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Source is Omaha Beach A Flawed Victory

Both British and American doctrines worked…to a degree. As World War Two progressed, if became apparent that the American doctrine offered the best chance of achieving objectives and reducing casualties in an assault against a deliberate assault. British doctrine was not to fight such a deliberate defense, it won its battles primarily with manpower. American doctrine won battles mainly with firepower. British lack of resources prevented the development of their own firepower based doctrine and British traditions exerted considerable influence. American resources and thinking forced the British to rethink their doctrine and the Americans, in light of the need to invade Europe were force to rethink their doctrine as well. The modifications to the two approaches approached their zenith on the beaches of Normandy.

Joint and Combined Amphibious Doctrine

In the European Theater of Operations the Anglo-American doctrine failed to achieve synergy in the conduct of combined, joint amphibious operations. The operations in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy all failed to maximize the combat power that was available. Instead, when faced with strong opposition, the Allies were forced to improvise the necessary combat power under emergency conditions in which the landing force faced the real threat of defeat.

In order to understand why this happened, we have to step back to a time where there was no such thing as “joint operations”. Doctrine for the conduct of amphibious operations was in its infancy and over-shadowed by the failure of Gallipoli and the near failure at Tarawa. Lessons had to be learned…and the navy, army and air forces did not always agree on exactly what lessons were important. In addition, the Armed Services of the United States possessed no body of experience and knowledge of joint operations (indeed the last time that such joint operations were conducted dated back to the Spanish-American War and the Civil War). Another factor was the very real differences in the cultures of the army and navy and the unwillingness of each branch to acknowledge the superior knowledge of the other in a particular field. Thus, in 1942, the army built its own amphibious training centers as well as started the construction of its one small-boat navy. Impacting the amphibious doctrine debate was the fact that operations in the Mediterranean were not simply joint operations, they were combined operations and British practices and traditions of war did not merge well with those of the United States. Finally, unity of command was never established at the important operational level of war. The presence of a supreme commander at the strategic level did not guarantee unity of command on the battlefield. The resources of the army, navy and air force of both nations were never under the command of a single operational commander. Adding to this mix were national egos that combined together, damaged the ability of the Allies to generate the quality and quantity of combat power that was possible. Still, even with these impediments, one may have expected a steep learning curve after two years of planning, training and fighting together.

One could never have been more mistaken.

U.S. amphibious doctrine placed command and control of operations in the hands of the navy. The naval task force commander fought the initial battle for the beaches, however, the task force commander did not have command or control of the air power employed and possessed only a very limited capability of communicating with the Air Force. In North Africa, this was not a major problem as the navy enjoyed air support form its carriers. It became a problem for Sicily and Salerno due to the lack of carrier support.

Throughout the Mediterranean landings, the principle of unity of command was violated. Instead of placing all resources under the sole command of the individual charged with conducting the operation, the army and air forces showed themselves to be incapable of submitting to such a command relationship. Adding the British forces to mix simply increased the disunity of command even further. Instead of being able to command the forces of the other services, the commander instead found himself forced to seek cooperation, which required compromise and thus further distorted the vision of the amphibious force commanders.

On critical difference between the Pacific and European amphibious operations became evident with the North African landings. No pre-invasion bombardment. Instead of allowing the navy to suppress or destroy coastal defenses, the army asked only for fire support after fire missions were transmitted to the waiting warships. This was part of the British influence, designed to achieve tactical surprise. While surprise was achieved at some of the beaches, French resistance led to severe disruption of the landing plan.

The invasion of Sicily again attempted tactical surprise, while the assault convoys were spotted by enemy reconnaissance, this was done far too late to have any real influence on the landings. Once again, the army declined any pre-invasion bombardment, only calling for support following counterattacks by German forces. Indeed, the vast amount of firepower that was delivered by the Brooklyn-class light cruisers with their fifteen 6-inch guns played a critical part in the defeat of armor counterattacks.

This demonstration of the effectiveness of naval gunfire support reinforced the army’s position that the correct place of naval support was as on call artillery.

Salerno was to prove the failure of this assumption.

On September 9, 1943, at 0330 hours, the U.S. Fifth Army invaded with two corps on the beaches of Salerno, with the Italian surrender, it was believed that there would be little or no resistance. Unknown to the invading troops, was the presence of the German 16th Panzer Division which was in the process of taking over the Italian beach defenses. The army again declined any sort of pre-invasion bombardment, the result was that for the first four hours of the landing, the attackers found themselves without any naval gunfire, artillery or tank support as they fought at close range with bazookas, grenades, machine guns, bayonets, anti-aircraft guns and the handful of artillery pieces that had been landed. The assault troops found themselves defending against armor counterattacks that came close to overrunning the invasion beaches. It was not until 0900 that radio communications was restored with the fleet and naval gunfire began to make its presence felt.

For the next two days, determined German counterattacks threatened to split the two corps in two. The army rushed in paratrooper reinforcements, the British committed additional warships and the air force hundreds of sorties. Finally the Germans were stopped. And in the after-action review, the navy was finally able to convince the army of the need for a pre-invasion bombardment.