Technologies

Getting across the beaches in Normandy took years of planning, training and production. That 24-hour period, which Rommel referred to as the ‘Longest Day’, proved for many to be their shortest day. In theory Allied material strength, especially that which derived from the Arsenal of Democracy in the USA, could more than compensate for the alleged superiority of the German soldier. And since those soldiers facing the invaders were supposedly second rate the invasion should have been relatively easy. In fact, and with the exception of Omaha, it was, for fewer Allied soldiers died on D-Day than on many of the subsequent days of fighting. But while Allied technology in the form of superior aircraft and artillery, supported by the dominance of the Allied navies, ensured significant advantages for the Allied troops, the latter’s poor landing craft, tanks and machine guns proved very problematic. In the main, as the previous chapter suggested, the disadvantages were a product of culture and politics, rather than contingency or misfortune or poorer technologies or inadequate science, because there were alternative and superior boats and tanks that could well have reduced the invaders’ casualties even more. That the invasion succeeded is a tribute to those who worked around and against such unnecessary disadvantages.