Plan B Forum

June 6, 1944

The WW2 generation in which we owe a tremendous debt is almost gone. For those that freed Europe from Axis opression we who are alive today salute you.

Thanks.......dad.

Even though you died in 2000, I miss you and owe you one hell of a lot!

The WW2 generation in which we owe a tremendous debt is almost gone. For those that freed Europe from Axis opression we who are alive today salute you.

Ditto.
Thanks to all of you.

Amen

Agree with all above.

I agree too.

Lets hope that the free forces of the allies will always stand together.

(Let's also not forget Russia's contribution too.)

The USSR lost more men to the NAZI onslaught than all others, some 20 million I believe.

Their country was brutalized like no other except perhaps China by Imperial Japan.

My God, when one reflects on the enormity of this war and how many brave men and women gave their lives for MY freedom (as well as millions of others) a debt of graditude wells up in my heart.

God Bless All Of You!

Words escape me.
Thank you to all.

It was a very near thing...

If an extraordinary disinformation campaign prior to the Invasion had not succeeded in convincing Hitler that the Normandy Invasion was a feint, and that the main thrust of the invasion forces would come at the Pas De Calais, he would have brought up the reserve Panzer and infantry units to bear on the invaders at Normandy and the invasion would have failed...

His hesitation during those first crucial hours allowed the invasion to succeed...

When FDR said:

The enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again

He was preparing the country for the possibility that the invasion might not succeed, and that we might have to mount it again....

Hitler didn't arise until noon on the 6th and left strict orders not to be disturbed.

What an idiot!

And if Erwin Rommel, the architect of The Atlantic Wall, hadn't been back in Germany celebrating his wife's birthday on June 6th, (the German High Command knew that an invasion attempt was coming, but they thought the weather in the Channel had gotten so bad that the Allies wouldn't try it for another month) and had instead been standing on top of the sand dunes above Omaha Beach peering through his binoculars at the vast armada of ships headed his way, he would have moved the reserves down to meet them...

We would still have ultimately won the war, (our superior industrial and manpower capacity would have triumphed) but at a much greater cost...

We might have wound up having to use The Bomb in Europe to end the war...

This raises an interesting, "what if?" question...

What if the Normandy invasion had failed, and the Rastenburg Bomb Plot had succeeded?

With Hitler and the Nazi government removed, would there have been sufficient stomach for pursuing "unconditional surrender" in the West regardless of the cost? Or would the US and the Brits have been willing to accept a separate peace with Germany that left them free to fight the Soviets?

I think that's an interesting question....

Hitler firmly believed that the Allied Invasion would occur at the Pas de Calais.......for that matter many in the German high command believed the same.

I heard that Hitler wasn't too keen on that "Jew science" of atomic fission. Hence, Germany lagged in nuclear development. One can only imagine a multi-stage V-2 equipped with a nuclear warhead.

Bye-bye......NYC

There is a great deal of fairly ignorant "if this then that" speculation about the Normandy invasion but the brute facts are that Germany was so tied up with the Russians who were busy rolling the front lines back to the Fatherland that it is likely we would have been successful overall even if Normandy were made more difficult than it was.

Irwin Rommel was not the architect of the defenses on the Atlantic coast, he was just put in charge of them late in the game. Yes, he was a good general. No he could not overcome a huge material advantage by magick. Monty, no mental giant, whipped him with American equipment in N. Africa.

My wife thanked me recently for making her go to Colville Sur Mer last year. History isn't her thing. But she gets it.

yrs,
rubato

Who is Irwin Rommel?

Who is Irwin Rommel?

He was Erwin's younger brother...

(Good God, can this guy can not get anything right? Geez, what a buffoon..)

There is a great deal of fairly ignorant "if this then that" speculation about the Normandy invasion but the brute facts are blah blah blah...

Thus says the man who's knowledge of WWII is so hopelessly flawed that he believes the Poles weren't victims of the Nazis...



"Gee Mr. Peabody, could somebody really be that dumb?
You'd be surprised Sherman...."

Getting back to "Operation Overlord"

Job well done!




(check ot the GI mith the machete to the left of the NAZI flag)

Well yes, but apart from spelling Rommel's first name with an I instead of the correct E, any substantive refutation of the overall point rubato made - that the Russian offensive made a Western Front assault more likely to succeed (eventually) than not?

Taking nothing away from the men who invaded Europe from England (and not forgetting the D-Day 'dodgers' in sunny Italy), Hitler's most amazing blunder of attacking Russia was the key to the eventual Allied victory. Without it, the forces of freedom might have still be fighting for a toehold in 1950 which would have been a bit of blow to my chances of being conceived. (And let's have no cries of "What a shame")

Meade