to little. Alltho here in Sweden we get alot of information about the estern front, atleast I did in school.
As for important battles I must say that Stalingrad is just as important as D-day.


And as a History freak i read a few books about "SS Division Wiking" as there where alot of swedes in it. Some wich accualy survived the war in the east.
Altho personaly my grandfather was only in the swedish army at the time, thank god, he was posted at the border to Norway.
A well i can tell a story about him if anyone i intrested, involving panzers ~;)

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Originally Posted by TinCow

No, it is not overplayed. Yes, everything else IS underplayed.

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Originally Posted by DojoRat

in my opinion nothing in military history compares to D-Day. Think about the logistics involved to get the ships, planes, and assault troops across the channel and into action. It boggles the mind.

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[QUOTE = DojoRat]i don't know if they [the Soviets] could've won without the threat of a second front[/QUOTE]


All very, very true. It ranks up there with The Battle of Britain, The Battle of the Atlantic, The Battle of El Alemein, The Battle of Stalingrad, The Battle of Kursk and The Battle of Midway as one of the most important, most pivotal battles of the war.

They usually only have things about the US D-day

agreed the US side to D-day is heavily over done now it would be a refrshring thing to see it from another perspective say the British or Canadian or Even the German view

also some more Eastern front would be nice as thats where the war was won/lost

Thanks for the recomendations TK. They look intresting.

A well i can tell a story about him if anyone i intrested, involving panzers

Ohhh! Im intrested. ~D

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Originally Posted by PanzerJager

Thanks for the recomendations TK. They look intresting.

A well i can tell a story about him if anyone i intrested, involving panzers

Ohhh! Im intrested. ~D

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I second that.

And on topic. I would have to say that the burden shouldered by the allies is underplayed, athough the invasion itself isn't. Also, too little is payed attention to battles else where.

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Originally Posted by Sir Moody

agreed the US side to D-day is heavily over done now it would be a refrshring thing to see it from another perspective say the British or Canadian or Even the German view

also some more Eastern front would be nice as thats where the war was won/lost

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The thing about D-Day is, the toughest fight by far was at Omaha beach, US sector, where it took the whole day to just secure the beach, suffering thousands of losses just here. Brits also had losses, but not concentrated on one single area. So, Omaha beach is where the action is the more packed when you make a movie - the choice is obvious.

About S-France landing, I didn't know the first ones to land were native americans. Anyways, 200,000 of the 300,000 people landed here were french(with mainly US equipment), and 2/3 of those were in fact Africans. Who were rather unsettled after the war when their sacrifice was quickly forgotten - decolonization was ready to begin. Not the brightest part of France's history :embarassed:

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Originally Posted by el_slapper

The thing about D-Day is, the toughest fight by far was at Omaha beach, US sector, where it took the whole day to just secure the beach, suffering thousands of losses just here. Brits also had losses, but not concentrated on one single area. So, Omaha beach is where the action is the more packed when you make a movie - the choice is obvious.

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Of the beaches, yes Omaha took the most casualties, in fact truth be told, the yanks got slaughtered there, but there were heavy casualties took by the allies elsewhere. One example that springs immediately to mind is the assualt by 9 para against the heavily fortified german guns at Merville. With only 150 of his supposed force of 700 men, and none of his support equipment, Lt Col Otway took the positions (held by 200 Germans) with 65 men killed and most of the rest wounded. That action on its own deserves to have a film made about it.

As to the fact that Hollywood concentrates on the US role in D-Day (SPR, BOB), as one American said on here a while back when he got heartily sick of everyone slagging off all these films showing only the US involvement, "if you guys want to see a film about the British role in D-Day, then make your own and stop bitching".

And therein lies the rub, all the money is in Hollywood, their main market is in the US, why would they, indeed, why should they make a film about another country? Sadly, in Britain no-one is prepared to make a film about Britian in WW2 because

a) It would cost a lot, and no one wants to /can pay for it

b) The British film industry is full of hand wringing luvvies who would rather die than make a film about such a nasty, horrid affair. Much better to make another nice quirky romantic comedy :furious3:

The imprtance of Overlord is probably overplayed - by the time the Soviets had already broken the back of the East Front at the major campaign around Kursk (which was about the last major offensive operation the Germans mounted in Russia - after that they mostly conducted a fighting retreat). On the other hand, it did further overextend the already harried German military (which had gotten booted out of Africa already and was getting its ass kicked in both Italy and the East Front), making things rather easier for Stalin, and it was certainly a very dramatic event.

It was also a pretty impressive feat of logistics and planning, and espionage - had Hitler and the German general staff not been so taken in by the Allied misinformation about the Normandy assault being just a ruse to draw attention from the "real" one supposed to happen further north, at the narrowest point of the Channel, Rommel et co. might actually have gotten the panzers moving and overran the landing sites as per their original plan.

But then, that's contrafactual speculation. In the end only one of the about five divisions held in reserve was mobilized, and it got shot up along the way by Allied air power and finally bogged down in Allied paratroopers in one village or another along the way (don't recall the name).

Incidentally, I've gotten the impression an important reason the Americans got mauled so badly on Omaha Beach was that they declined to use any of the so-called "Hobarts' Funnies" save for the amphibious version of the Sherman. The "Funnies" were specially equipped conversions of standard Allied tanks devised by one Major (or something similar) Hobart of the British Army for the express purpose of the landing, and included such generally useful creations as the "Crab" minesweeper version of the Sherman, the "Crocodile" (a flamethrower-armed Cromwell, if memory serves) and the "Flying Dustbin" (a Cromwell(?) with a 200+mm mortar for bunker-busting; the nickname is derived from the appereance of the grenade...), bridge- and mesh-mat layers for crossing holes and mudflats and more.

However, odds are the outcome of the war wouldn't have been much different even if Overlord had gone and done a Dieppe - the German military was already running short of almost everything, including men, and its general shortage of resources and the diligent attention Allied bomber fleets paid to its industry meant it was rapidly losing by sheer attrition. Though the Soviets might've ended up with a rather larger chunk of Europe in the aftermath, likely at least as far West as the French border...

The Pacific theater was frankly of a somewhat secondary importance. That the Americans first concentrated on Germany and that Japan collapsed not too long after Hitler was gone (and the Americans could mass forces against them) ought to tell enough of the resources Japan had available...

I think D-Day is overplayed.

When you compare the sheer numbers, the Eastern front was a lot more decisive than D-day in breaking the Nazis. They were fighting for years before the first allied soldier set foot in Europe.

History I think has cheated them of the credit they deserve I think because of the animosity of the Cold War... D-day was the West's victory and it was replayed again and again as our finest moment.

Personally i think we need more films exploring the Russian side of the conflict. Enemy at the Gates was good and I think we need more. They deserve that much for losing so many more people.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

The imprtance of Overlord is probably overplayed - by the time the Soviets had already broken the back of the East Front at the major campaign around Kursk (which was about the last major offensive operation the Germans mounted in Russia - after that they mostly conducted a fighting retreat).

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I must disagree. How many divisions did the Germans keep in France to guard against the expected invasion? I forget the exact number, but I think its between 20 & 30 and included in this were many high quality, experienced, well equipped divisions. If the allies had been flung back into the sea then they would not have been able to mount another invasion for another year, or more likely 2 years (most historians agree on 2 years). Those divisions could have been transferred to the Eastern Front where they would have made a difference. Enough to start driving the Soviets back? Probably not, bur certainly enough to force a stalemate enabling Hitler to negoiate a truce with Stalin, perhaps along 1941 boundaries.

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On the other hand, it did further overextend the already harried German military

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agreed

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(which had gotten booted out of Africa

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agreed

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and was getting its ass kicked in Italy

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You are kidding me right? A small number of German troops were able to hold down a much larger force of Allied troops, and inflict heavy casualties upon them, whilst maintaining a pretty static front line. It wasn't until the spring of 45 that German resistance in Italy collapsed and they were forced into some serious retreating.

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and the East Front

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Again, I wouldn't say the Germans were getting their "ass kicked" by the Russians. Yes, they were being driven back, yes they were taking heavy casualties, but they never collapsed. In Russia, as elsewhere and pretty much throughout the war, the German Army showed just how good it was. IMO no other army in WW2 was good enough to take on the odds the Germans did and hold out for as long as they did, and make their enemies pay as heavy a price as they did. German soldiers were real, real good.

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Incidentally, I've gotten the impression an important reason the Americans got mauled so badly on Omaha Beach was that they declined to use any of the so-called "Hobarts' Funnies" save for the amphibious version of the Sherman. The "Funnies" were specially equipped conversions of standard Allied tanks devised by one Major (or something similar) Hobart of the British Army for the express purpose of the landing, and included such generally useful creations as the "Crab" minesweeper version of the Sherman, the "Crocodile" (a flamethrower-armed Cromwell, if memory serves) and the "Flying Dustbin" (a Cromwell(?) with a 200+mm mortar for bunker-busting; the nickname is derived from the appereance of the grenade...), bridge- and mesh-mat layers for crossing holes and mudflats and more.

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Thats definately part of the reason. The forces on Omaha also had to contest with the roughest weather of any of the beaches, some units were landed in the wrong place - up to 2 miles from their target. Vital equipment such as radios didn't work or were lost, key units such as engineers struggled to remove beach obstacles in the heavy seas and heavy German opposition. After the 1st wave was decimated, each successive wave landed into a scene of total chaos & death & destruction so that each thing that went wrong contributed to something else going wrong. Finally, they had landed slap bang on top of a veteran German division recently transferred from the Eastern Front, whereas other beaches had to contend with little more than a few Russian slave labourers. At one point it was considered actually evacuating the beach, kudos must go to those Americans who had the presence of mind, and the courage (not to mention the luck to have lived that long) to organise the rag tag groups of survivors and fight their way off the beach.

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Originally Posted by The_Emperor

They deserve that much for losing so many more people.

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Well, I think thats rather perverse logic. They lost so many people cos they got slaughtered by the German Army all through the summers of 41 and 42, and when the Germans weren't killing them, Stalin was. The Russians wasted men on a monumental scale, even after they had managed to sort themselves out.

However, that does not diminish the role the Russians played in winning the war, and the immense sacrifices they made, for their is no question they bled the German army white. However, I do think that in the last few years there has been a revionist swing, such that the Russian role is overplayed in many quarters and the US/UK/Others role is underplayed - especially as it has become very fashionable in some quarters to pour scorn upon America and its military :duel:

However, that does not diminish the role the Russians played in winning the war, and the immense sacrifices they made, for their is no question they bled the German army white. However, I do think that in the last few years there has been a revionist swing, such that the Russian role is overplayed in many quarters and the US/UK/Others role is underplayed - especially as it has become very fashionable in some quarters to pour scorn upon America and its military

Indeed. I think there are other battles that the US/UK fought that are more intresting, or at least worthy of an hour on the history channel. ~D

*shrug*
Well, it's kind of hard to argue against Operation Barbarossa being probably the single biggest strategic mistake Hitler made (and he made many of them, very many - so many his own higher officers eventually tried to assasinate him in the interests of the fatherland...). The German military may have been about the best in the world, but it had only so many men and in the end frightfully limited resources and bit more than it could chew. As one German officer is said to have remarked, " before the operation we counted on the enemy being able to mobilize around a hundred divisions. To date we have destroyed over two hundred, and there seems to be no shortage of them" or something along those lines.

In short, the thus far unstoppable German war machine bled itself dry on the steppes through severe underestimation of its enemy (or rather, the German political leadership bled its army dry there but let's not get semantical). The Soviets had the geography on their side and a ridiculously superior manpower pool to draw on, as well as a virtual self-sufficiency on most necessary resources.

Plus their approach to military R&D was rather more sensible than the Germans' "wonder weapons" style. While the latter produced some truly impressive equipement it did so far out of proportion of the industry's ability to manufacture them. It didn't help any that the Germans were pretty bad at the "interchangeable parts" thing. Whereas the Soviets had a bunch of rock-solid grunt designs they kept upgrading through the war the Germans seem to have had an obsession with designing whole new tanks and whatever and then had to convert the assembly lines etc., which wasn't exactly a very effective way to go about it in my opinion. The Americans held the same advantage, for while the Shermans and others were pretty lousy tanks by Soviet and German standards they could be supplied in, for most intents and purposes, endless numbers and more importantly the American industry was completely safe from attack.

Unlike the German one, which famously got bombed to Hell and back whenever possible.

Anyway, I'd say that far more important for the outcome of the war than the oh-so-dramatic D-Day was something rather humdrum and banal - the Lend-Lease scheme. The Soviet tank crews may have considered American lend-lease tanks deathtraps (they gave them nicknames like "a grave for seven brothers"), but US material aid was undoubtly extremely helpful for the Soviets especially during the early part of the war.

By D-Day the Germans were so short on fuel their mechanized unit officers actually had to resort to stealing fuel from each other to get their panzers moving - had Overlord failed Die Reich couldn't have lasted too much longer before collapsing out of sheer and utter shortage of everything (and Stalin had little reason to give them any breaks by that point - the tide had already well and truly turned). Not unlike WW1 really - back then Germany was fairly literally starved into submission.

Though...

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Finally, they had landed slap bang on top of a veteran German division recently transferred from the Eastern Front, whereas other beaches had to contend with little more than a few Russian slave labourers.

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Really ? Every source I've read stated the best troops the Germans had at the beaches proper were third-rate militias - and the aforementioned East Front POWs in German uniforms (a fair number of whom were volunteers, actually - but then soldiering beats slave labor in a factory). That was really the whole point - the job of such expendable low-quality garrisons was just to buy time with the aid of the fortifications until reinforcements arrived. Or at least this was how Rommel planned it, I understand the guy he shared the command with had another idea (ie. taking the Allies on inland, out of the direct fire support of the ships) and in the end Hitler's bungling kept both of them from doing anything particularly useful.

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Originally Posted by watchman

Really ? Every source I've read stated the best troops the Germans had at the beaches proper were third-rate militias - and the aforementioned East Front POWs in German uniforms (a fair number of whom were volunteers, actually - but then soldiering beats slave labor in a factory). That was really the whole point - the job of such expendable low-quality garrisons was just to buy time with the aid of the fortifications until reinforcements arrived. Or at least this was how Rommel planned it, I understand the guy he shared the command with had another idea (ie. taking the Allies on inland, out of the direct fire support of the ships) and in the end Hitler's bungling kept both of them from doing anything particularly useful.

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The 352nd Infantry Division were a veteran unit which had been transferred from the Eastern Front in March in order to rest & also reinforce the German forces there.

As for the different strategies, yes you are correct about Rommel. He believed that the first 24 hours of the invasion would be "decisive....the fate of Germany depends on the outcome". He believed that any reserves would not be able to get to the fighting in time to affect the outcome and as such wanted a crust of men spread along the entire coast. Von Rundstet (CIC of the German Army in France) on the other hand believed in leaving the beaches sparsely defended and having a large strategic reserve to smash the invaders once they started to move inland. They squabbled over this & Hitler settled the argument by comprimising and doing neither.

And now that I have my references to hand, the Germans didn't have 20-30 divisions in France as I stated previously, but 58!! Granted a lot of these were poor quality, but some of them were also amongst the best Germany had - 2nd SS, 12th SS, 21st Panzer, Panzer Lehr. Even the poor quality divisions were "stiffened" through the use of veteran NCOs in their ranks.

Finally, some quotes from Stalin on D-Day. I guess Uncle Joe would know better than us if Russia needed a 2nd front to win the war, eh? The following quotes are from Richard Overy's excellent Why The Allies Won. Talking about the Tehran conference in November 1943 he says

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Before Churchill could say anything Roosevelt outlined Overlord.....Stalin said that Overlord was essential to bring the German army to defeat: "Make Overlord the basic operation for 1944"....When Churchill tried to raise the Mediterranean again, Stalin stared directly across the table at him: "Do the British really believe in Overlord?".....Churchill finally spat out that it was "the stern duty" of his country to invade.....Stalin liked Overlord.....Stalin insisted on a firm date for Overlord...he demanded an immediate apointment of a commander for the operation as a sign of good faith

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One quote in there stands out a mile to me, Stalin said that Overlord was essential to bring the German army to defeat.

One last quote from Uncle Joe, speaking to Averell Harriman on 10 June 1944,

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We are going along a good road...The history of war never witnessed such a grandiose operation. Napoleon himself attemtepted it. Hitler envisaged it but was a fool for never having attempted it

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Well, Stalin frankly wasn't the greatest military mind around and may have just been maneuvering in any case. Recall that those high-ranker summits were pretty much where the fate of postwar Europe was sketched out, which is not something leaders bother with unless they actually figure they're going to win. Uncle Sunny was likely already calculating he'd better try to conserve his resources and spread out the burden a bit - just in the case he'd have to dispute his gains with the Western Allies afterwards.

'Course, he later on pretty much intentionally starved much of the Army units occupying Germany, just to pre-empt a praetorian coup by some of his more succesful warlords such as Zhukov... That's Uncle Joe for you.

The Red Army could certainly use the distraction, but if they actually needed it to win is a whole another thing. As stated before the German war industry was slowly but surely falling to pieces, and once it went the military couldn't have fought on too much longer. The Germans were also proving quite incapable of reversing the steady westwards movement of their Eastern front line...

That the Germans had so many men (not that I actually knew the nominal strenght of a division, but AFAIK it's about the biggest organizational unit in any modern military) in France isn't actually anything to wonder about. For one, it was an occupied country and the natives had been becoming increasingly restless as of late - due to no small part the diligent work of (mostly British) Allied intelligence agencies and special forces the maquis had started moving from intelligence-gathering and sabotage to outright guerilla warfare, which was a pain in the butt for the Germans. Not perhaps as great as the partisans of the East Front, but yet another problem nonetheless.

For another, they had very real reasons to except an invasion sooner or later. The Dieppe raid few years back, fiasco as it had been, was a warning in itself, and certainly the massive concentration of men and materials in Britain couldn't have gone unnoticed.

For a third, the Allies were already making moves in southern Europe and the Germans undoubtly had some serious doubts about the willingness and ability of Vichy France to resist them should they try to come through there.

For a fourth, if they could spare almost half a million men into northern Finland to try capturing Murmansk (unsuccesfully; like the Finns the Germans got stuck in a long, uneventful and quite low-intensity trench war without really managing much beyond tying up their share of Soviet troops) they certainly had enough to spare to guard their chunk of France, which was strategically rather important. Namely, if they held it it by default meant the Allies wouldn't as of yet be coming through there.

However, I stand corrected on the troop quality thing. Yet it is my understanding that the beach fortifications themselves were manned by second-rate troops and any better-quality units getting involved would have done so as reinforcements.

The thing to note about the conference was that Roosevelt and Stalin wanted to be friendly and as such they would overestimate the importance of certain things each other did.

The D-Day being that decisive is debateable but unless we have an alternate reality machine we will never really know.