ISBN 0-8078-2609-X
381 pages

Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction; photos; maps; diagrams; Epilogue; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index

   Another book about the Normandy landings? Another re-hash of the same old story? In the Introduction to his probing new book, Adrian Lewis immediately sets readers on notice that this is a different sort of book, and he'll be asking some tough questions of his own.

   Why here? And why this way? A direct infantry assault against a deliberate defense years in the making, in daylight, following a paltry thirty-minute bombardment appears to be a very costly way to take Omaha Beach. The attack had neither the advantage of darkness nor overwhelming firepower. To explain why the American assault on Omaha Beach received such meager fire support, Morison wrote:

   [T]he Allies were invading a continent where the enemy had immense capabilities for reinforcement and counterattack, not a small island cut off by sea power from sources of supply. They had to have tactical surprise, which a long pre-landing bombing or bombardment would have lost.... 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. We had to accept the risk of heavy casualties on the beaches to prevent far heavier ones on the plateau and among the hedgerows.

   One might ask, If tactical surprise was so important, why didn't the landing take place at night, under the cover of darkness? This would have limited the effects of enemy fire and facilitated achieving tactical surprise. To explain why the landing took place during the early-morning hours of daylight, historian Gordon Harrison, in the official history of the U.S. Army in World War II, wrote: "The assault was considered as a frontal attack which was unlikely even to have the advantage of tactical surprise.... The task of smashing through enemy beach defenses was to be facilitated as far as possible by naval fire support and air bombardment." In 1944, accurate engagement of targets from the air and sea required daylight. Harrison reinforced his argument by quoting Lieutenant General John T. Crocker, commander of the British I Corps: "The first essential...was the development of 'overwhelming fire support from all sources, air, naval, and support craft...to cover the final stage of the approach and to enable us to close the beaches. This required daylight.'" To this, one might respond, Was it possible to generate overwhelming firepower in less than thirty minutes? Morison did not believe it was. Didn't the U.S. Marines' experience at Tarawa in November 1943 prove that a three-hour bombing and bombardment was insufficient time to produce the quality of destruction necessary to quickly overcome a deliberate defense and limit casualties? Were the battles for the beaches at Normandy based on "tactical surprise," as Morison would have us believe, or on "overwhelming firepower," as Harrison would have us believe, or on some combination of the two doctrinal principles? And if some combination of the two was planned, on what experience was it based?
    The predominant experience in the Mediterranean theater had been in night landings based on tactical surprise, whereas the vast majority of amphibious operations in the Pacific were based on daylight assaults and overwhelming firepower. The plan for the Normandy invasion did not conform to the British practice of amphibious operations used in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, nor did it conform to the American practice of amphibious operations used at Tarawa, Kwajalein, Iwo Jima, and other Central Pacific islands. Was it possible to achieve both tactical surprise, which was predicated on no bombardment or a very brief bombardment, and overwhelming firepower, which was based on a sustained, methodical bombing and bombardment? Did Allied commanders Bernard Montgomery and Omar Bradley pursue mutually exclusive operational objectives? How did they plan to win the battles of the beaches?

   The author goes on to sketch the views of historians such as Wilmot, Weigley, and Hastings who have placed the blame for the debacle at Omaha squarely on a faulty tactical battle plan for that particular beach. "They have argued that it was a uniquely American 'predilection for direct assault' that produced the flawed tactical plan." Lewis, however, lists all the American commanders who opposed the plan and argued—unsuccessfully—to change it. In addition, the flawed plan was not unique to Omaha.

   The operational plan for the [entire] Normandy invasion, which was based on a new, hybrid doctrine, was deeply flawed in numerous ways. If the British and Canadian forces at Sword, Juno, and Gold Beaches and the American forces at Utah Beach had fought German forces of the quality and quantity of those at Omaha Beach on similar terrain, they too would have suffered heavy casualties and faced the prospect of defeat.

   How all this came to pass, and why, provides much meat for Lewis. He first offers an outline of the battle at Omaha and then a thorough analysis of the development of amphibious doctrine, the Allied invasion strategy, and the planning, down to Regimental Combat Team level, that brought about the battle, taking in turn the views, policies, and plans of COSSAC (the original staff of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Allied Commander), Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bernard Montgomery, Omar Bradley, and V Corps commander Leonard T. Gerow.
   The author's outline of the battle on Omaha beach is short but cogent. To begin with, Lewis shows how landing craft were loaded to maximize efficient use of space, but doing so completely destroyed the unit integrity that many senior officers, such as General Clarence Huebner, considered vital for success. The author offers other nuggets as he reviews the battle in about thirteen pithy pages. He then begins comparing British and American amphibious doctrine, noting in particular the Yanks' overwhelming reliance on firepower.

   After Tarawa, the role of naval gunfire and air support increased throughout the war. From the preliminary bombardment—which could last up to ten days—the Marine Corps came to expect the following damage:
   a. Destruction of coast-defense installations.
   b. Destruction of all weapons which can bring direct fire upon the beaches or transport areas.
   c. Destruction of enemy means of air defense (so that our own air strikes may go in unimpeded).
   d. Destruction of fortifications which might obstruct or delay landing (such as pillboxes, bunkers and blockhouses on or near the beaches).
   e. Stripping of camouflage, sand and vegetation in all critical areas in the immediate beachhead.
   This was an incredible degree of damage. Obstacles and minefields were of no consequence; they were destroyed in the bombardment. The vast majority of the combat power employed to win battles came from the navy. This was the final evolution of Marine Corps doctrine in the Pacific in World War II. There was no ambiguity in the doctrine. Surprise was not significant. Battles were, ideally, to be won with the deliberate, methodical, sustained use of overwhelming firepower, followed up by a direct, mass infantry assault. A naval gunfire officer, in reference to the support given the marines at Roi Namur atoll in the Marshall Islands in Operation Flintlock, reported:
   The main objectives of the atoll were bombarded by six battleships and six destroyers on Dog minus one day with the primary mission to render the air field inoperative, destroy planes, and then destroy as many of the ground installations as possible.... The effect of naval gunfire here was devastating. It can be said that the accuracy and effect of naval gunfire was the prime factor which allowed the troops to land on the objective with so few casualties and such little opposition. The CG [commanding general], 4th Marine Division has stated that at least 50% to 60% of the Japs were killed prior to the landing by the air, naval bombardment and artillery.... After an inspection of the island, it was found that practically every defensive installation above the ground had been hit by naval fire.

   Lewis also assesses the Allied experiences with amphibious landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, all of which violated both British and US landing doctrine for a variety of reasons, not least of which were the compromises that grew out of Anglo-American cooperation. The differences in institutionalized military cultures are highlighted with, for example, Monty's famous line to George Patton about simply ignoring orders he didn't like. Similarly, Bradley's remark is quoted to the effect that British orders were simply the basis for discussion by subordinates, whereas the Yanks tried to work out differences in advance so that when orders were issued they were strictly to be obeyed.
   Those compromises, violations of doctrine, and conflicting cultures would return to haunt the Allies in Normandy. Indeed, the various lessons learned from those earlier amphibious operations meant vastly different things to different officers and resulted in two distinct and incompatible visions for the Overlord landings.
   The original plan worked out by General Frederick E. Morgan and his COSSAC staff was laid out on the usual British basis of achieving tactical surprise against a lightly defended coast. Morgan feared that, given as little as eight to twelve hours of warning, German reserves could be concentrated at the point of landing and the invasion smashed. Thus, under the circumstances, a lengthy pre-invasion naval bombardment of the sort employed in the Pacific to destroy beach defenses was out of the question.
   Before comparing the way Morgan's plan evolved following the appointment of Ike as Supreme Commander and Monty as ground forces commander, Lewis examines Ike as military commander. Here he gives as much ink to those who praised Ike's capabilities as to those whose were less favorably impressed. Lewis emphasizes that, whatever his abilities, Ike was completely insulated from most of the critical planning for Overlord by the British Chiefs of Staff (over his head and on the spot) and his three subordinate British air, land, and sea commanders.
   Lewis gives Monty similar treatment, spending more time on his philosophy of battle. Competent or clumsy, Monty was certainly ponderous in planning and fighting battles, and Lewis shows how this thinking harked back to his experiences in World War I. Monty's theories of war contributed to his transformation of the original plan by strengthening and broadening the initial assaults, much improving COSSAC's concept. But, at the same time, Erwin Rommel took command of the German defenses in France and, thanks to reinforcements dispatched when Hitler gave his western armies top priority in resources, the German positions no longer resembled the thinly held line for which the basic Allied plan had been developed.

   Rommel lacked the time, cooperation, and resources to build the type of defense he envisioned; nevertheless, he significantly changed the quality and character of the German defense. Intelligence sources provided the Allies with sufficient information to reassess German defensive plans and, thus, the adequacy of their own plans. However, once orders are issued and preparations are being made, it is sometimes difficult to stop and reassess the plan, even in light of new intelligence. Montgomery now should have planned to overcome a deliberate defense constructed at the water's edge, not a soft spot. Rommel's defense—although uneven—was more like those employed by the Japanese in the Central Pacific in 1943 and 1944 before they learned of the awesome power of naval gunfire augmented by aerial bombardment. Montgomery needed to conduct a different fight for the beaches at Normandy than the COSSAC planners had envisioned because the enemy's capabilities and likely courses of action had changed in important ways.

   According to Lewis, Monty also lacked an understanding of Rommel's scheme of defense, attributing to the Desert Fox the tactics actually favored by Rundstedt, Schweppenburg, and others. Thus, Monty still expected relatively little fighting right on the beach and intended to push well inland before German reserves arrived to initiate the real battle. Monty also insisted on a massive increase in firepower in support of the operation. His predilection, however, was for airpower rather than naval gunfire, about which Lewis has much to say throughout the remainder of the book. In any event, Montgomery's plans for the invasion meant that it would have to take place in daylight.
   At the next level of planning and operations, First United States Army, Bradley preferred to make the landing under cover of darkness, but the insistence of Monty, the naval commanders (who emphasized they must have daylight for the invasion convoys to arrive at the correct beaches) and air commanders (who required at least an hour of daylight for the preliminary bombing) meant that US plans must conform to Monty's overall strategy. (Lewis points out that the invasion fleets actually navigated to the beaches in the dark and the bombers, due to overcast skies, were forced to rely on radar-directed bombing much as they would have done in the dark.) In any event, in agreeing with Monty's vision, Bradley insisted the assault must take place in the shortest time after daylight. This of course meant less time for the pre-invasion naval bombardment. Bradley comes in for more criticism at the end of Omaha Beach when Lewis notes discrepancies in the general's memoirs. For example, Bradley wrote after the war that he selected the 1st Infantry Division for Omaha because it was the only amphibiously experienced division available in England. Actually, the experienced 9th Infantry Division was also available, but—for whatever reason—Bradley chose to use a regiment of the green 29th Infantry Division in the initial assault at Omaha and the untested 4th Infantry Division at Utah. To these decisions and others made against the advice of his tactical commanders, Lewis points as evidence that Bradley was largely responsible for the near defeat at Omaha.
   On the other hand, under Bradley's First Army, "Gee" Gerow of V Corps earns credit from Lewis. "In fact, without Gerow's foresight and understanding of amphibious warfare, the battle for Omaha Beach might have failed."
   Gerow disagreed with many of Bradley's tactical decisions. He believed the duplex drive Shermans unreliable, preferred Shermans rather than tank destroyers in the early waves of LCTs, and reckoned there would no Luftwaffe for Bradley's AA guns to engage, wanting therefore to use the lift capacity for artillery instead. Although Lewis heaps praise on Gerow, the corps commander clashed with Bradley on so many issues that "...it was probably only Gerow's 'intimate' relationship with Eisenhower and his familiarity with the plan that prevented Bradley from relieving him without prejudice as he had other newcomers."
   Lewis also examines the "joint fire plan" and finds it lacking.

   The Anglo-American leaders planned to win the battle for Normandy with tactical surprise and what was believed to be the greatest firepower ever assembled for an amphibious assault. Neither Eisenhower, Montgomery, nor Bradley had ever conducted an amphibious assault against a deliberate defense. No such large-scale operation was fought in the Mediterranean or European theater. Thus, there was no cumulative body of knowledge, no standard, no yardstick against which the planners could measure the adequacy of their plans or the adequacy of the firepower resources allocated. Still, the Allies could have drawn on two cumulative bodies of experience and knowledge—American Pacific theater doctrine and British Mediterranean theater doctrine. For assaults against deliberate defenses, Marine Corps doctrine was most applicable and effective. The planners of the Normandy invasion, however, decided on a hybrid doctrine. They developed new doctrine, new technology, new tactical organizations, and new units. This emphasis on innovation was a function of lack of experience. The Allies did not fully test their new doctrine, and at Omaha Beach it failed. The air force was untrained and lacked the technology and doctrine to perform the beach-bombing mission in overcast skies. The rocket launchers and artillery mounted in landing craft were inaccurate systems because it was impossible to determine the height of the waves on which the small vessels rode at the instant the weapons were fired. And naval gunfire, the surest means of destruction, was provided in insufficient quantity and given insufficient time to produce the desired effect in the target area. The Allied Joint Fire Plan was flawed, and it failed to produce the quality of damage expected and required to limit casualties.

   As always, many complicated factors collided and conspired to cause conflicting opinions about how best to go about "drenching" the beaches with naval and air bombardment. In the end, the weight of firepower used at Omaha was far from sufficient. This resulted from a variety of less than optimal choices, including the belief by at least one planning officer that heavy bombardment of the beach would cause sandy craters which would promptly fill with seawater and drown large numbers of heavily-laden assault troops.
   Lewis also notes that while American planners realized in advance that Omaha would be tougher than Utah, the distribution of naval firepower was almost exactly even between Omaha and Utah, thus depriving Omaha of the additional naval gunfire support required. Even the naval commander of Amphibious Force "O" believed the naval support was inadequate, and it was certainly below the levels US Marine Corps doctrine required. Not only were the forces below the minimum called for by doctrine, but —because of the decision to land troops so soon after daylight—the Navy was not given enough time to carry out the gunfire mission properly.
   Lewis also has many interesting things to say about the rocket-firing craft on which Bradley pinned much hope (inexperienced crews manning buggy systems whose aim could not be controlled due to the rise and fall of the waves) and duplex drive tanks (which were launched in sea conditions recognized by everyone as beyond their capabilities, so that almost all sank to the bottom of the Channel and only two reached Omaha under their own power).
   To make up for shortcomings in naval support, Montgomery planned to rely heavily on airpower. The RAF and USAAF strategic bombing forces, despite much grumbling by senior airmen, were committed to the "transportation plan" for destroying the French railway system (and thus the ability of the Germans to quickly move reserves to the beachhead) and to a single short, intensive attack against the beach defenses themselves immediately ahead of the assaulting troops. As Lewis points out on several occasions, however, despite the hype of "precision bombing," the heavy bombers of the strategic air forces were not truly capable of destroying the German beach defenses in a single brief raid. Such a mission was not part of their doctrine, they weren't trained for it, they didn't prepare for it, and they certainly weren't enthusiastic about conducting it.
   All in all, the biggest problems with the assault against Omaha resulted from careless compromises.

   The problem with the plan for the invasion of Europe was that the planners pursued two incompatible doctrines, believing that air power made possible the combination of the decisive elements in both doctrines. As a result, they failed to maximize the firepower available by attacking in daylight after a substantial bombardment had destroyed the water's edge defense, and they failed to maximize the elements of surprise, confusion, and concealment provided by attacking during the hours of darkness. The planners of the Normandy invasion sought three objectives, two of which could not be reconciled. They sought to maximize the hours of daylight for the buildup, achieve tactical surprise, and achieve overwhelming firepower superiority. They sought too many objectives, and as a consequence, compromises were made that failed to maximize the potential of either a day or a night attack in terms of combat power. The plan was compromised to the point of diminishing their chances for success, and at Omaha Beach, the situation was not as fortuitous as it was on the other beaches.

   Given faulty doctrine, questionable decision-making that led to less than optimal inter-allied compromises, unproved weapons systems, failures of intelligence analysis, and unwarranted optimism about the ability of the strategic bombers to make the whole show little more than a walk on the beach, it's not surprising the assault on Omaha almost failed. Rather, it's a wonder it succeeded at all.
   This is not another account of the course of the fighting, but rather an investigation of why the fighting took the course it did, and Lewis has written an excellent analysis of the factors that produced the near-disaster on Omaha beach and caused excessive casualties. It's possible to quibble with a few statements and judgments. (For example, he sometimes counts two exits for tanks from Omaha and sometimes three; and he claims the Germans demonstrated no mastery of defensive tactics in Sicily.) On balance, however, Lewis has done a first class job and Omaha Beach is highly recommended. Don't miss it. It's probably one of the best books of the year, although this view might be colored by the fact that much of it was read for this review while sitting on the seawall at Omaha Beach.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from University of North Carolina Press.
   Thanks to UNC Press for providing this review copy.