Normandy landings secret

[Guest]

There are many outstanding features of the Normandy Landings.

But one that I just cannot get my head around. It is remarkable both from the Allies and the German side.

The secret was kept but there for the looking. Where were the allies going to land.

Despite all the subterfuge by the Allies the Germans did not twig it. The "underworld" had rounded up the German spies, all the cheeky build up of full size models in East Anglia, the spoof radio network again in the East Anglia region. Then the window dropped in the channel. Yet they did not see through that.

Even with all this and more I still cannot understand how the Germans could not have twigged.

As for Generals being away form their posts during this period beggars belief of the mighty German Military Machine.

Finally for top ranking officers below General to see 8000 ships on the horizon and not to believe and their seniors not to believe the reports that Normandy was the one and only threat and for days after is just extraordinary.

I would imagine that Eisenhower Montgomery must have had fleeting thoughts that they were falling into one big trap laid for them.

Laurie

[monica]

very interesting points you have dug up Laurie,

and it dose make you think way they did not act on what was being said on radio over in Anglia,

if im right i think there was a movie about the same thing, I cannot remember what it was called , but it was about giving false info to the Germans about D-Day

i maybe wrong

[Guest]

Actually Monica the radio stuff transmitted in East Anglia was to fool the Germans into thinking that the Calais area of France was to be the landing area. But it was just a collection of signallers who were set up to work 24 hours a day sending out messages which were just spoof stuff.

If this did fool the Germans I am surprised they did not see through it. The Germans themselves knew that messages, sent from a particular area where operations were going to be held, informed the enemy and took care themselves not to fall into that trap. These were messages from Company, Division and downwards. Not the strategic messages from top level.

Laurie

[Guest]

The German High Command fully expected an invasion of France, the big question was 'where '?

Although some correctly identified Normandy as the place, this went against military logic. An attack across the narrowest section of the Channel towards the Pas de Calais seemed the most likely.

Add to that Hitlers firm belief that Calais would be the site of the invasion

& it becomes a lot easier to understand. Hitler ruled the OKW with an iron fist & allowed for no disagreement with his ' strategy '.

Even after the landings were well underway, D+3, Hitler still believed they were a diversionary attack. Because of this, he held back key German units such as the Panzer Lehr, fearing a bigger assault in Calais.

By the time he was finally convinced that Normandy was the actual invasion, the Allies had enough strength to resist the German counterattack.

Operation Fortitude, that convinced the Germans that Patton's 3rd army was stationed in East Anglia was a triumph of deception. By that stage of the war, German counter intelligence wasn't

the force it had been years earlier.

Stalin had the same blind spot after the commencement of Barbarossa, ignoring all intelligence that indicated a German attack - much of the poor Russian defense was because days after the attack, Stalin still didn't believe that Hitler had gone back on his word.

We believe what we want to believe & disregard the rest!

[Guest]

By the way, Fortitude was a lot more than a bunch of signalling false messages!

Roads were widened, bridges altered, blow-up tanks & vehicles were not only put out in fields, but regularly moved around.

Even the signals were exactly what anyone would have expected to hear from an army unit. They were scripted with meticulous care.

Often overlooked, Fortitude was an amazing operation & pivotal to the success of the D Day landings.

[Guest]

After the commando raids in the Calais area earlier in the war the Germans were left with this thought. That is not surprising. The Germans were not the seafaring nation that Britain was and were not aware of what could be achieved.

Also other messages were given to the Germans. A great deal of the radar stations were knocked out all along the French coast to avoid Normandy being singled out.

Laurie

[stona]

It was a concerted and organised campaign of disinformation. Several aspects have been mentioned above but there were many, many more. Even the pre-invasion bombing campaign was carefully planned to at best convince the Germans the Pas de Calais would be the crossing and at worse to leave them guessing.

We live in an age when information can circle the globe at the speed of light and in which satellite reconnaissance, virtually in real time, is taken for granted. This was not the case in the 1940s.

As for some senior officers being otherwise engaged, the German weather forecasts were not as good as those of the allies. It was touch and go for the allies. The Germans, who presumably did not have the same access to the meteorological data from the RAF's flights as we did, believed it was not possible. The Germans had virtually no experience in amphibious operations (apart from capturing intact ports) and consequently little understanding of the allies capabilities in this field, another reason that the Pas de Calais, in fair weather, seemed like the only option to them.

Once someone, or an organisation's, mind has been made up there is a tendency to interpret consequent information in a way that supports the original decision and to discount clues which might lead to a contrary position. The German High Command was guilty of this. It wasn't the only one to make this mistake in WW2 or other conflicts before and since.

Even today, in our digital world,raw intelligence is useless without interpretation. If those doing the interpretation have already, even subconsciously, formed an opinion or expectation, this aspect can become fatally flawed.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Actually my interest was how the Germans missed it missed all the signals or received them but !!!!!!!!

One of their major problems was their intelligence service although poor under Admiral Canaris it was at least a line to the OKW and to Hitler and of some use.

But Hitler decided Canaris must go in early 1944 including not only Canaris but the whole of the Abwehr (Secret Service). This left a vast empty space of an intelligence service. Hitler appointed a Policeman Schelenburg. As is the way police and military do not mix well and so the Military suffered in the intelligence game. Plus a new organisation to gather intelligence alone was enough but to also dissimulate the intrigues of the Allies in East Anglia was probably beyond their capabilities in the 12 weeks or so under Schelenburg.

A further fact that enters the fray. The attempted assassination of Hitler. Although the act was not until July 1944, after the Normandy Landings, many senior offices in the field and in the strategic areas were very busy plotting. With part of their minds on that and the other on their duty???? were they in a frame of mind to be highly interested in what was happening militarily.

Very fascinating.

Laurie

[eddiesolo]

Interesting thread chaps.

Si

[Guest]

After the raid on Dieppe Raid of August 1942 the Allied's understood that there was a lot of work to be done before a full scale invasion could go ahead.

The Germans had a large job to do as well balancing there force's between the west and east and having such a large frontier to defend in the west didn't help.

The Allied's had given up the idea of an invasion zone with a port included in the area but the Germans still thought that this would have to be a key feature for an invasion zone calais would have looked to the Germans as the best place for the invasion to take place due to the port and the short distance to travel.

Operation fortitude was a massive part of the invasion no fortitude probably no invasion. The Operation had many parts from the false signals and the blown up tanks and planes to the invention of Pattons 3rd army but two things that stick out the most to me that not many people think about are the turning of 2 key German agents very early in the war and the fact that the Italian campaign bogged down so many of the Germans forces.

Has anyone read a book called agent zigzag? It tell's the tale of Eddie Chapman the only British born person to win the Knights Cross and Joan Pujol Garcia (Code-name Garbo) the only person in the war to receive a Knights Cross and MBE and How they gain so much trust with German intelligence that they believed every line they were feed from these to agents even when the troops were advancing off the beaches and in to the the towns and villages of normandy Garbo was transmitting to his German handlers that it was all a big faint and the the real invasion would be in calais area by the fictitious Patton's 3rd army this was back up by Chapman and this is why Hitler held some of his better and larger forces back.

The other is the fact that without Operation torch (invasion of North Africa) all the way up to the Italian campaign then D-Day would have been further off. Each of these steps built up the allied force is in man power tactics and training plus included the the development of better equipment to take on the task The Italian campaign bogged down a lot of the German troops at the time of the invasion of France. just think if the Italian campaign had gone better for the Allied force then there may never have had to be a D-Day?

For the Invasion to take place was a massive action of lot's of people and different key factors all doing a massive job and getting them right more then not.

[Guest]

A fact. Eddie Chapman was serving a jail sentence in a Jersey Prison. After reading his story I did not know which parts to believe. He was a slippery as an eel. Escaped from Jersey Prison and was caught soon after he saw the police arrive at a hotel at which he was dining his girl friend in Jersey an island only 9 by 5 miles in size. What a cheek ?

Not sure how much the Germans believed or used him for other purposes. He had dealings with Admiral Canaris and as Hitler and the other bods around him did not rate Canaris how much was gleaned from Chapman and used will I suspect never be known.

Laurie

[Guest]

Yeah i got that to he was a bit of a rogue even before he was a spy but for some reason Hitler or someone high up believe him and Garbo or they wouldn't have used each other to verify what each other were saying?

I think that one of the big reasons the Germans missed it was down to the tiny details of operation fortitude a lot of hard work from the allies and the fact that a lot of the fight had gone out of the German army by this point.

[stona]

Paul German intelligence was very poor in 1944, in fact it was never really good at any time!

As for the possibility of the need for 'Overlord' being negated by a more successful campaign in the Mediterranean/Italy, I don't buy it. It might seem to make military sense but warfare is famously and extension of politics and the idea completely ignores the political pressure for a second front across the Channel. The Soviets had been pressing for this in 1942, as early as the Second Moscow Conference, and had become evermore raucous in support of their demands. Stalin was not happy with the Anglo-American deals done at Casablanca, though he had not attended.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Steve

Yeah I understand the pressure that Stalin put on the rest and his idea that he thought he was fighting the Germans on there own. but the second front didn't have to come through France? If the Allies had swept the Germans out of Italy completely before 1944 then why could the allies not have pushed on to Germany from Italy?

The Intelligence service for German in 1944 may have been poor but there must have been an Intelligence and it was well and truly duped buy Fortitude.

[stona]

If the Allies had swept the Germans out of Italy completely before 1944 then why could the allies not have pushed on to Germany from Italy?The Intelligence service for German in 1944 may have been poor but there must have been an Intelligence and it was well and truly duped buy Fortitude.

And Swiss neutrality would not be violated.

Totally agree, they were well and truly duped by Fortitude and a host of other operations.

Cheers

Steve