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1943: the Victory That Never Was

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Grigg's book is not a perfect piece of history and historiography, but it is a very intriguing one. He lays out why a 1943 D-Day (invasion of Europe by the Western Allies) both could have happened, and should have happened. Anyone who enjoys alternative history (what-if) will be engaged by this line of argument. If you like to study grand strategy, again you likely will enjoy this book.

There are flaws in the book, but they are pretty minor, and most are arguable points anyway (as much of history is). The end result, for me (and I believe a 1943 invasion would have been better for the world, overall) was an acceptance that it could have been, and might have been a better result than the 1944 invasion. By going through the exercise of arguing for and explaining mechanics of a 1943 invasion, you can gather a reasonably good understanding of the challenges facing allied military (and political) leaders, and the realities of and America that was not ready for a world war.

Basically, that's it in a nutshell. Below I'll lay out just a few key items that I recall from reading it some years back, for anyone interested.

Among the points he makes in the book as to why a 1943 invasion could succeed (or was possible), or was a better plan:
* The Atlantic Wall - it was far weaker in 1943 than it was a year later, as Rommel took command, inspected and ordered a massive fortification effort to take place. Previously, German defenses were largely focused on the ports (Dieppe, Calais, Cherbourg, etc.), and the British Channel Islands, not on the long lines of beaches.
* The German army was engaged much more deeply inside the USSR in 1943 than it was a year later. This is true, and easily seen when one looks at map of the eastern front in 1943 vs. 1944 (e.g., before Kursk), where the Germans were well into the Ukraine, on doorsteps of Leningrad (St. Petersburg now), and still held the Crimea. This means that the German army is further away, and it is harder to redeploy forces to the west.
* German occupation forces - they were much weaker in 1943 than they were in 1944. Although the German army overall suffered a great deal of losses in that year, the first rate formations assigned to western europe in 1943 were small compared to 1944. The primary reason for this was simply that Hitler and the OKW understood that the Allies WOULD attack in 1944, and that this invasion must be repelled.
* France - Grigg believes that it is more important to get France back into the war, than it was to get Italy out of it. While I cannot be so sure of this argument, you will have to make your own decision. One thing to note (which I don't think Grigg did) is that the Italians switched sides, they didn't just quit the Axis. Though their MILITARY assistance to the allies wasn't that significant, they did commit combat troops and a lot of logistics/labor troops to the cause, in addition to large numbers of partisans in northern Italy.

Arguments against - which he usually acknowledges and notes strategies to mitigate them:
* German airpower - the Luftwaffe has not been defeated in 1943. They are being beaten (for ex., many folks know about the attrition of German transport and bomber planes resupplying Stalingrad, but fewer know that a similar loss occurred in trying to supply the Axis forces in Tunisia in early 1943). Without air supremacy over the invasion (beaches and sealanes), the allies lose a major advantage.
* Allied airpower - the USAAF was rapidly expanding, but that expansion took a lot of time and effort. While we could have sent more planes to Europe (UK) than we did, those would be green pilots, AND the plane types had a serious flaw - range. In 1944, the allies had fighters with sufficient range to easily cover all of northern france in huge fighter sweeps. In 1943, besides having many less squadrons, they had far less range and were more green. The probable impact of this is to limit the locations to invade. Forget Normandy as too far - Pas de Calais is the likely invasion sector, meaning the most expected and most defended location.
* Landing craft - the US/UK will have FAR fewer landing craft in 1943 than in 1944, even if they focus on this effort (which is a virtual requirement - to cease or severely curtail other operations). What is esp. missing are the larger landing crafts which were just coming out of the shipyards, like the LSTs. Having fewer of these means that the SIZE of the invasion must be smaller, and the size of the follow-on forces (vital to success of the campaign) are also smaller.
* Finally, German army itself is larger, less bloodied. German losses in 1943 summer fighting in the east were quite large, and they continued on with each successive soviet offensive (which drove Germany almost out of the USSR by the time of Normandy). A larger German army, even if not deployed initially in France, is a grave threat to the allies.

Regardless, well worth the read! I would like to see him revise it and put out a new edition, perhaps drawing on the work of other historians like John Ellis (Brute Force), etc.

Tom

This book is politically oriented not militarily but the author provides good insight into the war by showing how and why certain strategic decisions were chosen. The main theme driving the book is the relationship of FDR and Churchill and the US-Anglo Alliance. The impact with Stalin is also discussed but on a smaller scale as their stewardship of the war is analyzed.
The book begins on 12/8/41 when Churchill travels to Washington to convince FDR of a German First policy. Much time is spent on how Churchill maneuvers the President into following his agenda of concentrating on North Africa and Italy first while at the same time neutralizing Marshall's influence and delaying Operation Overlord until 1944. To help Churchill with this policy is Brooke, Dill and Mountbatten and they were amazingly successful in this quarrelsome alliance for nearly two years to follow their agenda but by late 1943 FDR and his US team started to gain leverage in the alliance.

The author faithfully reproduces the conferences and other events of these leading men, showing how the war evolved. Mr Grigg is very deliberate for 1942 and 1943 covering Quebec, Cairo, Teheran but for 1944 and 1945 quickens his pace. The bulk of his book is describing the actual events of the war, emphasizing that once Churchill talked FDR into Operation Torch that there was little chance for Overlord to launch in 1943 for once Churchill defeated Marshall for FDR's attention in this arena, it was an easy step to move on to Operation Husky and then Avalanche. Eventually FDR saw that Marshall's fears that Churchill would deliberately move away from the invasion of France for Churchill's (and Brooke's) Med obsession was coming true and that resources were being diverted from Overlord. FDR finally stopped the diversion and redirected the focus toward France. The author does a good job of covering the personal participation and arguments of the individuals in this alliance. It made the book more interesting.
Throughout the book as the actual events are played out, the author inserts his theories and "what ifs" alongside. For the most part his assertions make sense though there were two opinions I would argue against. I'll mention the more important issue. It concerns the Germans prolonging their fight in Tunisia until May 1943. Mr Griggs believes that the Axis losing 240000 men in their surrender was worth the cost for delaying the French invasion until 1944. I strongly disagree. Once the US went into the Med along with the escalation by Adm King in the Pacific in 1942, it precluded any possibility of a French invasion in 1943. Besides the Overlord plans weren't ready for the French invasion. Germany would have been much better off evacuating to southern France, Italy and Sicily than losing all those men.

On the other hand, the author's contention of liberating France before defeating Italy which had always been a yoke to Hitler makes a lot of sense. Its obvious the author has studied the war and especially this aspect of it extensively and comes up with a competent defense that landing at Normandy in the last half of 1943 not only made sense but it would have been easier to do so than a year later. The author does acknowledge that for this scenario to succeed both Allies had to be fully focused and determined in wanting a French landing in 1943 from the start. If all the effort and thought had started in early 1942, inventions and resources like the Mulberries could have been ready by 1943.

In addition to the coverage of this Alliance, the author also provides insight to the ineffective handling by FDR and Churchill with Stalin that will have dreadful impact into the post war era. Though FDR and Churchill were smart, Stalin had a more thorough understanding of the war, more focused and his goals of domination more succinct.

In the author's last chapter, a summary is made that explodes all the myths that have developed as well as examining the errors made, especially by FDR, Churchill, Brooke and Marshall in prosecuting the war with Germany that dragged it into 1945 at the cost of many lives. One myth that was propagated was that there wouldn't be enough landing boats in 1943 but in July 1943 there was enough boats for Operation Husky which probably would have been sufficient for Normandy. If FDR had restricted King in the Pacific then there would have been enough without question. There are many other arguments that were used to delay the landings that Mr Grigg reveals were untrue.
The author covers a lot of ground and I believe has succeeded in developing a realistic scenario of what could have happened if the Alliance was more intent on working together on finishing the war than on achieving personal agendas. If these key people had more determination, confidence and courage than what was demonstrated then this war could have been over by the end of 1944. This book is highly recommended for clearly showing the friction and weaknesses of the Alliance as well as showing what could have been achieved with the proper attitudes.
I also suggest reading Walter Dunn's "Second Front Now - 1943" for this book covers the military aspects and statistics more fully than Mr Grigg's book and is a fine supplement to it.

I've read, and re-read this book a number of times... and in the context of at least 40 years of reading everything WWII related I can get my hands on, from all sides, I can only reach the conclusion that the author has shaped the facts to fit his own theory.

From the very first page, he begins to cite the American failure to follow a policy of appeasment with Japan as provoking the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet any serious study of WWII will clearly show that it was the policy of appeasment pursued initially by Britain and France that made the German attack on Poland, and by extension, the Second World War inevitable!

You can't have it both ways, either appeasment prevents, or causes a war. The Munich accord seems to prove that it causes one!

This fundamental lack of historical context must call into question every other conclusion and supposition the author makes. Granted, the size of the forces diverted to Italy were out of proportion to the results they could gain. But that doesn't lead to a certain conclusion that the invasion of France was actually possible in 1943! In the end result, the actual invasion in June 1944, at least on Omaha beach only succeeded by the narrowest of margins, and all involved have stated that without success at Omaha, the entire invasion might have failed! Between the invasion of Italy and that of France, far more forces were made available and other significant improvements to Overlord had been made. In addition, allied forces had learned a great deal about assaulting a hostile shore. Without those improvements, Overlord might well have failed.

No one can judge the Italian campaign. When Sicily and Italy were invaded, none of the allied troops had much experience at defeating the Germans. Yes, they had defeated the German forces in Africa, but only after they had built up a huge numerical and logistic advantage. They had no experience at meeting German forces under circumstances even approaching equality! In Italy, they didn't have to confront an equal foe... in France they certainly would've. Britain had already tried at Dieppe and had suffered a bloody repulse.

It is more than likely that the Italian campaign sowed the seeds for the Allied success in Normandy, perhaps not in the way intended by tying down German forces, but at least by gaining experience and preparing the troops and their commanders for the main task ahead.

To continue to denigrate the Italian campaign does nothing to enlighten, but does everything to dishonor the memory of those brave soldiers who fought in this terrible campaign! The long-term pursuit of the campaign might have been improved, but in January of 1943, something had to be done, and it was clear that the invasion of France was not possible... there were only two choices at that time... invade Italy or do nothing... and nothing was never an option.

It is also interesting to note that I have never read anything from a German General who has stated that an allied invasion in 1943 would've had any chance of succeeding. In fact, if anything delayed the Allied victory in WWII, it was likely the diversion of supplies from the Third Army of George Patton while he was driving across France and about to break into Germany in the fall of 1944!

Anything else is just hindsight and second guessing.

They say hindsight is always 20/20. Whoever they are, they haven't read much alternate history, in which the passage of time serves only to multiply the might have beens. Could the Americans and British have finished Germany more quickly? This could have saved millions of lives, mostly Soviet, Jewish and German. John Grigg thinks so, and he has a definite idea about how to do it: a cross-channel invasion in 1943.

Was this viable or just a dream? He argues that there were four necessary material conditions: air superiority, sufficient troops, transport, and the ability to stop the Germans concentrating; and that the Allies had, or could have had, all of them.

Air superiority is often used as an argument against a 1943 invasion, since the German air force was not decisively defeated until early 1944. However, if the Americans could single-handedly defeat the German fighters at long range over Germany, hampered by extra fuel tanks and the need to escort bombers, surely the Americans and British together could have prevailed at much closer range over and across the Channel, even a year earlier.

As for the troops, the numbers were certainly there - over a hundred divisions. One wonders whether they were all adequately trained and in the right place, but as Grigg points out, in Sicily there were 150 000 troops ashore in the first three days and a total of over half a million. In shipping, the problem was similarly one of allocation: during the Sicily invasion nine divisions were simultaneously afloat, as opposed to seven at Normandy; and there were sufficient landing craft if they hadn't all been sent to the Pacific.

The last condition is the most problematic. Perhaps the Allies could have landed in comparable force a year early, with sufficient air superiority to stop the Luftwaffe disrupting the invasion. Yet if the Germans had been able to concentrate their armor against the beachead, it would have been in trouble. This was prevented in the actual invasion, mostly by an intense two month bombing campaign which destroyed railways and roads, bridges and tunnels all over France. Even if the Luftwaffe was defeated, seizing air superiority is one thing; using it effectively quite another. And it is not clear that the Allied bomber force in 1943 could have done the job that it did in 1944, particularly if the strategic air offensive had been put on the back burner to concentrate on an earlier invasion.

Thus the material factors all seem plausible, except perhaps the last. But good alternate history must take account of subjective factors - consistency with the knowledge and ideas of the time - as well as the objective material situation. This test is passed easily, since no less an authority than George Marshall was strongly in favour of a 1943 invasion. (Stalin and the western Communist parties, of course, were pushing for the operation a year earlier.) Even Churchill was not so much against the idea as distracted by all his other enthusiasms - "he wanted to do more or less everything", as good a one-line description of Churchill as I have ever read. In the end it was the opposition of Brooke, King's agitation in favor of the Pacific, and the fixation on finishing off North Africa that doomed the operation. Grigg is also realistic about the psychological need for some kind of victory in 1942, despite the cost, risk and dubious military value of Torch and El Alamein. His argument does not depend on a complete abandonment of the Mediterranean, but rather a willingness to seal off the German position in Tunisia by land and sea instead of completely reducing it. And, of course, giving the invasion of France priority over Sicily and Italy.

All in all, Grigg makes a good case. I am not sure I would go as far as he does in, for example, saying that the Mustang could easily have been in production a year earlier, that the Germans could have won the war with guided missiles or nerve gas, or that the unconditional surrender demand made a big difference (no desirable deal was possible with the Nazis, and the generals' plot failed anyway). But he provides solid evidence that the specialist vehicles and other devices (amphibious tanks, Mulberry harbors etc) could have been developed earlier if the demand was there.

Yet along with the concentration problem, there are two somewhat vaguer factors that leave a lingering doubt. The first of these is experience. Even if there was no technical breakthrough in 1944 that was not available in 1943, there were still a thousand and one little things that could go wrong but must go right. Would they all have been identified without the experience of operations in the Mediterranean and Pacific? Would the troops and their commanders, with that much less experience of battle and victory, had the skills and the confidence to do the job right the first time? The second is logistics following the invasion. Was all that fuss about the climax of the Battle of the Atlantic really much ado about nothing? Yes, the Germans were not sinking ships faster than the Allies could build them, and there was sufficient shipping for Torch, Husky and Anvil. Yet surely the battle against much larger German armies would require much more support over a longer period, even if the landings themselves did not.

Even then, with hindsight, it seems a risk worth taking. After all, Torch was highly risky and promised much less gain, and the historical Normandy landings were hardly a sure deal. And in some ways the Germans were weaker in 1943 than in 1944. The fortification of ports and beaches ranged from weak to non existent. The Eastern Front was further east, making it harder to transfer troops. Another point, which Grigg strangely ignores, is that German tanks were qualitatively inferior in '43. Much harder to push the Allies back into the sea with Panzer IVs than with Panthers. Perhaps the ultimate argument is the tradeoff between costs and benefits. If successful, the war could have been ended perhaps a year earlier. If it failed, try again next year. At worst, the Bomb in August '45. Now we just need a working time machine . . .

Grigg's attempt to provide an earth shattering expose falls far short of his presumed goal Imagine if you will his thesis. The Allies i.e. the Americans and the British were capable of attacking France in 1943 without being obliterated by the Germans as they had obliterated the Canadians at Dieppe.

That is nonsense for a number of reasons as any of you cognizant of the time and place are aware.

The author makes a number of assertions, none of which are supported by a citation. The author does not use citations, footnotes, endnotes or anything of the kind.

The author freely admits that his bibliography consists of at best secondary sources. I think it more apt to term these tertiary

There is one stupidity that I find quite incomprehensible. Page 216: "the average bomb error was reduced from 680 yds in March 1944 to 285 yards in May 1944.

In Febuary 1945, the US 8th AF determined that only 5% of bombs dropped landed within 1 MILE of their aim point aka target.

The Americans were bombing in daylight and the British at night,`

The author attribubutes the dubious succeses of Bomber Command to the inovation of the Pathfinder,

Let us take a moment here to visualize the effect of the Pathfinder.

The sky is pitch black and in the fall and winter over Germany, visibility is extremely limited.

Consequently the bombing process is confused at best or simply haphazard at worst. The latter being the more probable of the two.

THE BOMBERS BOMB regardless of what they can see. The Radars are ineffectual.

Germany is destroyed and many, many people die.

And to what end?

The Allied bombing of Germany after January 1, 1945 was a war crime.

If you do not believe me, I will be happy to provide you with a reading list. This will include books but more importantly journal monographs.

One final note: if you disagree with me and think that "the bloody Boche" got what they deserved, think again.

Who was it that paid for the food and shelter provided to the Germans when the War was over?

Take a wild guess.

Regards,

James Good