A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

When Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London from the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in January of 1944 to take command of the Allied Expeditionary Force and carry out Operation Overlord, the site of the invasion - Normandy - had already been selected. Planning for an eventual invasion of France was already well underway by January 15, 1944; before Eisenhower was selected as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, Lt. Gen. Frederick Morgan of the British Army had already crafted a preliminary invasion plan under his title of presumptive Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander (Designate), or COSSAC. After taking the COSSAC assignment in March of 1943, Morgan and his planning staff looked at their maps of occupied Northwest Europe in search of possible landing sites on the northern coast of France, the likeliest target for an invasion due to its proximity to Britain and its southern ports of embarkation. The Pas de Calais was ruled out almost right away even ...

Why didn’t the Western Allies invade France via Spain and avoid the fortified beaches on the Normandy coast? The quickest way to victory is to invade Northern France, then liberate Belgium and cross the border into Germany proper. There were many different factors involved, including the reality that Spain was officially neutral (albeit somewhat sympathetic toward the Third Reich). The main  military  reasons why the Allies didn’t invade France via a Spanish “back door,” of course, were  geography  and  logistics. Keep in mind that the primary proponents of the cross-Channel attack were the American commanders, Gen. George C. Marshall and his protege, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. They were of the opinion that the only way to defeat Nazi Germany was to land in France and drive directly into the Reich as quickly as the Allies’ resources would permit. The British, on the other hand, preferred an indirect peripheral approach instead of a head-to-head conf...