Guest Post: What If ….
A guest post by David Garrett:
Recently I lost a very old friend – Herbert Anthony Perry, of Sacramento California. Although I had known Herb for 40 years, I only relatively recently learned that he was at D Day in June 1944. After a few years in the American merchant navy, Herb found himself – at age 23 – the Chief Engineer on an LST (Google it) on the morning of 6 June 1944.
On that day troops from the US, the UK and Canada went ashore on five invasion beaches. Twenty four hours later, they retained a very tentative foothold on mainland Europe, occupied since the (northern) summer of 1940 by the Germans. Herb’s death got me thinking about just now near the world came to a Nazi victory 70 odd years ago.
Chronologically, the first disaster – and puzzle – came in the northern summer of 1940, as the British Expeditionary Force (the BEF) was driven back to within 50 miles of the minor French port of Dunkirk. Why did the German panzers then halt, after cutting through the Low Countries like a knife through butter, while the “miracle of Dunkirk” managed to evacuate 10 times the 30,000 people Churchill and his advisors had hoped to get off the beach? Answers vary from Hitler’s reluctance to utterly humiliate the British, who he regarded as natural allies rather than enemies, to the need to service the panzers who had cut such a swathe through northern Europe. Either way, it was a decision that allowed most of the BEF to escape, and fight another day.
The next massively significant strategic blunder was the Germans’ alteration of targets during the Battle of Britain from the airfields used by Fighter Command to British cities. All the recognized histories see this decision as absolutely crucial: in short had the targeting of the airfields continued as hitherto, the ability of the RAF to resist German attacks would almost certainly have been lost. The RAF would have been beaten on the ground, before they could even engage the foe. Had that happened, a successful invasion of Britain would have inevitably followed.
Next, during that same battle the utter misuse – or rather non use – of the Messerschmitt 262, the world’s first jet fighter. Work on the Me 262 began before the War, but technical problems and high level indifference prevented the aircraft playing any part in the conflict until 1944, when allied superiority in the air made it largely irrelevant. In one of his many strategic blunders, Adolf failed to recognize the significance of the 262, and saw it as a light bomber rather than the devastating fighter aircraft it could have been had resources been devoted to solving its many problems.
Churchill once said that the U boat was the only thing he really feared – and with good reason. The UK was virtually entirely dependent on imports for fuel, food, and sufficient raw material for its industry. All of that had to cross the Atlantic. Until the US entered the war at the beginning of 1941 British convoys had to cross the Atlantic – or at least part of it – utterly unprotected. The bravery of the merchant seamen, some of whom got torpedoed and rescued twice or even three times, remains one of the less recognized bits of heroism during World War II.
The Battle of the Atlantic lasted from the commencement of hostilities until the very end. It was, as much as anything else, a constant battle of technology between the hunters and the hunted. Better weapons and methods of detection versus U Boats with greater range, the ability to recharge batteries underwater, and to dive deeper for longer. Despite US involvement from the beginning of 1941, Britain remained at serious risk of being starved into submission right to the very end.
Fast forward to June 1944 and the invasion of Europe by the allies. Both sides knew there were only two real alternatives (although Norway was a long shot) – the Pas de Calais, or Normandy. Having decided on Normandy, the allies had to try and convince the Germans it was actually to be the Pas de Calais. The deception operation – Operation Fortitude – was and probably remains the biggest and most successful deception operation ever carried out.
Most readers will be familiar with the inflatable tanks, trucks, artillery and planes which were massed in south east England. But there was much more to it than that. An entire fake army was established – FUSAG – headed by the very real General Patton. Fake radio traffic, some in code some not, filled the airwaves. Fake trains transported fake troops to fake camps – and the Germans, including crucially Adolf himself, bought the deception hook line and sinker. Even days after the successful Normandy landings, Hitler was still convinced Normandy was the side show, and the real event was to occur a hundred miles away.
One of the main reasons the allies were able to pull the deception off is because of a lesser known triumph of WW II. Every single German agent dropped by parachute or landed by submarine into Britain was quickly caught, the unluckiest of them within hours of their insertion. Such men – they were all men – were given a stark choice: become a double agent and feed what they were told back to their masters, or face the gallows. While a brave few decided to die by the hangman’s hand, most chose to become traitors.
Despite all of this, the Battle of Normandy was a close run thing for the first few days. Had the invasion failed, the entire post war history would have been utterly different. By the middle of 1944 the war in the east was effectively over bar the shouting. Stalin’s 200 plus divisions were relentlessly retaking captured territory. The German war machine was fatally crippled, and could never have recovered. By the time a second invasion could be attempted in the early summer of 1945, the Russians would have occupied all of western Europe to the Spanish frontier – and beyond if they felt like it. God knows when, or even if, the Soviet Union would have collapsed if it had encompassed all of Europe.
Yes, it was a close run thing, with a good number of holes in the Swiss cheese lining up in the Allies’ favour. My friend Herb died at age 94 after a full and happy life. Countless brave men like him – and equally countless back room boys like Ewen Montagu – gave us the world we now enjoy. Thank God for them,