European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 18, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Allied Gamble Racks Hitler s fortress Europe Ctet Mirrl Iron f Hje 1 Goe Hicls Mil fools who dared to test in would he driven  into .1 red  of corpses into Mother disastrous Dieppe Mother humiliating Dunkirk. Indeed across the Channel in England there was another communique in supreme commander Dwight Eisenhower s pocket As he paced Aboul anxiously that Ime morning waiting for Sarmie word of Early Success or failure a worst Case message that Ravaei our in tlingit in the Char Murg Hii vre Are i  i  Lon in .1  foot mail am / wive  the to maps.  warm afm in s to the Alt nip in is mine  ii was a Gamble so fraught with risk thai in was difficult in  the consequences of failure failure to gain a satisfactory foothold could have translated into Slaughter on the beaches a nazi la nip for a Long time lot time. I Lisl orians note that the All out strategy had been sorely debated Between the British and the americans. Winston Churchill always enthralled by opportunities in the soft Underbelly of Europe pushed for More assaults in Italy and the Mediterranean. After much punishing of the belly the belief was that a final blow to the Hin of the weakened foe Wilh the Cross Channel invasion would result in a certain knockout. I he americans wary of a draining War of attrition Presern Dlo directly engage the main German armies and get ibis phase of the struggle there was also the War with Lapan going Over with. I hey were eager logo for to Point of the Chin much sooner. Alter some Compromise this idea eventually swelled the Isle of i England into something approaching an armed Volcano firing up Wilh some 3.000.000 fighting men and evolving into operation overlord a Complex invasion plan requiring More sheer technical skill than any military venture in history. It required More of everything men Armor ships planes All kinds of supplies and special equipment floating piers had to be built. Gigantic Concrete caissons do eel High had to be constructed and Lowed across the Channel to form two artificial ports Oil the beaches called Mulberry a for the americans and Mulberry b for the British. An underwater fuel pipeline was Laid from England to Normandy to keep the Mammoth Effort going. A requirement that c Oulen l be reduced to steel and furl was the exquisitely Tine Liming needed from the Mui Idy weather and the Lem Stubous English Channel. Slums could heave the invasion Fleet into a seaborne Waterloo. And the tide had to be exactly right Low tide just after Dawn to spot the thousands of mines anti tank glitches and Beach obstacles Ilia could rip Landing Craft to pieces. Even the Moonlight had to be just so and Here were Only three Days in Ute when the desired conditions of tide and Moon were due to prevail the sch fill Ami 7lh. If the fickle War gods deigned to Lei All Llinat flow together allow it Loac Lually Erk. Without falling into one disaster or another then All that was left was to rack open the vaunted Atlantic Wall no less a foe stood behind that coastal Wall in France than i Welfl marshal Irvin Rommel. Commanding the German 7lh and 1.5th armies the desert i of had spent six months de Ising deletes to Stop the invasion everyone knew was coming Kommel s strategy though he mistakenly believed the attacks would happen at a Gli tide when the Beach obstacles would lie inv Mil jew. Is to smash tin Iti Rion  on the comedess beaches turn in into a fiery drowning no place to run hell never to Lei in Gam momentum. I or months before a Day his troops constructed obstacles on the beaches and installed Iii i Hine gun and artillery positions protected by la ers of reinforced Concrete and calculated to wreck the incoming Lle i and Lake the beaches in end lading lire Rommel s commander and the Overall chief of German armies in the West Field marshal Gerd von Runstedt much preferred a More Inland Mobile defense network. Above them All however Hitler Pierre Pip Rel my watched through binoculars As Bob Hansel and other americans fought their Way to Omaha. Himself exercised direct control Over military operations and had the final word. If the germans could t agree on exactly How to defend against the invasion their greatest confusion was on exactly when exactly where the thrust across the Channel would come. That the great secret could be truly kept was one of the amazing achievements of the War. Elaborate Security measures ingenious deceptions were created. With English harbours spilling Over with ships and thousands of soldiers ready to Boardl them the germans remained bamboozled is to their destination to the very end. They would even ignore the Allied Raralio  age to the French resistance on invasion eve no one would be stupid enough to announce their arrival by radio commented an officer at Runstedt s Headquarters. Cleverly fed a concoction of misinformation by British counter intelligence German agents in Britain and elsewhere reported the invasion headed Here there anywhere from Norway to Bordeaux last month this month next month from May to september. All but one a Ertain French source in Algiers who nailed Down d Day precisely the time and the place. Ironically he had been wrong so often thai he was ignored. By then i litter s mind was set that anywhere other than the Liem h coast around Calais would be a Mere diversion. A Central part of the incredible Allied deception was formation of a Dummy army part of operation fortitude supp used Vakani my toward invasion under Gen. George i Atlon. I his fore e of wooden and i Tiivas tanks and Landing Craft and bogus installations Day "45 Sis Gui sch Mew this German artillery piece overlooking the beaches took some direct hits on the right Side. Plus a flurry of Sham naval activity rehearsing assault techniques and even fake radio traffic flowing to and from the mighty army group i Alton had served to convince the germans that the main invasion thrust the real threat was the Calais area. Like beavers in a hurry they built and Buill on the file lenses around Calais. They did not ignore Normandy but they did not believe in in. Calias after All was the obvious place the Channel s shortest crossing Point and that closest to the classic invasion routes into Germany. Adding to the illusion though the allies controlled the air at this stage they permitted German reconnaissance planes to Fly in and peek at history s ultimate Trojan horse. Even the desert Fox was outfoxed and the German military brain Trust concentrated the considerable Power of the 15th army to meet the Calais invasion of smoke and mirrors. The ranks of the 7th army defending Normandy meanwhile were not filled with history s greatest troops. Though there were some Good divisions others were Static Garrison types full of kids retreads and less than Fleck scaled warriors from conquered countries who according to one account already seemed to have their bags packed and their while Flag  As Long As five months after the allies struck Normandy the German 15th still expected the Trojan i Lorse toe ome galloping Over the Calais horizon momentarily still stood there transfixed like sweating Toreador wailing for the terrible imaginary Bull to charge. The steel Armada that appeared on the horizon off the Normandy coast the morning of Lune 6 was As real Asil gems. Packed with some 200,000 estimates vary american British and Canadian troops who had traversed 100 Miles of rough Channel seas literally Between storm fronts. Those Lark skies had played another trick on the germans. A rather Fine May when the allies had wanted to attack had come and gone. Eisenhower meanwhile agonizing Over those few june Days when the tides were right saw that the weather was Nasty out and the forecast Bleak so Bleak that the germans relaxed. A lived Rommel went off to visit his family in Germany for the. First Lime in months assured by his prognostic Alors that an invasion was t Likely in thai mess the americans would Only attack in Good weather and of course the tides were wrong. Several senior commanders of the 7th army went elsewhere to practice invasion War games. The allies were also predicting gloomy skies but not hopeless skies. Not Only would the weather on june 5 be overcast and Stormy with High winds and a Cloud base of Sou feel to Zero wrote military historian Gordon 1 Larrison in oos.s-c7i.in/iemif.ica, but the weather was if such a nature thai forecasting More than 24 hours in Advance was highly  Eisenhower postponed the great leap for 24 hours. A signal was sent Oul to invasion convoys some of which were already Al sea to turn Back. Hurried conferences were called. To go or not to gof what were the w weathermen saying now and now without tolerable weather without skies that allowed for adequate air support for those first critical hours Eisenhower would t take the risk. Weather charts were studied Resl died. Suddenly came the Good news thai a Brief break in the weather was coming not glorious Sunshine but just tolerable enough to perhaps gel by. Perhaps. Sweating in out Ike consulted with his commanders and finally despite doubts and warnings said it was a go. Not to go was to postpone the assault for weeks and probably blow its careful cover. Thus on the evening of june 5, the mightiest Fleet Ever assembled moved in concert toward France. There were the ships of the initial assault Force another wave of follow up forces another of buildup forces All steaming from various Southern English ports that were Equi Distant from the Normandy beaches which were generally closer than Calais something the germans in their Tunnel vision on Calais had t seen. They churned toward the germans through the Mist like a vision out of Hitler s worst Nightmare. Toward h hour 0630 for the americans on beaches code named Omaha and Utah to the West 0730 for the British and stripes Magazine May 18, 1989