Not a Miracle

An Inevitable Constant

Throughout the history of warfare, the character of combat has undergone constant evolution. Even in times of relative peace, the tactics and technology of war continue to change. The tense period between the Armistice of November 1918 and the outbreak of war again in 1939 was no exception. In the short span of two decades, the nature of modern conflict transformed drastically. Static combat was replaced by massive mobility, permanent trenches gave way to temporary foxholes, the use of armour and aircraft was expanded by an extraordinary degree, and the civilian populations of many warring nations were subjected to direct attacks of unprecedented intensity.

However, despite revolutionary changes in the conduct of war, certain key aspects of warfare remained fundamentally identical. The tactics concerning direct frontal infantry assault belong in this category. A comparison between offensive tactics used on several battlefields of the Western Front during the First World War and those employed on the beaches of Normandy during the Second World War illustrates that, despite major technological advances and fundamental changes in the character of warfare, the nature of frontal infantry assault stayed almost exactly the same.

The characteristics of this type of assault on D-Day and on the Western Front are comparable, and in some cases indistinguishable, in several key respects: enemy positions were subjected to considerable bombardment beforehand; the element of surprise was crucially important; defensive barriers to be overcome were similar; offensive technology used in the attacks turned out to be substantially less effective than had been hoped for; infantry assault tactics and weapons were almost identical; and the high morale of attacking soldiers was unquestionably vital to success. Each of these aspects will be addressed in turn, revealing the elementary features of the parallels connecting No Man's Land and Normandy.

Preparatory Bombardment and Fire Support

With the loss of mobility that followed the First Battle of the Marne, both sides in the First World War turned to artillery to regain momentum and break through their foes' entrenchments. C.P. Stacey writes that both the British and French High Command believed prolonged artillery bombardment, “if only heavy enough, could crush out all life in an area,” allowing the assaulting infantry to march across enemy lines virtually unopposed, tasked only with mopping-up operations. In fact, General Henry Rawlinson, under command of Britain's Field Marshal Douglas Haig, expected his troops to be able to stroll unopposed across No Man's Land under the cover of a creeping artillery barrage. Actions followed words, and by 1916 the British fired 1,508,652 rounds of artillery in seven days of preparation before the initial assault, more shells than were fired throughout the entire first year of the war. However, not only in this instance, but time and time again results were less than spectacular. The artillery employed in this conflict was notoriously wasteful and inaccurate. The experiences of Private Fraser of the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Courcelette in 1917, who found the German trench “absolutely intact” despite extensive artillery preparation, were sadly typical throughout the First World War.

28 years later, the Allies' bombardment of German positions on the Normandy coast played an equally prominent role in their assault preparation. Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command attacked costal batteries the night before D-Day and the U.S. Eighth Air Force struck beach defences in the morning. Naval gunfire from five battleships, 23 cruisers, more than 100 destroyers, and countless smaller craft began at dawn. A barrage of rockets was launched minutes before the assault troops landed, and Army self-propelled guns fired onto the beach from their landing craft. However, just as in the First World War, this colossal firepower proved to be highly inaccurate. Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force General Dwight D. Eisenhower elucidates: “Despite the massive air and naval bombardments with which we prefaced our attack, the coastal defenses in general were not destroyed prior to the time when our men came ashore.”

Cloud cover caused the U.S. Eighth Air Force to drop the vast majority of its bombs too far inland to have any effect. The massive naval bombardment scored direct hits on but a tiny proportion of enemy targets. In fact, Stephen Ambrose speculates that the greatest value derived from Allied battleships off the coast of Normandy lay not in their firepower at all, but instead in their drawing enemy fire from the beach. Even the naval rockets, for the most part, fell harmlessly onto the surf. Just as in the First World War, the enemy received a shower of fire, and, just as before, the enemy's defensive positions survived more or less intact.

The Allies' massive fire support nonetheless proved its effectiveness once the troops landed and were sometimes able to coordinate with the Navy to bring fire on specific targets. This type of fire coordination, much like the tactics of mass bombardment, had strong roots in the First World War. Ian Brown's studies, for example, show “remarkably tight integration” of infantry and artillery during the 1914-1918 conflict. Especially after 1917, Canadian forces in particular showed exemplary use of fire coordination, such as in the battle for Hill 70 in August of that year.