[Adm.Lee]

I'm going to revise my thinking about a criticism. The pre-invasion bombardment could not have been lengthened, as it was in the Pacific, without losing operational surprise. What I think now is that more effort could have been put into creating and supporting the naval-fire-control teams and forward air controller teams.

I am aware that tactical control of air power was still very limited, mostly by insistence of the air forces. More could have been done, and it was later done, but it still reads like there was less air-ground coordination for Overlord than there was in the later stages of the Desert campaigns or in Italy. Perhaps air-controllers could have been located on the close-in DDs?

Naval fires were said to have helped tremendously at Omaha, primarily in those close-in DDs, but they were often firing without direction from the shore. (I still like the story of the destroyer skipper who pointed out a stalled tank on Omaha to his gunnery officer, and told him to shoot whatever the tank was shooting at. The tank commander saw what was happening, and started blasting away enthusiastically!)

I believe there were naval fire control teams on the beaches, but evidently not enough, or not with working radios. Maybe more teams and more radios would have helped? What about teams in boats that weren't landing, but moving about the shallows (outside the suspected mined area), spotting targets?

I recommend again "The dead and those who are going to die", about the 1st ID's efforts (primarily the 16th Infantry Regiment's) on Omaha. I feel the need to go look for Joe Balkoski's works on the 29th ID, there are apparently more than one.