Book Review: 'Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy'
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| © 2014 HarperCollins (Reissue cover) |
At the time of its publication, Hastings' thesis that the German army in Normandy had any type of superiority in almost every factor that counted save in quantities of men and materiel was highly controversial; many veterans who served in the American, British, and Canadian units that saw action during Operation Overlord took offense with the authors and accused Hastings - a respected journalist and historian - of being a revisionist of the worst sort. American vets - and even quite a few historians, including the late Stephen E. Ambrose - claimed the criticisms aimed at Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's style of command and the author's apparent defense of British Gen. Bernard Montgomery's handling of the battle were based on lingering nationalistic feelings in Britain that an American had been named Supreme Commander instead of Monty, the hero of El Alamein and Fleet Street's favorite general.
Nevertheless, most historians (except for Ambrose, who in his 1994 book about D-Day argued that Hastings was wrong) have come around to accept the author's basic premise as presented in Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy,
In this masterful account of the Anglo-American invasion of Normandy and the liberation of northern France, Hastings examines not just the familiar events of June 6, 1944 and the days that followed what Germany's Field Marshal Erwin Rommel famously called "the longest day," but also the often acrimonious political and military arguments that erupted during every phase of Overlord. Hastings reminds the reader that behind the public facade of inter-Allied amity and unity before, during, and after the invasion, there was a wide gulf between American and British strategists concerning how to best defeat Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, especially when it concerned the creation of the "Second Front" that Soviet leader Josef Stalin was demanding from the Western Allies.
Not the least remarkable aspect of the Second World War was the manner in which the United States, which might have been expected to regard the campaign in Europe as a diversion from the struggle against her principal aggressor, japan, was persuaded to commit her chief strength in the west. Not only that, but from December 1941 until June 1944 it was the Americans who were passionately impatient to confront the German army on the continent while the British, right up to the eve of D-Day, were haunted by the deepest misgivings about doing so. “Why are we trying to do this?” cried Winston Churchill in a bitter moment of depression about Operation OVERLORD in February 1944, which caused in him a spasm of enthusiasm for an alternative Allied landing in Portugal. “I am very uneasy about the whole operation,” wrote the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Alan Brooke, as late as 5 June 1944. “At the best, it will come very far short of the expectations of the bulk of the people, namely all those who know nothing about its difficulties. At its worst, it may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war.” Had the United States army been less resolute in its commitment to a landing in Normandy, it is most unlikely that this would have taken place before 1945. Until the very last weeks before OVERLORD was launched, its future was the subject of bitter dissension and debate between the warlords of Britain and America.
For a year following the fall of France in 1940, Britain fought on without any rational prospect of final victory. Only when Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941, the most demented of his strategic decisions, did the first gleam of hope at last present itself to enemies of the Axis. For the remainder of that year, Britain was preoccupied with the struggle to keep open her Atlantic lifeline, to build her bomber offensive into a meaningful menace to Germany, and to keep hopes alive in the only theatre of war where the British army could fight — Africa and the Middle East. Then, in the dying days of the year, came the miracle of Pearl Harbor. Britain’s salvation, the turning point of the war, was confirmed four days later by another remarkable act of German recklessness: Hitler’s declaration of war upon the United States.
The outcome of the Second World War was never thereafter in serious doubt. But great delays and difficulties lay ahead in mobilizing America’s industrial might for the battlefield, and in determining by what strategy the Axis was to be crushed. To the relief of the British, President Roosevelt and his Chiefs of Staff at once asserted their acceptance of the principle of “Germany first”. They acknowledged that her war-making power was by far the most dangerous and that following her collapse, Japan must soon capitulate. The war in the Pacific became overwhelmingly the concern of the United States navy. The principal weight of the army’s ground forces, which would grow to a strength of eight million men, was to be directed against Germany and Italy. This decision was confirmed at ARCADIA, the first great Anglo-American conference of the war that began in Washington on 31 December 1941. America committed herself to BOLERO, a programme for a vast build-up of her forces in Britain. Churchill, scribbling his own exuberant hopes for the future during the Atlantic passage to that meeting, speculated on a possible landing in Europe by 40 Allied armoured divisions in the following year: “We might hope to win the war at the end of 1943 or 1944.”
But in the months after ARCADIA, as the first United States troops and their senior officers crossed to Europe, it was the Americans who began to focus decisively upon an early cross-Channel invasion. The debate that now began, and continued with growing heat through the next 20 months, reflected, “an American impatience to get on with direct offensive action as well as a belief, held quite generally in the U.S. War Department, that the war could most efficiently be won by husbanding resources for an all-out attack deliberately planned for a future fixed date. American impatience was opposed by a British note of caution: American faith in an offensive of fixed date was in contrast to British willingness to proceed one step at a time, molding a course of action to the turns of military fortune.” Here, in the words of the American official historian, was the root of the growing division between the Combined Chiefs of Staff throughout 1942 and much of 1943.
At first, American thinking was dominated by fear of a rapid Russian collapse unless the western Allies created, at the very least, a powerful diversion on the continent. ROUNDUP was a plan for an early invasion, with whatever forces were available, which the British speedily took pains to crush. Under strong American pressure, Churchill agreed in principle to the notion of executing ROUNDUP with 48 Allied divisions not later than April 1943. But the British — above all Sir Alan Brooke — privately continued to believe that ROUNDUP neither could nor should take place. Despite their assent to the operation, in the name of Allied solidarity, they began a successful struggle to divert resources towards much more modest — and in their view, more realistic — objectives. In the summer of 1942, the Americans reluctantly acceded to GYMNAST, an operation for the invasion of French North Africa. This was allegedly to be undertaken without prejudice to ROUNDUP, because of well-founded British fears that America would shift the weight of her effort to the Pacific if it became obvious that many months must elapse before major action took place in Europe. But as the BOLERO build-up in Britain fell behind schedule, the desert campaign dragged on without decisive result, and the tragic Dieppe raid demonstrated some of the hazards of cross-Channel operations, it became apparent in Washington as well as in London that there could be no campaign in France in 1943. GYMNAST was translated into reality by the TORCH landings of November 1942. It was at Casablanca in January 1943 that the Anglo-American leadership met for their second major conference.
This was to be the last meeting at which, by dint of brilliant military diplomacy, the British gained acceptance of their own ideas about the manner in which the war should be pursued. The Americans reluctantly accepted HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily, with the prospect of further operations in Italy. They also undertook a commitment to an even greater combined bomber offensive against Germany, POINTBLANK, designed to “weaken Germany’s war-making capacity to the point to which invasion would become possible”.
The American Chiefs of Staff returned to Washington irritably conscious that they had been persuaded to adopt a course they did not favour — the extension of “sideshow” operations in the Mediterranean which they believed were designed chiefly to serve Britain’s imperial and diplomatic purposes. But the British had at least acknowledged that north-west Europe must be invaded the following year. Sir Alan Brooke agreed at Casablanca that “we could definitely count on re-entering the continent in 1944 on a large scale”. The Americans were determined to countenance no further prevarication. Throughout the remainder of 1943 — while the British argued for extended commitments in the Mediterranean, possible operations in the Balkans, further delays before attempting to broach Hitler’s Atlantic Wall — the Americans remained resolute. At the TRIDENT conference in Washington in May, the date for invasion of north-west Europe was provisionally set for 1 May 1944. This commitment was confirmed in August at the QUADRANT conference in Quebec. To the deep dismay of the British, the Americans also pursued most forcefully their intention to execute ANVIL, a landing in southern France simultaneous with OVERLORD, whatever the cost to Allied operations in Italy. This proposal was put to Stalin at the Teheran conference in November 1943; he welcomed it. Thereafter, the Americans argued that, quite apart from their own enthusiasm for OVERLORD and ANVIL, any cancellation or unreasonable postponement of either would constitute a breach of faith with the Russians.
Throughout the autumn and winter of 1943, even as planning and preparation for OVERLORD gathered momentum, the British irked and angered the Americans by displaying their misgivings and fears as if OVERLORD were still a subject of debate, and might be postponed. “I do not doubt our ability in the conditions laid down to get ashore and deploy,” Churchill wrote to Roosevelt on 23 October. “I am however deeply concerned with the build-up and with the situation which may arise between the thirtieth and sixtieth days . . . My dear friend, this is much the greatest thing we have ever attempted.” The Prime Minister cabled to Marshall in Washington: “We are carrying out our contract, but I pray God it does not cost us dear.” On 11 November, the British Chiefs of Staff recorded in an aide-memoire: “We must not . . . regard OVERLORD as the pivot of our whole strategy on which all else turns . . . we firmly believe that OVERLORD (perhaps in the form of RANKIN) will take place next summer. We do not, however, attach vital importance to any particular date or to any particular number of divisions in the assault and follow-up, though naturally the latter should be made as large as possible consistent with the policy stated above.”
Remarks of this sort aroused the deepest dismay and suspicion among the Americans. They believed that the British were seeking grounds for further delays because they feared to meet major formations of the German army in France, with the prospect of huge casualties that the battered Empire could so ill afford. A sour memorandum prepared in the U.S. Chiefs of Staffs’ office in the autumn, declared that, “it is apparent that the British, who have consistently resisted a cross-Channel operation, now feel OVERLORD is no longer necessary. In their view, continued Mediterranean operations coupled with POINTBLANK and the crushing Russian offensive, will be sufficient to cause the internal collapse of Germany and thus bring about her military defeat without undergoing what they consider an almost certain ‘bloodbath’. The conclusion that the forces being built up in the United Kingdom will never be used for a military offensive against western Europe, but are intended as a gigantic deception plan and an occupying force, is inescapable.” This document was not a basis for action, but serves to illustrate American suspicion and scepticism at the period.
My Take
I first read the U.S. hardcover edition from 1984 when I was a college student in South Florida. The year was 1985, and the college campus library had just received its copy and was displaying it in the 'Just In" area. I checked it out, of course, but since I had a full-time student's course load I was not able to read it all the way through.
Luckily, Touchstone Books (a division of Simon & Schuster, the American publisher of Overlord) published the paperback edition later that year, so I bought it as soon as I had a chance to go to the nearest bookstore - the Waldenbooks at the Miami International Mall.
I don't honestly remember if I was one of those American readers who believed that Hastings was casting aspersions at the GIs and even the Tommies that fought against what he considered was "the most professional army of World War II." Knowing how I perceived history and my feelings about the U.S., it is more than likely that I was. After all, I'd grown up reading The Longest Day and other books in that vein, so for me to read anything critical about U.S. soldiers and their commanders was always a bit disconcerting.
Nowadays, of course, I've come 'round to the fact that although Ike was a good staff officer and a fine diplomat, his skills as a battlefield commander left a lot to be desired. Eisenhower was certainly a man with people skills and a great motivator, qualities that lent themselves to his job as the leader of a multinational force comprised of forces from several countries. He was good at delegating jobs to others, and his decision to postpone D-Day by 24 hours due to weather but go ahead on June 6 is perhaps one of the most crucial orders of the war.
Hastings castigates Eisenhower for being too easygoing on some of his subordinates and not making more "Supreme Commanding" from his headquarters. And yet, he still praises Ike for his strengths as a leader:
Eisenhower was sensitive to the well-founded charge that he was no battlefield commander: “It wearies me to be thought of as timid, when I’ve had to do things that were so risky as to be almost crazy.” But history has thus far remained confident that whatever his shortcomings as a general in the field, he could not have been matched as Supreme Commander. In 1944–45, he revealed a greatness of spirit that escaped Montgomery, perhaps every British general of the Second World War with the exception of Slim. The shortcomings of the Allied high command in north-west Europe in 1944 have provoked close critical study. Most writers have chosen to consider the successes and failures of Eisenhower and his lieutenants in isolation; they have been reluctant to compare them with the collapse of so many other military alliances in other ages, or to reflect upon the vast weight of forces assembled in north-west Europe, which rendered meaningless any comparison with the command methods of Marlborough and Wellington, even those of Grant and Sherman. The most vivid contrast is that of the Allied SHAEF and the German OKW. Alongside the command structure of their enemies, that of the Allied forces was a masterpiece of reason and understanding. Eisenhower understood that in some respects his authority was that of a constitutional monarch: the power that he held was less important than the fact that his possession denied it to others. Eisenhower lacked greatness as a soldier, and tolerated a remarkable number of knaves and mischief-makers in his court at SHAEF. But his behaviour at moments of Anglo-American tension, his extraordinary generosity of spirit to his difficult subordinates, proved his greatness as Supreme Commander. His failures were of omission, seldom of commission. It remains impossible to conceive of any other Allied soldier matching his achievement.
Hastings was also accused of "defending" the prickly Bernard Montgomery and his decision-making during the Battle of Normandy and after. Well, to be fair, Monty was under great pressure from Britain's civilian leaders to wage the war against the Germans as vigorously as possible while keeping British and Commonwealth casualties to a minimum. Readers - both in 1984 and now - often forgot that Overlord was planned and executed at a time when Britain had reached the apex of its available manpower, while the Americans still had vast reserves and would eventually surpass those of their British allies. In addition, Hastings argues that most British soldiers and officers believed that the war was as good as won and that there was a natural instinct to not want to be the last Tommy to die fighting the Jerries.
But if Hastings rightly points out that Montgomery handled the campaign with more skill than his critics give him credit for, he does point out that the general's abrasive personality, his sharp comments about Ike and his American colleagues, and his penchant for over-promising and under-delivering on the battlefield did not serve his reputation well.
As for the more controversial content in Overlord, Hastings rationally points out that the Allies' habits of picking the "cream of the crop" for the air forces, the special forces units (Rangers, airborne, and Commandos), intelligence, and other specialized units meant that the infantry - the "boots on the ground" component of the Allied armies - had to make do with the average draftee or volunteer. That's not to say that Hastings believes that the GIs and Tommies were all inept and poorly trained. He clearly doesn't say that in Overlord. However, he does point out that the realities of World War II, including the decision to cut down on training time for new classes of conscripts as D-Day approached to be able to have a pool of replacements meant that the Allied armies would send younger and less-prepared soldiers to face off against some of the best German units at Hitler's disposal.
Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy is a fascinating book that was intended not as a mean-spirited jab at "clueless Americans" but as a badly-needed re-examination of a campaign that had been wreathed in a mist of legends and myths. For in addition to challenging the self-congratulatory outlook of many of the early post-war books about D-Day, Hastings also calls attention to the "Erwin Rommel was a 'good' German" myth that became popular in the Fifties (when West Germany was admitted into NATO) and has never quite vanished from many war buffs' imagination. In Overlord, the author points out that Rommel "remained passionately devoted to Hitler until he became convinced that the war was militarily unwinnable."
As in all of his books about the Second World War, Hastings gives readers a balanced account of the battles, the weapons, the strategies, the commanders, and the soldiers of the Normandy campaign. It is superbly researched and well-written, and it deserves to be in the company of the works of Antony Beevor and Rick Atkinson. Overlord is definitely a classic work in the military history genre.
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