"Our landings have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision
to attack at this time and place was based on the best information
available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could
do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

After D-Day, several veteran divisions
were withdrawn from combat in Italy,
and designated for Operation DRAGOON,
the amphibious invasion of southern
France. These units included the U.S.
45th Division and the French Expeditionary
Corps. The latter especially wanted to
be transferred to participate in the
liberation of their homeland.

The withdrawn units were replaced by
other divisions, mostly "green" troops.
While there was no outright halt in
operations in Italy, the Allied advance
north from Rome was naturally disrupted
and the lull allowed the retreating
Germans to regroup along the "Gothic
Line" at the northern end of the "boot"
of Italy. The dug-in Germans thus were
able to hold off Allied thrusts in late
1944 and prevent a breakout into the
Po Valley.

The Allied drive

See _Crusade in Europe_, pp 281-284.

"Our new situation brought up one of
the longest-sustained arguments that
I had with Prime Minister Churchill
throughout the period of the war. The
argument, beginning coincidentally
with the break-through in late July,
lasted throughout the first ten days
of August. One session lasted several
hours."

One of Eisenhower's (and Montgomery's,
BTW) strongest reasons for going ahead
with DRAGOON was to capture Marseille,
which he thought would be required to
bring the additional troops and supplies
required by the OVERLORD campaign. If
OVERLORD has failed, there is no
requirement.

Another point was that while Churchill
suggested that the DRAGOON force would be
bogged down for weeks breaking through the
German coastal defenses, Eisenhower was
confident that the Germans had reduced
their forces in the area to a minimum, and
that resistance would collapse quickly.
He was right.

But if there was no on-going battle of
Normandy, then the Germans would not draw
forces from southern France, they would
reinforce southern France, and dispatch
large reserves to counter an invasion,
making a second defeat probable.

The terrain is also unfavorable:  the
DRAGOON landings were on the coast west
of Cannes, with mountains just inland.

The geography is difficult too. In place
of the vast resources of Britain, dozens
of air bases and several large ports,
only 150 km away, the invasion would be
based entirely on Corsica, over 200 km
away.

In short, it seems highly unpractical
to go ahead with DRAGOON after NEPTUNE
fails, and I am pretty sure that if Ike
thought about it, he saw it that way too.

Also, the forces massed in Britain could not
easily be transferred elsewhere. It would
take some months to rebuild the airborne
forces and replace the losses of landing
craft and other specialized materiel. But
by September the Allies could launch a
second cross-Channel assault. If as suggested
they have cleared Italy and invaded the
Balkans, and the Soviets have smashed
Army Group Center and invaded Romania, then
the Atlantic defenses will be neglected, and
the second attack probably gets ashore and
stays. This gives the Western Allies three
months to push into France. So at the end
of 1944, the Western Allies would not be
on the western border of Germany, but would
be at the Alps, in the Balkans, and well
into France. Substantially worse than the
historical position, but not I think
_immensely_ worse.

 Though it is probable

A German victory against the Normandy invasions,
along with the Soviet offensive following shortly,
would have reduced the number of troops in France
to the point that a more hasty invasion might have
worked.  Indeed, Dragoon might well have worked
under the circumstances.  Concentrating on another
attack in France might have been the best bet
for the West.

Put Patton ashore somewhere in Britanny, there would have been very
little to oppose him with the Germans occupied containing Montgomery &
Bradley and waiting idly around Calais. You can be sure Patton
wouldn't have waited around for the Germans to bring up reserves to
contain him like Lucas did.

*Initially a large port had been planned for Quiberon Bay, codenamed
CHASTITY.

It probably wouldn't have seriously affected the ending lines, either.
Germany was not an amorphous defensive mass, through which Allied
offensive forces would advance proportional to their strength.  Hitler
could and did move forces around to counter the worst threats, resulting
in Germany being overrun from both sides, despite the greater Soviet
strength and Western mobility.

The postwar demarcation line might have been changed, but it was set
as west as it was partly due to the Ardennes offensive.  If the Germans
had managed to endanger the Red Army for the Yalta conference, and
Roosevelt had been healthy, the line might have been farther east.

It's interesting speculation, but it isn't obvious to me that the
historical result wouldn't have happened, likely a few months
later, and perhaps with some German cities nuked.

You didn't read the entire entry, as I already said, "The BIG
problem would have been the loss of the planned beeches for the
Mulberries, perhaps one or both could have been set up on the beeches
around St Vaast."

------

A "Plan B" would require knowledge of the situation after a failed D-
Day. Did it fail in part or in full? If in full, the Allies wouldn't
have been able to mount another try for some time.*

If in part, with the planning that occurred over the prior two and a
half years, nearly every beech and port on the Atlantic and Channel
coasts of France was considered, they had enough information for later
alternatives. However, as you, Don & I all pointed out, the disruption
of the logistical plan would have been the BIG problem, would it have
been flexible enough?

Would the beeches south of St Vaast have been enough to support a
bridgehead on the Cotentin? In the event, the Allies did move more
than 100,000 tons over those beeches before the weather closed them
down.* Could they have supported more? Would there have been enough
landing craft to mount another landing while also supporting the
Cotentin bridgehead?

Alan

The Omaha mullbery didn't last at all. It was destoyed by a storm on the
19th just as it was completed. The Mullbery B at Arromanches was
repaired in a few day and was used up till November when it phased out
as many ports further east had come into use.

LSTs were discharging over the beeches the entire time, usually
"drying out", that is being stranded at low tide. They even went so
far as to strand cargo ships and unload directly to trucks instead of
lightering supplies ashore, in some cases cutting holes in the side of
the ships in order to facilitate unloading.

The abandonment of the beeches in November was also due to the
weather.

Here's a quote from "Campaign 100: D-Day 1944 (1) Omaha Beach
by Authors: Howard Gerrard , Ramiro Bujeiro , Steven J. Zaloga
Released: July, 2003 Osprey Books ISBN: 1841763675

"in fact, the US Army had shipped over 300 amtracs to Europe in 1944,
but
the lack of demand for their use in the Overlord plan meant that they
were
reserved for Operation Swordhilt, a contingency operation in which
Patton's
uncommitted Third Army was intended to reinforce Overlord in the event
of
failure at one of the beaches."

This is from United States Army in World War II- European Theater
of Operations-The Supreme Command CHAPTER XI-The Breakout and Pursuit
to the Seine by Forrest C. Pogue (http://tinyurl.com/6n3vy)

"As an alternative, in case the enemy stripped the area south of Caen
and tried to set up a line from Caen to Avranches south of Vire,
Montgomery was to thrust forward in the lower Seine Valley. Operation
SWORDHILT, a combined amphibious-airborne operation to seize the area
east of Brest, was also to be launched."

The chaos as the planned unloading system was found to be
too cumbersome meant something had to be tried, already by
8 June there was a backlog of shipping awaiting unloading.
The system was failing to forward manifests and even ship
names in a timely manner to the supply people in Normandy.

On 10th June LCTs and LSTs began to be unloaded in arrival order,
on 11th June this was extended to all ships. On 12th June blackout
restrictions were eased and by 15th June the shipping backlog had
been cleared.

On 12th June the confusion on the English side of the channel,
caused by the slow return of ships reached its height. The
situation is not helped by units failing to strip out items to be
sent as cargo, instead taking all the equipment into the
marshalling areas.  Units are shipped in whatever shipping
is available and not in the planned order.

Is this the MTV conversion to ship vehicles across the channel?

No plan B as such, Italy remained an option, the invasion of
Southern France another one.  There was no plan B for another
invasion on the French Atlantic Coast in anything other than an
outline form.  Similar for say attacking Norway.

Think of the various where to invade studies that were carried out,
which covered the area from North Cape to the Spanish border.

What happened next would really depend on why the Normandy
invasion had failed.

If failure means say the defeat at one or more of the beaches there
were some plans to hit beaches nearby.