D-Day/Battle of Normandy
An Overview In the years since 1945, it has become increasingly evident that the Grand Alliance forged between the British Commonwealth and the United States was often beset with disagreement over the correct strategy to insure the final defeat of the Axis powers. Early on, both British and American staffs could agree that Germany represented a greater military threat than Japan, but they did not often see eye to eye on the strategy that would most efficiently defeat the Reich.
The Americans were early and persistent advocates of a direct strategy - a cross-Channel attack that would first destroy German military power in the West, then drive deep into the heart of industrial Germany to end the war. The British, on the other hand, sobered by their disastrous experiences at Dunkirk and Dieppe, preferred to stage a number of small-scale attacks around the perimeter of fortress Europe. They thereby hoped to weaken German defenses before leaping precipitously across the Channel into the teeth of the still powerful Wehrmacht. The British simply could not afford the staggering losses entailed in a frontal assault on the northwest coast of Europe. "Memories of the Somme and Passchendaele," wrote Sir Winston Churchill years later, "were not to be blotted out by time or reflection." British Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), put it more bluntly in his memoirs: "Certain British authorities instinctively recoiled from the whole affair, as well they might, for fear of the butcher bill." It is not surprising, then, that the harder the Americans pressed in 1942 and 1943 for a firm commitment on a cross-Channel attack, the more the British seemed to vacillate. After a debate lasting through much of 1942, the Americans agreed to postpone any cross-Channel attack in favor of the November landings in North Africa-Operation Torch. The strategic outcome of Torch was what American Chief of Staff General George C.
The Americans were early and persistent advocates of a direct strategy - a cross-Channel attack that would first destroy German military power in the West, then drive deep into the heart of industrial Germany to end the war. The British, on the other hand, sobered by their disastrous experiences at Dunkirk and Dieppe, preferred to stage a number of small-scale attacks around the perimeter of fortress Europe. They thereby hoped to weaken German defenses before leaping precipitously across the Channel into the teeth of the still powerful Wehrmacht. The British simply could not afford the staggering losses entailed in a frontal assault on the northwest coast of Europe. "Memories of the Somme and Passchendaele," wrote Sir Winston Churchill years later, "were not to be blotted out by time or reflection." British Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), put it more bluntly in his memoirs: "Certain British authorities instinctively recoiled from the whole affair, as well they might, for fear of the butcher bill." It is not surprising, then, that the harder the Americans pressed in 1942 and 1943 for a firm commitment on a cross-Channel attack, the more the British seemed to vacillate. After a debate lasting through much of 1942, the Americans agreed to postpone any cross-Channel attack in favor of the November landings in North Africa-Operation Torch. The strategic outcome of Torch was what American Chief of Staff General George C.