Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "Why Was Normandy Selected For D-Day?" video.
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@hallambaker This is totally false. The big leaker was the Baron -- Hitler spilled the beans to him, time and time again. The Baron never visited the Atlantic Wall. He didn't have to.
Normandy was picked RIGHT FROM THE FIRST. German defenses were not even a consideration. The decision for Normandy was made in 1942. Yup. BTW, the NSA didn't even exist during WWII. The NSA, over the years, has spewed countless false histories to suit itself.
It's with no small irony that Purple -- a Japanese diplomatic code -- was the number one strategic intelligence source for what was going to happen in Europe -- and was of no utility at all in prosecuting the Pacific Campaign. There was nothing to intercept on Diplomatic circuits after Pearl Harbor.
BTW, the NSA still keeps up the lie that the US was not able to read JN25 during Pearl. The truth is that BOTH the UK and US were reading Japanese naval codes ever since the death of the prior emperor in 1923. Read Nave's autobiographical story. HE was the guy who broke the IJN code -- as a young officer serving with the IJN in 1923.
What the IJN had done was to send the exact same plain text to every major combatant ship in the fleet -- coded every which way. That was an epic gaff for the ages. Any time the enemy has 100 copies of encrypted text that's the exact same message -- you've destroyed your key-system. That breakthrough was labelled JN01 -- get it? The US and UK were tracking every single permutation of the IJN cypher scheme right through JN24 -- actually more than one per year. EVERY time the IJN was about to conduct MAJOR aggression, the naval code was changed. Such a change occurred in the week prior to Pearl Harbor. Hint, hint, hint. To change their code, the IJN would FLY copies out to every station and ship -- with the extreme outposts being a real pain. Because of this, the Japanese ALWAYS had to double send their plain text in the old cypher and the new one. This ruined their secrecy right from the start. This is why the NSA is lying about not being able to read JN25 -- for the Japanese were still sending the same exact plain text messages out in JN24 & JN25.
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Since Germany expect Calais -- Calais was a non-starter.
Western France -- which had ports designed for WWI's American Army -- was deemed absurd -- no air coverage at all. Further, Western France has the same problem as Torch: Big Waves. You can go to YouTube and see videos of just how big the waves can get. Further, the rail net out west had been 'harvested' by the Nazis for rails, switches, ties and everything else. It didn't have industry that the Nazis needed for its war effort. So Western France would add a full year to WWII -- and would entail fighting Nazi Germany mostly in France, to. boot.
Brittany was logistically useless. Not even worth talking about.
Normandy was the dream location -- straight from the first. No other zone was ever seriously considered -- and staggering efforts were launched to convince the Nazis that a zone this obvious was not on the Allied list. Amazingly, it worked, even though many a Kraut spotted something so obvious.
FYI, Calais had a staggering mine-belt beyond anything seen at Normandy. Even in 1940, the RN had to zig-zag all over the Channel to get past its own minefields.
Winnie fought bitterly against invading Southern France. As ever, Winnie was a military disaster. Dragoon was a blow-out success -- and more significant to the Break Out than historians generally credit. 6th Army Group actually had to bail out 12th Army Group -- as Bradley had failed to order enough supplies. His entire staff had Victory Disease. He only hints around about this fiasco in his 2nd War Diary.
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@theodoresmith5272 Yet the US Army largely ignored the Pacific lessons... especially from the USMC. The ONLY man to bring Pacific experience to Europe was Lightning Joe Collins -- commanding VII Corps at Utah. In the invasion, Bradley stayed out of Collins's way. Bradley concentrated on Omaha and Gerow, V Corps commander.
FYI, the 29th Infantry Division was ENTIRELY rebuilt by Bradley in the two-months prior to D-Day. Yup! He sent every man and officer in that outfit through severe physical training. Only the highest scorers could stay in the division. Bradley went through ALL of the troops in England to find the cream of the cream of the cream. Every man sent on D-Day -- in that division -- was in the top 1.5% of physicality. No-one wore glasses! No-one was over-weight, under-weight, slow, too short, too tall -- right on down the line. This super-selection did not happen within any other regular infantry outfit. In effect, the 29th was an entire division of Rangers and officer candidates. The loss of so many elite troops from the other Normandy infantry divisions had a very negative combat result for them.
My father went to Omaha, 6-6-1944 as a member of the USAAF... kind of. His outfit took such horrific casualties that the US Army has written it out of history. You've never heard of it. It was the 9125st transportation battalion. Its label is both revealing and misleading.
The "9" refers to the 9th Tactical Air Force. The "1" refers to the US 1st Army. This custom battalion was filled with ex-USAAF cadets and ground staffers -- and a smattering of veteran US Army engineers. Its role on D-Day was to land at 10AM and establish the FIRST USAAF air strip in France -- right atop Omaha's bluff and parallel to Highway 13. The strip was for medical evacuations -- and its secondary role was emergency fighter landings.
The 9125st took the HIGHEST percentage of fatalities of ANY D-Day unit. It was shattered so badly that its mission was delayed until the 9th of June, IIRC. Before the BreakOut the Omaha air strip was re-numbered from #1 to #19. So if you pull up a history, that's the number to look for. #1 strip was located right next to today's burial site for Germans, being west of it.
The total overhaul of the 29th Infantry Division and the disaster of the 9125st have been largely written out of history.
Lastly, the term "transportation" is entirely misleading -- and deliberately so. It was a battalion totally dedicated to BUILDING AIR STRIPS -- one after the other. It did lend its trucks to the Red Ball Express, but trucking was strictly a secondary role for it. The closest to it would be the Pacific SeaBees.
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@theodoresmith5272 The 9125st Transportation Battalion did receive a citation for duties performed in an outstanding manner. This was mild consideration for an out fit that was almost annihilated on D-Day -- from German acoustic-magnetic mines. Two of them!
For some crazy reason, my Father couldn't stay in his bunk and just HAD to pace the deck that morning. When the first mine detonated the ship was so shallow that it touched bottom -- in a rising tide. When the second mine exploded, my Father's eyes were upon its effects.
The human mind goes into ultra-high gear when its existence is in doubt. And so it was with my Father. He actually saw the top deck's plates buckle skyward and ripple towards him. The steel wave threw him some twenty-feet into the air! He came down pretty hard -- but without serious injury. A very lucky landing. He'd forgotten his Mae West -- so with great alarm he raced to go get it from down below. However, he was going down the "UP" stairs as the entire body of men below rose to find breathable air. The sergeant he ran into, just threw him bodily back onto the deck.(!) When things calmed down just a bit -- as in the hold was only filled with the wounded and dead, my Father was able to get to his bunk -- what was left of it. All of his pals were dead where they slept. His Mae West was missing -- but plenty of bloody Mae Wests were to hand. For the rest of D-Day all that he did was assist the wounded and gather up body parts. He never did find the body to go with one head. The trooper had spoken with my Father only 30-seconds before the blast blew his head off. (That really freaked him out.)
What had happened is that the US Army had discovered the latest twist in German mines: these puppies did NOT react to the first, second, third, etc. attempt at de-mining. They would let the Coast Guard's mine sweepers pass on by and not react to the intense magnetic field they were towing. ( The USCG used wooden boats -- can't all 'em ships -- to pull a conductor with an induced magnetic field to prematurely fire off mines. They also towed noise makers, too. The zone allocated to the 9125st was to the immediate WEST of the 29th Infantry Division -- Point du Hoc was yet further west. It HAD been swept and the USCG was sweeping until the depth was so shallow that they couldn't head South any more. The mines that hit the 9125st were an embarrassment to:
The Royal Navy
The US Navy
The USCG
The US Army
Each in turn was supposed to spot the threat. And believe me, they tried! The mines worked so well because they were a brand new technology of war.
BTW, this nasty scheme was so effective that the USN adopted it later on. It was used to mine Haiphong in 1972. The USSR broke the bad news to Hanoi: such mines are essentially un-sweepable. And the USN can re-seed them faster than you can clear them. So just give up, already. The port is dead. That's why there were no reports of sunken Soviet ships in 1972.
Shucks, no wonder the fiasco has dropped out of written history.
It's with extreme irony that troops tasked with the primary mercy mission of D-Day suffered the most.
BTW, the 9125st was supposed to land at 10AM because the 29th was supposed to have already seized the bluffs. But it hadn't! So not only were the boys sunk, they were still the Krauts could hose them with machine guns. This did not happen because the 29th was so much closer -- and plainly the primary threat to those gunners still alive. Within 30-minutes, the enemy pill boxes, nearest, went silent. The USN was bailing out the 29th. A destroyer commander was dis-obeying orders by bringing his ship in to point-blanc range and dosing each pill box with 5" (128mm) HE fires.
Yeah, there's another event written out of history -- actually US Army histories. USN histories don't overlook it at all. It still infuriates sailors that the Army never admits that the Navy saved their bacon.
And you might note that since the 9125st battalion was really a USAAF ground support battalion -- the USA doesn't have much ink for it, either! In most histories that even bring it up, it's still classified as an ARMY battalion.
Well, I guess that ON PAPER it was. There were no SeaBee battalions in Europe. These USAAF battalions were their equivalent -- almost. For all that they did was build air strips. Unlike the SeaBees, they did not engage in general construction. Unlike Pacific islands, Europe already had infrastructure to hand -- until the Nazis blew things up -- or we bombed things.
Without the Web would you ever know of such events? It's doubtful.
Statistically, the 9125st took about half as many casualties as the 29th Infantry Division -- and it was just a specialty, 'shock' battalion! It lost so much equipment that it's amazing that it even got the 1st air strip up and running by day three. BTW, once that strip was working it sure was in the NEWS. Fighter jocks were constantly bringing in cripples to it. One guy, Anderson, made the cover of Look magazine. His B-47 was a ball of fire right until it stopped. If you get lucky you can find the footage out there. PBS ran a full-hour special just on Anderson. He survived the war for many decades.
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@psoma_brufd Actually the 21st Panzer, which you are referring to, never really fought the British on D-Day. Its tank crews were so intimidated that they reached the shore, saw the British ships and men, and then freaked out -- and retreated without firing a shot. The real fighting started the following day.
Lost in all of the tales, EVERY Allied combatant was totally drained from riding the seas an EXTRA DAY through a storm. No-one was eating. Even drinking water was a chore. The sailors were used to such weather. The soldiers were NOT. On my father's ship no-one was eating at all. Their stomachs were tight with anxiety. Yours would be too.
Later, this or that general bitched and moaned that the boys left their landing craft, marched a bit, and then sat down. This behavior was entirely predictable. After so many, many sleepless hours, the body simply demands shut-eye when the pressure collapses to zero. Even coffee is no help. ( Indeed, the boys give every appearance of coming down off of a caffeine high. Again, totally predictable. )
My comments above referred to the CANADIANS not the British. But for both of them, the local German troops were so intimidated by the RN that they fled or surrendered THAT DAY -- only. June 7th was a whole different kettle of fish. From that point onward, the 21st Army Group faced virtually EVERY panzer division that Hitler sent to Normandy.
1SS, 12SS these were the two panzer divisions that needed Hitler's explicit approval... but NOT the others. Most tales have got this fact ALL WRONG.
9SS, 10SS, 21st, Panzer Lehr, all of the Tiger Battalions including the first King Tiger battalion, and a motley crew of sub-units and FLAK units all to stop Monty.
But all of that stuff was not there on D-Day. To repeat, the 21st Panzer -- essentially -- ran away on D-Day. The senior officers required to command multi-division counter-attacks were not in Normandy when it counted, nor were the reaction divisions. Rommel's grand tactic never got off the ground.
BTW, the RAF destroyed the HQ for the German panzers on 6-9-44. This is why no German counter-attacks of substance got off to such a late start.
While the British and Canadians were having fun, the Americans were grinding up the 17SS, a parachute regiment, the 352nd infantry division, and a slew of piecemeal reinforcements. The parachute troops were a real nightmare. They were, by far, the toughest soldiers that Hitler had... not the SS. So the US Army had to use its own parachute troops to root them out. It was brutal. The 82nd and 101st stayed in Normandy a full month longer than planned because of this fighting. By the end, the German parachute troops were so shredded that now THEY were demoralized. General Bradley had a standing order: German parachute troops were priority #1 and were to annihilated if at all possible. This became the fate of the entire German Second parachute division. No quarter was given. IIRC, it suffered 100% casualties -- and it was fighting in a fortress! Bradley brought in his 8" guns. A tank division, an infantry division -- and squadrons of P-47s to wipe it out. Patton conquered with Bradley's orders -- and wrote down the matter in his diary -- which survives today.
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@psoma_brufd You must be responding to some synthetic me. For your response is strangely un-connected to my posts, today, or at any time.
One thing I have noted is that the collective histories taught// published in each differing nation have created no small amount of friction. For in every case, they emphasize what happened from their point of view -- usually totally excluding all others. Even while it was unfolding, the US armed forces in England wondered what it took to get ink on the front pages of Fleet Street. They were telling of a wholly different war. Let's call it "Monty's War."
One slice out of the many: Mark Felton uploaded quite an expose on the trivial action that the British Army engaged in East of the Meuse river to thwart the German thrust. His source material had come from Fleet Street, no doubt. Well, it took Winnie to rebuke his own Press, pointing out that the recent campaign can only be described as an AMERICAN fight -- and that so say or imply that Britain was a factor in the fight is actually wrong. Monty did assume command of US 1st Army, but that did not make the fight a British one. BTW, Monty almost lost his job for his over-taking credit at the time. Yup. In the British histories, few ever mention that Monty came sooooo close to being canned.
Ike let it be known that it was not possible for him to work with Monty and so he'd have to resign. Winnie knew that FDR would have a FIT -- along with the ENTIRE American military establishment. Winne would HAVE TO can Monty. The Americans already had his replacement in mind: FM Alexander. To give you some idea of how un-real Monty's mind was -- he'd completely forgotten his own former boss! It took his own chief of staff to realize the peril and to draft a crow-eating letter so that Monty could climb back down. Monty came THAT close to being packed off to India and Burma. And the issue which would've done it was taking credit away from the Americans. With your post immediately above, we can say that YOU would've been shipped off to India-Burma, too. Re-read my posts -- then yours.
BTW, don't post while drinking.
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