[Is It Overrated?] D-Day

It was hailed by British Radio as "The greatest British feat of arms ever carried out", by American newspapers as "The largest amphibious landing in history” and by the Soviets as the “Opening of the Second Front”. D-Day is arguably history’s most famous military operation. But does D-Day deserved it’s near mythical reputation, or is it overrated?

Organization of the landing:

D-Day has been especially praised by historians, documentaries and more as a masterpiece of planning. Millions of parts, from troop movement to morale to ship bombardment to coming together in one massive punch that pierced through the Atlantic Wall and liberated the oppressed people of France and the Low Countries from the Germans.

And that is true. D-Day was a massive, extraordinarily complicated operation. 150,000 troops in 3500 landing craft supported by thousands of other ships landed on German occupied France, with millions more following. The logistics for the attacks were massively complicated, having to ship supplies for millions of men across the Atlantic, and in fact having to tow two artificial harbors across the Channel.

Even the plan was massively complex. 6 hours before the main landing, paratroopers were dropped behind German lines. 3 hours before, massive air strikes unfurled onto the German positions and would continue even as the landing occurred. 2 hours before, the battleships opened fire on German positions. And during the landing,ships had to coordinate the sending out of the numerous waves of troops landing. All this was no small feat.

Impact on the German Army:

While this notion is not common, there is a view that D-Day is what finally broke the German Army, as now she was forced to face the materiel superiority of the Western Allies, as well as the opening of another front.

This is not true. By mid-1944 the German army was a shadow of its former self. The Red Army had been smashing away at it for three years now. In fact, a month after American boots touched down on Normandy, Russia organized Operation Bagration, a massive offensive that liberated all of Belarus in one fell swoop It utterly destroyed Army Group Center, killing 400,000 troops, capturing 300,000 more, damaged irreparably 500 tanks and 300 aircraft and pushing the Germans back 600 miles in six weeks.

In addition, Germany was already involved in bitter fighting with the West. The African front had been waged for two years before the Western Allies even set foot on French soil, and they had been embroiled in a bitter conflict in Italy that had so far destroyed and occupied large numbers of troops. D-Day, although damaging and costing the Germans huge casualties they could ill-afford, was simply the final nail in the coffin of an already dying German states.

Strategic importance:

For decades historians have been arguing back and forth over the strategic impacts of the D-Day landings. Some state that it was inconsequential, as allied successes on the Eastern Front and Italy made the collapse of Nazi Germany inevitable. To a certain extent, this is true. The Germans were certainly going to fall sooner or later, D-Day merely sped it up by opening another front, further diluting German efforts.

But what D-Day did do is spare huge swathes of Western Europe form another year of brutal Nazi occupation. It allowed for the speedier rebuilding of France+Low Countries(Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), which began in earnest late 1944, rather than waiting until 1945 for the Germans to surrender. It also got rid of the possibility of Germany deciding to send everything it had left in a massive last wave attack against the Soviet armies.

The thing is, D-Day actually had more an impact on the Cold War than WWII. Due to D-Day, France and the Low countries were directly liberated by the Western Allies. This allowed them a solid, strong foothold in Europe, which would have been difficult with Italy and Great Britain alone. It allowed a strong foundation for NATO to be formed.

Row, row, row your boat
Hear them Nazis scream
Navally invading the German state
Crushing Hitler’s dreams