If the naval guns have not properly done their part, the troops will be caught at the mercy of machine guns and other rapid-fire weapons."1 Lieutenant Walter C. Ansel, U.S. Navy, wrote these words in 1932 in his critique, "Naval Gunfire in Support of Landings: Lessons from Gallipoli." On 6 June 1944, Lieutenant Ansel's words proved true. At Omaha Beach, the soldiers of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division were caught in daylight, on open stretches of terrain, facing a deliberate defense. Naval and air preparatory fires had failed to neutralize the German defenses, and the resulting casualties were high. By 1200 on D-Day, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, commander of the First U.S. Army (FUSA), was almost ready to accept defeat in the battle for Omaha Beach and to shift follow-on forces to other beaches.2 The fire-support plan for the Normandy invasion failed at Omaha Beach.3
The inability of the Navy and Army Air Forces to pave the way for the assaulting troops brought sharp criticism.4 The lessons of Dieppe, Tarawa, Sicily, and other hard-fought amphibious campaigns appeared to have been forgotten by the planners of the Normandy invasion. These criticisms later were refuted by professional soldiers, sailors, and historians to the satisfaction of most observers.5 Ansel's work, U.S. Marine Corps amphibious doctrine, and the FUSA's own modified amphibious doctrine, however, show conclusively that the planners of the Normandy invasion violated their own doctrine, and by doing so rejected the cumulative body of knowledge gained in amphibious warfare since the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. The mission to reduce German defenses with bombs and naval gunfire failed at Omaha Beach because the operational commanders opted to employ new, untested procedures that were flawed in too many ways.6 Had the German defenses at the other beaches been of the quality and character of those at Omaha, the weaknesses in Allied planning and doctrine would have been revealed on these beaches also, making the cost of taking them substantially higher and the possibility of complete failure more likely.7 What caused the Allied operational commanders to disregard tried and tested practices and seek new solutions to old problems? What was the joint, combined doctrine for the conduct of the subsidiary mission of beach preparation, and how were the methods and techniques employed at Normandy violations of those practices?
Ansel's study of the Dardanelles Campaign of World War I led him to conclude that "the attacks succeeded in almost the same proportion as the naval artillery support allotted; that is, success followed the strongest artillery." Ansel's conclusions and method of analysis, with modifications for air power, were still valid in World War II for a daylight assault against a defended beach. The problem was to determine the types and amount of naval gunfire necessary for soldiers to overcome a given defense. The doctrinal approach of daylight assault based on firepower was not at issue.8 The problem was making firepower-based assaults work by deploying sufficient numbers of forces and by employing naval gunfire more effectively. Ansel concluded that assault landings adequately supported by naval gunfire could and did succeed, which was consistent with the thinking of other Navy and Marine Corps officers who were developing the amphibious doctrine that would be employed in the Pacific. It was this type of thinking that formed the basis for the Navy and Marine Corps' Tentative Manual for Landing Operations, first published in 1934.
Ansel considered a number of factors to determine the type and amount of naval gunfire required to do a particular job. He studied terrain, the extent and character of beach defenses, the numerical strength of the defenders, the types of technology employed in the defense, and the acumen of the commander conducting the defense. Based on these and other factors, Ansel put together a table to compare and assess the strength of naval gunfire employed against four separate beaches, each with varying strengths and weaknesses. He observed:
Set down in this fashion some arresting facts come to light. We see, for instance, that the strongest effort [at Gallipoli], though directed at the strongest position, was furnished the weakest artillery support. . . . It seems incomprehensible that the main effort should have been launched with such paltry support.9
Sufficient, Close Power
The two major conclusions of Ansel's study were that battleships, cruisers, and destroyers in sufficient numbers could defeat land fortifications—the stronger the coastal defense the more naval assets required—and that the greatest effectiveness was achieved when warships stood in close to the shore. He noted that the British battleship Implacable provided the best naval gunfire support, and closed to within 500 yards of the beach.10 This was one of those lessons that had to be relearned in each major theater in World War II. Nevertheless, Navy-Army European amphibious doctrine officially recognized the need for strong, concentrated fires in daylight amphibious assaults. FM 31-5, Landing Operations on Hostile Shores, the Army's version of the Navy and Marine Corps' amphibious doctrine FTP 167, stated:
Naval gunfire and combat aviation must be concentrated in support of landing. Even a relatively small number of enemy machine guns and light artillery pieces firing under favorable conditions have a devastating effect on units as they approach and land on the beach. Assault units will probably be unable to get ashore and advance against this fire unless adequately supported by ship fire and combat aviation.11
The question was, then: What quality, character, and volume of naval gunfire support did the U.S. Army in the European theater require of the U.S. Navy by doctrine?
In April 1944, Bradley's FUSA published Memorandum No. 3, the third edition of the Artillery Information Service Memorandum. It delineated the Army's thinking and doctrine for the employment of naval gunfire, as that thinking had evolved and developed in the years between 1942 and 1944. The first section of the memorandum explained why naval gunfire should accompany air support in amphibious operations:
Amphibious operations differ from normal land operations in that ground must be gained before field artillery can emplace and support infantry. Field artillery fire support, therefore, cannot be expected until at least H+2 hours. During this critical time, only two means of support are available; air bombardment and naval gunfire. Air bombardment will not be sufficient in quantity [nor would it be sufficiently accurate] to meet all the fire support requirements of the infantry. Naval gunfire is the only other source of fire support available. . . . Medium artillery in general support is necessary before the landing force will have sufficient fire power to be independent of naval gunfire. Therefore, naval gunfire will be employed as a minimum until D+1.12
The FUSA delineated a concept for amphibious operations that depended on fire support. It was an approach to war that took advantage of the vastly superior fire-support assets available to the United States in the form of ships and airplanes. To take full advantage of these resources that literally dictated the course of battle, the requirement was to conduct operations during daylight to achieve the degree of destruction believed to be necessary.
The FUSA believed that an invasion force would require the following naval assets.
The requirements of gunfire support . . . may be met in most situations by the assignment of the following gunfire supporting ships to each assault regiment.
a. One squadron of modern destroyers (8 or 9 ships).
b. Two 10,000-ton light cruisers.
c. One battleship or heavy cruiser.13
These requirements were based on the capabilities of a supporting ship to neutralize 100 square yards and to provide certain types of support. Hence, the required number of naval gunfire support ships was a function of the size of the assault and the capabilities of particular vessels. The assets noted above were considered the minimum necessary for an assault conducted with a single regimental combat team. Thus, for the two regimental combat teams landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day, there should have been at a minimum two squadrons of destroyers (16 to 18), four light cruisers, and two battleships. At Omaha Beach, the 1st Infantry Division assaulted with roughly half of the naval gunfire support considered necessary by doctrine. At Utah Beach, only one regimental combat team made the initial assault.
Facing Superior Defenses
Using Ansel's methodology—that is, comparing the strength of the defenses at Omaha Beach and Utah Beach in terms of difficulty by assessing defensive fortifications, minefields and obstacles, the size and capabilities of the defending forces, and terrain—it was obvious that the defenses at Omaha Beach were far superior to those at Utah Beach.14 Even with the absence of accurate intelligence on the size of the enemy forces employed at Omaha, it was evident to U.S. leaders that Omaha Beach was a much tougher assignment. This may explain Bradley's insistence upon deploying a combat-experienced division at Omaha Beach while he was willing to risk employing a "green," untested division, the 4th Infantry Division, at Utah Beach.15 Nevertheless, the decision on the allocation of naval gunfire support seems to have been based on the principle of equal distribution of resources, as opposed to the relative combat power of the enemy at the two locations [see table, opposite page].16
Planners made an effort to divide the available naval gunfire assets equally between the two corps, with Omaha slightly favored in battleships and destroyers. Samuel Eliot Morison made no effort in his work, The Invasion of France and Germany, to compare the relative activity of the two bombardment groups on D-Day. His narrative of the battle for Omaha Beach, however, indicates that the destroyers were an integral part of the battle, serving as both tanks and artillery, moving in as close as 800 yards to the shore to engage targets with direct fire. The ammunition expenditure is an indicator of the role that destroyers played at Omaha Beach; for example, the Carmick (DD-493) expended 1,127 rounds; the McCook (DD-496), 975; the Emmons (DD-457), 767; and the Thompson (DD-627), 638. The role played by destroyers at Utah was not nearly as crucial to the success of the landing. Morison's narrative left out the majority of the ships employed at Utah, and those he did note fired fewer rounds by as much as half as several destroyers at Omaha.
Consider the words of Rear Admiral John L. Hall, the Commander of Amphibious Force 'O' that put the lst Infantry Division ashore at Omaha, and a veteran of the landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. Hall wrote: I was at a conference in London with Admiral [Ernest J.] King's chief of staff, Admiral Cook, and two or three other American flag officers. I banged my fist on the table, and said, 'It's a crime to send me on the biggest amphibious attack in history with such inadequate [naval gunfire] support, I wanted to give my troops the proper support. I fought like hell to do it. And I got them. Thank God I did.17
Hall received only part of what he believed was necessary, and went into battle believing his naval gunfire forces were "inadequate."18
Initially, Bradley too was dissatisfied with the allocation of naval gunfire support ships. Bradley, however, while not overly impressed, at least was satisfied with the final allocation, even though it was considerably less than what Army doctrine told him was necessary. Later Bradley wrote: "I was shaken to find that we had gone against Omaha with so thin a margin of safety. At the time of sailing we thought ourselves cushioned against such reversals as these."19
The Allied plan for winning the battle of the beaches was based on firepower. Every other aspect of the landing was sacrificed to firepower. The vast majority of the firepower on which Allies depended was to be delivered by the Army Air Forces.20 The Air Forces were required to conduct pinpoint bombing, flying above the clouds, using an unproven, experimental radar system.21 This mission had never been conducted before. The Air Forces did not train for the mission and thus did not develop effective procedures for employing an instrument designed to conduct strategic, high-altitude, area bombing in close tactical support of troops on the ground. This was also a mission Air Forces leaders would have preferred not to perform.22 The mission was a failure. And as a consequence, the Allied plan to win the battle for Normandy's Omaha Beach with firepower failed.
Fewer Resources Allocated
The naval forces at Normandy lacked the time and resources necessary to destroy or neutralize enemy defenses at Omaha Beach. The Navy had less than 40 minutes of daylight in the U.S. sector to neutralize the German defenses. The minimum required support ships per regimental combat team as determined by the FUSA estimate were not deployed at Omaha Beach. And the forces available were divided almost equally between Omaha and Utah. Thus, at Normandy the United States repeated mistakes made in the distribution of limited force made by the British at Gallipoli.
Compare the number of naval gunfire support ships employed at Omaha Beach with those employed at an atoll in the Central Pacific. For the Flintlock Operation in the Marshall Islands, 30 ships fired eight scheduled bombardments, some ships firing several exercises.23 At Namur, the 4th Marine Division was supported by 6 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers.24 At Kwajalein Island, the 7th Infantry Division was supported by 7 battleships, 3 heavy cruisers, and 18 destroyers.25 The resources and time allocated and the procedures instituted by the Navy in the Pacific ensured the destruction, not simply the neutralization, of the water's-edge defense. At Normandy, the Navy did not have two days to destroy the target area, because it was believed that some degree of surprise was essential to the success of the operation; nevertheless, the time and resources allocated were paltry in comparison to those employed at Namur and Kwajalein. They also were paltry by the standards established in Army doctrine and by the estimate of one of the Navy's most experienced commanders in amphibious operations and the man most directly responsible for the conduct of the amphibious battle at Omaha Beach—Admiral Hall.
While Bradley noted his preference for naval gunfire over heavy bombers, he and Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery put into effect a plan based primarily on air power.26 At Normandy, the Navy and its gunfire—which was the most accurate, direct, and efficient means of destroying the enemy's coastal defense—were not the primary means of destruction. The U.S. Eighth Air Force was the principal means for the neutralization of the German defenses at Normandy by the design of the Allied operational commanders, with the concurrence of the U.S. Navy (preoccupied with the war in the Pacific), and the acquiescence of the Army Air Forces (too busy conducting the strategic bombing campaign to train for the beach preparation mission). The presence of the awesome potential combat power of the U.S. daylight strategic bombers influenced Allied amphibious doctrine and distorted Montgomery's and Bradley's vision of the conduct of amphibious operations.27 Montgomery and Bradley rested their hopes on means that were untried. They were indeed optimistic.28
World War II journalist and author Hanson Baldwin wrote, "Pacific amphibious technique is more advanced than that used in the invasion of France."29 It is more accurate to state that the Allied leaders and planners of the Normandy invasion did not display the level of professionalism expected this late in the war. For the Normandy invasion, the Allied commanders ignored tested doctrine and thus ignored the cumulative body of knowledge in amphibious operations gained through hard-fought battles in North Africa, Sicily, and Tarawa. Montgomery and Bradley used an unproved means to deliver the vast majority of the combat power needed to overcome the defense. They failed to trouble-shoot their primary plan—air power—and to fully a back-up plan—naval gunfire, and so, the Allied plan failed at the most heavily defended beach.30 Victory at Omaha Beach had to be improvised by the soldiers of the lst and 29th Infantry Divisions and the sailors of the U.S. Navy destroyers who brought their ships in so close they were able to function as tanks and artillery. The cost of this improvisation was high.
1. LT Walter C. Ansel, U.S. Navy, "Naval Gunfire in Support of Landings: Lessons from Gallipoli," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July 1932), vol. 58, no. 353, p. 1001.
2. Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier's Story (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1951), p. 271.
3. U.S. Army, First United States Army (FUSA), Report of Operation, 20 October 1943-1 August 1944, GEN Omar N. Bradley, p. 41. The Bradley Papers, Main Library, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY. Bradley's report stated: "Naval gunfire and drenching bombardment from the air had not been able to smother opposition, and the troops going ashore suffered numerous casualties." See also Gordon A. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, United States Army in World War II, The European Theater of Operation (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1951), pp. 313, 315.
4. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Invasion of France and Germany 1944-1945 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1957). p. 152; and Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, The Army Air Force in World War, vol. 3, Europe: Argument to V-E Day January 1944 to May 1945 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1951), p. 192.
5. Morison, p. 152. Morison wrote: "The answer (we repeat) is the Allies were invading a continent where the enemy had immense capabilities for reinforcement and counterattack. . . . Even a complete pulverizing of the Atlantic Wall at Omaha would have availed us nothing, if the German command had been given 24 hours' notice to move up reserves for counterattack." See also Jeter A. Isley and Philip A. Crowl, The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War: Its Theory, and Its Practice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 588.
6. U.S. Army, U.S. Assault Training Center, European Theater of Operation, "Conference on Landing Assault, 24 May-23 June 1943," pp. Thompson 2 and Case 2. D 756.3.C66, 1943, v. 2, Military History Institute (MHI), Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
7. If the German defense in the West had been constructed and fought by Generals Erich F. Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg, the Normandy invasion would have failed. While German Blitzkrieg doctrine greatly advanced the conduct of offensive operations, the Wehrmacht forgot the hard-learned lessons of World War I in defensive operations. The quality and character of the German defense at Normandy is one of the significant, if not the most significant, factors in explaining Allied success.
8. In all previous landings in the Mediterranean theaters—North Africa, Sicily, and Italy—the Anglo-American alliance had conducted night landings depending on surprise and stealth against poorly defended sectors of coast to get ashore. This was British amphibious warfare doctrine. U.S. amphibious warfare doctrine as practiced by the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy in the Central Pacific was based on daylight assaults. American doctrine depended on mass and firepower. After the hard-fought battle for Tarawa (November 1943), U.S. amphibious practices and techniques were refined and used throughout the war.
9. Ansel, p. 1005.
10. Ansel, p. 1008.
11. U.S. Army, FM 31-5, Landing Operations on Hostile Shores (Washington, DC: War Department, June 1941), p. 97. In the opening pages, the following was noted: "This manual is based to a large extent on Landing Operations Doctrine, U.S. Navy, 1938."
12. U.S. Army, FUSA, Memorandum No. 3, Artillery Information Service (AIS), April 1944, RG 407, File 101-16.0-ART, National Record Center, Archives II, College Park, Maryland.
13. U.S. Army, FUSA, AIS, p. 8.
14. Morison, p. 115. Of the German defense at Omaha Beach, Morison wrote: "Altogether, the Germans had provided the best imitation of hell for an invading force the American troops had encountered anywhere. Even the Japanese defense of Iwo Jima, Tarawa, and Peleliu are not to be compared with these."
15. Bradley, p. 272. Bradley wrote: "Had a less experienced division than the 1st Infantry stumbled into this crack resistance, it might easily have been thrown back into the Channel. Unjust though it was, my choice of the 1st to spearhead the invasion probably saved us Omaha Beach and a catastrophe on the landing."
16. Morison, pp. 334-336, 143-149. See also U.S. Army, FUSA, ROO, Annex 12, Prearranged Air and Naval Bombardment Plan, p. 56.
17. John Lesslie Hall, "The Reminiscences of John Lesslie Hall Jr." Naval History Project, Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, 1964, p. 131. Unpublished manuscript, Naval Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard.
18. Hall, p. 178. Hall stated: "I remember telling General Bradley that I wasn't getting sufficient naval gunfire support, and telling Admiral Kirk [commander of the U.S. naval task force], but we attacked in Normandy with pretty much of a shoe string naval force, in the most important attack in the history of the United States, in my opinion."
19. Bradley, p. 271.
20. Craven and Cate, p. 143. John E. Fagg wrote: "In the last half hour before the actual landing it would be desirable, General Montgomery's headquarters estimated, to place 7,800 tons of explosive on the shore [on a coastline 50 miles long]. Of this amount only 2,500 tons could be delivered by naval guns and 500 tons by medium bombers. Thus, it fell to the day-flying heavies [American B-17s and B-24s] of the Eighth Air Force to attack with 4,800 tons, and this duty made it necessary to plan on using the record number of 1,200 heavy bombers."
21. Craven and Cate, pp. 15-20. See Arthur B. Ferguson, "Winter Bombing." The technology did not exist in June 1944 to conduct the mission required of the Air Force—the capability to conduct precision bombing missions flying above the clouds. While it was possible to destroy or neutralize area targets with the H2X radar system, it was not possible to consistently destroy a point target with this system.
22. Craven and Cate, p. 143. Fagg wrote: "Much skepticism prevailed in advance as to the value of this last-minute bombardment, and contrary to a common belief it was the air men who held the most conservative views. Ground force commanders tended to overestimate the effects of bomb tonnage on casemated enemy batteries, strongpoints, and the entire hideous apparatus of beach obstacles."
23. U.S. Navy, U.S. Fleet, Headquarters of the Commander in Chief, Memorandum, Subject: Distribution of Naval Gun Fire Officer, Headquarters V Amphibious Corps, Naval Gunfire Report on the Marshalls Operation, 1 March 1944, p. 3. See also pp. 6, 7, and 12, RG 407, File 6-12.060/45 and 6-12.0703/44, NRC Archives II, College Park, Maryland.
24. Every one of the battleships at Namur was more capable than those deployed at Normandy. The North Carolina (BB-55), Alabama (BB-60), and South Dakota (BB-57) were new ships.
25. U.S. Navy, U.S. Fleet, Memorandum, Subject: Distribution of Naval Gun Fire Officer, p. 3-20, and Appendix "A," pp. 1-5. The Washington (BB-56), Indiana (BB-58), and Massachusetts (BB-59) were new ships.
26. Bradley, A Soldier's Story, pp. 253. 254. Bradley wrote: "I would gladly have swapped a dozen B-17s for each 12-inch gun I could wrangle."
27. GEN H. S. Swell, British Army, "Montgomery's Tactics," Military Review (August 1945), p. 128. Swell wrote: "The two factors which Montgomery rates as having the most important bearing on battle in particular are (1) use of air power and (2) administration. Montgomery's method for the employment of the air force operating with his army has been to concentrate its full force on selected targets." Air power offered Montgomery a way to avoid the carnage he experienced in World War I. His experiences in World War I, and a faith in air power, caused him to overlook established, tested operational practices.
28. Joseph Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1989), pp. 61 and 63. Balkoski noted that "They [the 116th RCT of the 29th ID that was attached to the 1st ID for the assault at Omaha Beach] were assured that the Germans on the beach would be blasted with bombs and naval gunfire prior to landing . . . Bradley emphasized that the 116th was not alone; the Navy and Army Air Force, he said, would prepare the way. He concluded with a prediction that the men would remember: "you men would consider yourselves lucky. You are going to have ringside seats for the greatest show on Earth.'" See also Joseph Balkoski and Arthur Plaut, The 115th Infantry Regiment in World War II (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1948), p. 14. Balkoski and Plaut noted: "It came as quite a shock to many when, just prior to going ashore, the men assembled on the decks of the landing craft and heard that they might have to land fighting. Briefing had stressed the fact that the landing itself would be relatively simple; that the troops would merely walk ashore, make for the high ground, and then walk until the objective was reached."
29. Hanson Baldwin, "Amphibious Aspects of the Normandy Invasion," Marine Corps Gazette (December 1944), p. 36. See also Baldwin's book, Battles Lost and Won: Great Campaigns of World War II (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 283; and Charles H. Corlett, Cowboy Pete: The Autobiography of Major General Charles H. Corlett (Santa Fe, NM: Sleeping Fox, 1974), pp. 88 and 89.
30. During Operation Cobra, the break-out at St. Lo, the Air Force again proved incapable of hitting the target area, and in the process of trying, destroyed half of a U.S. Army division.