What would you put D-Day's success down to?

Monty.

 

I don't think anyone was claiming other nations were no good at it, or had never preformed such. However, WW2 brought about a new mobile warfare that simply speed up the battlefield. The Gallipoli landing of WW1 were pointed at as proof that amphibious operations could not achieve the desired results. The United States learned a great deal on how to preform these operations throughout the war. In the Pacific alone the United States made 85 amphibious landings from August 7, 1942 (Guadalcanal) - May 27, 1944 (Biak). This does not include Africa, Sicily, Anzio, etc. It would have been silly for other allies to ignore these vital lessons in the same way it would be silly for the US to exclude other Allied operations when tweaking doctrine.
Here is a quick list of the US landing in the Pacific up until Overlord in order of landing date.
Guadalcanal - 8/7/42
Tulagi - 8/7/42
Gavatu - 8/7/42
Tanambogo - 8/7/42
Florida - 8/7/42
Adak - 8/30/42
Amchitka - 1/11/43
Banika - 2/21/43
Pavuvu - 2/21/43
Attu - 5/11/43
Woodlark - 6/22/43
Kirawina - 6/23/43
New Georgia - 6/30/43
Renduva - 6/30/43
Baraulu - 6/30/43
Sasavele - 6/30/43
Vangunu - 6/30/43
Baanga - 8/12/43
Vela Cela - 8/13/43
Vella Lavella - 8/15/43
Kiska - 8/15/43
Arundel - 8/27/43
Sagakarasa - 9/13/43
Kolombangara - 10/6/43
Choiseul - 10/27/43
Bougainville - 11/1/43
Paruata - 11/1/43
Torokina - 11/3/43
Tarawa - 11/20/43
Bairiki - 11/21/43
Makin - 11/20/43
Butaritari - 11/20/43
Kotabu - 11/20/43
Kuma - 11/22/43
Abemama - 11/21/43
Buariki - 11/26/43
Arawe - 12/15/43
Cape Gloucester - 12/26/43
Saidor - 1/2/44
Majuro - 2/1/44
Calalin - 2/1/44
Dadap - 2/1/44
Kwajalein - 2/1/44
Ninni - 2/1/44
Gea - 2/1/44
Gehh - 2/1/44
Ennylabegan - 2/1/44
Enubuj - 2/1/44
Ebeye - 2/1/44
Mellu - 2/1/44
Ennuebing - 2/1/44
Ennumennet - 2/1/44
Ennubirr - 2/1/44
Ennugarrett - 2/1/44
Roi - 2/1/44
Namur - 2/1/44
Loi - 2/4/44
Burnet - 2/4/44
Bigej - 2/5/44
Gugegwe - 2/5/44
Ennugenliggelap - 2/6/44
Rooke - 2/12/44
Nissan - 2/15/44
Eniwetok - 2/17/44
Rujoru - 2/17/44
Aitsu - 2/17/44
Bogon - 2/17/44
Engebi - 2/17/44
Parry - 2/17/44
Los Negros - 2/29/44
Butjo Mokau - 3/11/44
Huawei - 3/12/44
Manus - 3/15/44
Emirau - 3/20/44
Koruniat - 4/1/44
Ndrilo - 4/1/44
Rambutyo - 4/3/44
Pak - 4/9/44
Aitape - 4/22/44
Hollandia - 4/22/44
Tumleo - 4/23/44
Saleo - 4/23/44
Wakde - 5/17/44
Insoemoar - 5/18/44
Biak - 5/27/44

 

My point is that every operation you mention was obviously in response to a Japanese operation to occupy the islands in the first place. Additionally forces other than the USA were involved in many of the operations and indeed in others where the US was not involved.
The statement "No nation, except the US, historically has had much experience or success with such invasions" is pure BS

 

Duplicate post

 

Then please provide evidence that it is false. Japan made amphibious landings, yes. But did they have more experience or success than the US had in June 44? No.

 

They didn't attempt to take many of the Islands the Japanese controlled, simply because there was no real strategic value to the islands. If they took all the main islands, and then choked the main supply lines out of the Japanese mainland the outer islands would eventually fall, through lack of supplies.

Some islands in the Pacific were taken by the Allies, to allow the building or the capture of airfields in the preparation for the larger bombers of the USAF for the bombing of Japan.

We need to remember that there are in many respects two types of amphibious landings. Islands, and continent invasions. The Island invasions are in reality a waste of resources with no real value to finish the war. While a continent invasion is a large scale assault that directly involves in taking an entire country thus ending the war.

German invasion of Norway, and the desired pincer movement against Britain, assisting in the preparation of the invasion of Britain and the hopefully starvation of the nation.

Normandy, and the opening up of the third front against the Germans, weakening the already depleted German fronts as well as the road to Berlin and the end of the war.

Anzio, the capture of Italy and its eventual removal of the Italians from the war, and the opening up of the second front against the Germans.

 

Just to buy into the this....

Allied commanders, specifically OMAR BRADLEY, totally ignored good advice from Pacific trained experts, particularly General 'Pete' Corbett, who was transfered to the ETO with the intention of lending technical advice to the up-coming Normandy operation.

Corbett was ignored.

Bradley told him, straight out, that the Pacific theater was "...Bush league stuff.", and that his advice was neither wanted nor waranted.

The bombardment for D-Day, and for Omaha in particular, was inadequate to say the very least for it. Gen. Bradley placed far too much faith in air-support, with the result that much of the munitions dropped for Omaha killed more Norman COWS than anything else.

Omaha was touch and go, saved ONLY by commitment of reserves to the BRITISH sector. German commanders felt that, by midday of June 6th, the situation on Omaha was so well in hand that reserves were not needed for the American sector.

Omar Bradley, choose to learn the lessons of amphibious operations against good advice and at the expense of 7,000? casualties. Accurate stats for losses on Omaha were never revealed.

General Corbett was astounded at the rebuff, costing as many lives as it did, and from a General described by many toe-sucking historians as "Competant", "Brilliant", and "The GI General."

I much preferred George S. Patton's approach to Generalship, Hammelburg aside. Omar Bradley was more of an egotist than Patton ever knew how to be.

 

The Japanese for the most part made landings on undefended beaches or in some cases islands and then turned them into fortresses. The statement may be hyperbole but it certainly has an element of truth. Even if there was allied participation in some of the invasions how much they contributed or new of the overall event is another matter. I'm not an expert by any means on Japanese offences and in particular ground offenses but I can only think of 3 or 4 opposed landings made by them in WWII.

 

Wouldn't an undefended beach be the best one to land at?

Of course the bypassing was a strategically wise move, my point was that given that the Pacific Forces bypassed many of the Japanese Islands the logic follows that the Japanese amphibiously assaulted more islands than the allies did. For example if they invaded 30 islands and we recaptured 20 and bypassed 10 that means they assaulted 10 more islands than we did, ergo they had more experience and success

Whether the landings are opposed or not is irrelevant, one does not conduct an operations assuming they will be unopposed, if it turns out that they ARE unopposed so much the better but you still have to go through the planning and initial assault as if it was opposed, ergo you still have the experience and success.

We also need to winnow down the impressive list of 85 operations mentioned above.

Take out all of the operations that are actually part of the same overall operation, i.e. Guadacanal, Tulagi, Florida, Gavutu, Tanambogo are really all part of the one operation
How many does that leave us with?

Now take out all the ones where other allies where involved. Aitape for example.

That's not going to leave all that many.

Probably need to add into that what Omar Bradley said and I tend to agree that the lessons learned in the PTO assaults would have had limited application in Europe given that the size of the operation, the enemy, the weather, the types of beach, the logistic situation etc etc was completely different. Corbett would have had worthwhile input I would have thought but I'd be listening to the lessons from Dieppe for preference.

Forgetting all of that, focus on the assertion made, "No nation, except the US, historically has had much experience or success with such invasions" or in other words "No other nation has had experience or success in landing an army group on 5 European beaches against a fortified enemy, except the US"

When ?

 

I hate tit for tat but just to prove a point add to the list of 85 mentioned above:
Battambang,Chumphon,Nakhon Si Thammarat,Pattani, Prachuap Khirri Khan,Samut Prakan
songkhla, Surat Thani, Sarimbon, Kota Bharu ,Penang, Lingayen Gulf, Lamon Bay, Batan Island, Camiguin, Vigan, Aprri, Gonzaga, Legazpi, Corrigidor, Guam, Christamas Island, Miri, Seria, Brunei, Labuan, Sandakan, Hong Kong, Tarakan, Kuching, Jesselton, Balikpapan, Timor, Palembang, Rubal, Bougainville, Java, Bali, Sumatra, Wake Island,

Then i got bored with plenty more to go.

Not that it matters but most of these were opposed and all of these were achieved between December 1941 and September 1942, by Japan ALONE, no other allies.

Consider too that Tarawa (Nov 1943) is the first time that the Allies in the pacific encountered serious opposition to an amphibious assault.

A few more than 3 or 4 OFFENSIVES ? No Experience, No success ?

 

"That is just wrong. Just because the Japanese land and take 5 islands unopposed doesn't give them any more experience at landing's compared to actually being under fire. Also you can not compare small scale operations to larger ones."

Yes I agree, none of the 85 operations mentioned above were anything like the scale of Normandy, however we are asked to believe the US had greater experience.

"The Germans in Normandy had tanks, the majority of Pacific islands did not, therefore tanks alone demand a change of tactics, therefore need different planning, and a whole different set of experience's needed, just like the raid of Dieppe, showed the experience of tanks on European beaches."

I agree again, did you actually read my post?

"You also can't single out nations and there experience as single nations, since throughout the war the allied forces were united in both technology, tactics, men, materials, and experiences. They shared these experiences, and as a single entity in the war, used that experience to win the war, not as single nations."

Yes that is my point precisely my whole argument is against a statement made previously by another member that the US had greater experience with assaults like Normandy.

 

Thats fine if you want to discredit those landings. So I ask yet again, please provide evidence that another country had more success and experience in amphibious warfare than the United States by June 1944.

Oh I see. When planning for an invasion you may only use lessons learned from previous landing at the same site against the same type of troops, in the exact same weather conditions. By your reasoning no country had any experience or success. Against those odds, why launch the invasion?

 

the violence of the assault,and a great commander.cheers.

 

We might also consider that every Allied invasion succeeded, as did almost every amphibious operation of the war by anyone. Invasions are launched at a time and place of the invaders' choosing, when they determine they have everything ready. Not to minimize the difficulties, but the normal expectation would be success.

 

Well lets see.

Just where did the landing take place? Looking at:
Bat Dambang, Cambodia
Link: Bat Dambang, Cambodia - Google Maps
it looks to be inland.

Well from wiki at:
Japanese invasion of Thailand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
it hardly looks like much of a success.

A one battalion operation pinned down until thier oppositons is ordered to cease fire.

Again only a couple of battalions and not at all clear that the actual landing was opposed. Again it's not clear that the Japanese had the upper hand when the battle was ended by a ceasefire.

Same story.

again from wiki

opposed by police !!!

A company!! again opposed by police and civilians....

Ok this counts as one.

Me too. Not much of a record in the first half dozen. Indeed most were akin to allied raids and at least one and I think 2 weren't even sea borne invasions...

 

I got curious about a couple more of these. Let's see what Wiki says.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines_Campaign_(1941–1942)

Doesn't sound like any of these were opposed landings to me.

This one counts as opposed but amounts to little more than a river.

Again quoteing wiki at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guam_(1941)

Again not an opposed landing.

Boy this just gets better and better. Again from wiki at:

This time looking at The Battle for Miri and Sarawak, Borneo, WW II (article) by Franz L Kessler on AuthorsDen
Again we see landings with no opposition.
Brunei, Labuan, Sandakan, [/quote]
Switching back to wiki at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Borneo_(1941–42)

Enough for now.

 

I would refer you to this article which starts out:

American forces boasted an impressive repertoire of skills in World War II. Strategic and tactical bombing, submarine and fleet actions, large scale mechanized land operations—it was a formidable array. For my money, though, all of these pale next to the signal American achievement of the war: the amphibious landing. (emphasis mine)

Goto:

The American Way of War? » HistoryNet

 

I personally fell the huge deception campaign that was carried out before hand played a large part into the success of D-day, though stupidity on Hitler's part was the final nail in the coffin.