Remembering the “Great Crusade”: 80th Anniversary D-Day Discussion

e e e e e e e e Christmas hello and welcome to remembering the great Crusade 80th anniversary D-Day discussion I'm Dr Chris Mason at the US Army war college and I will be the moderator for today's program before we begin I would like to thank Army University press Army University films the US Army war College the Army Heritage and education center the national archives in Washington DC and the Imperial War Museum in Great Britain for their generous support in creating today's program today's panelists are Dr Hattie Hearn at the Imperial War Museum who will be discussing the buildup of American troops in Britain in preparation for D-Day Dr Christopher kery of army University films who will be addressing deception operations and the legacy of D-Day and Mr Allan connman at the Army Heritage and education center in Carlile who will be presenting Overlord and Ultra and examin of an operational use of ultra during the invasion of Normandy I would like to encourage our audience to please use the chat function of this platform at any time to post comments and questions for our panelists first up today is Dr Hattie Hearn Dr Hearn is curator of the American Air museum at the Imperial War Museum duckford she is responsible for the Museum's substantial collection of aircraft and objects relating to the story of American Air power from the first world war to the present day she also maned manages the American Air Museum website which records stories of the men and women of the US Army Air Forces and the memories of the British people who brended them Dr hearn's PhD explored the material culture of the eth US eth Air Force and its enduring impact on the Heritage on the east on of the east of England Dr Hearn welcome and thank you for taking the time to be with us here today I'll turn the microphone over to you thanks for that introduction Chris I'm just going to sh my screen hopefully you can you can all see the slides um so I'm going to jump straight into the presentation today with a look at one of our Imperial War mum's most recent acquisitions and the story behind this parachute really symbolizes the relationships that were formed between British people and Americans in the buildup to D-Day or the great Crusade so while conducting rehearsal operations in the spring of 1944 American airborne troops were stationed across counties in the East Midlands of England and one of these um these small towns Villages was the market town of Hinkley in leerer and the the town played host to the 376th parachute field artillery Battalion of the 504 parachute Infantry Regiment um when the 3776 weren't training they spent a lot of their T downtime time in the local pub the new in on Castle Street and over a few months they they got to know the land Lords and the land lady of the pub really well um Dena and William and as um D-Day Drew closer the 376 were preparing to move down um to the South Coast to join The Invasion Force but before their departure D battery gifted the landlords an auxiliary parachute you can see here which they had decorated with illustrations and dedicated with a message of thanks and they'd also signed um the parachute with their names the parachute was then hung in the in the pub as a reminder of that um enduring friendship one of those to sign the parachute was 24-year-old private Robert Medfield Scott who's pictured here and he was from laramy Wyoming so the 376 ultimately end up taking part in D-Day they' suffered such heavy casualties at anzio was felt that they they deserved arrest however they did take part in operation Market Garden of September 1944 and um a month into that operation um Dena and William the the landlords of the the new in got word that Robert Scott had been killed in action heartbroken they took the the parachute off display um and 80 years on we were lucky enough to have been donated the par parut by um their daughter so in all close to 2 million Americans are estimated to have passed through Britain during the second world war in a country of a population estimated to be around 48 million um in 1944 the presence of so many Americans couldn't have been missed and this influx of Americans is colloquially referred to as the friendly invasion of Britain and for most Britains this would have been their first time encountering an American and likewise for many Americans this would have been their first time leaving home and wartime England would have been like unlike anything else they they any other place that they' visited before and it was a period of huge cultural and social change for the country so the biggest enclaves of Yanks um were in the east of England uh and that was home to the eighth and Ninth Air Forces um you can see on this map um the blue dots represent the Eighth Air Force bases and the ninth Air Force represent are represented by the red dots and um these airfields are over 200 um overall that were built and occupied by USAF um could house around 2,500 American men many times the population populations of the nearest towns and Villages and in all almost half a million men served with the USF in England and as the The Invasion Drew closer infantry troops began to gather in the southern triangle um of of England from Dorset of and Devon up into the Midlands um and there was also an important Northwest Supply Corridor to Liverpool and Manchester and even though it's not shown in this map there was also a dense concentration of Americans in Northern Ireland particularly u in 1944 as The Invasion Invasion Drew closer so as well as air bases halls and country houses became headquarters for commanders and planners um other buildings were converted to hospitals or rest homes for war war weary Barns and out buildings would house teams of truck drivers um whilst even them some some buildings were requisitioned to be to uh cater for specialist Bakery units which would have provided fresh bread for the Airmen and the soldiers um in England so where did it all begin so the arrival of the first American troops began shortly after the US entered the war um operation Bolero was the code name of the United States military Troop buildup um in preparation for a cross chnnel Invasion um and that Invasion plan was Operation Roundup which it was hoped could be implemented in mid 1943 or the less likely plan which was Operation Sledgehammer which would have been executed in the fall of 1942 so the Bolero plan began in April 1942 and it set in motion a huge movement of men from the US to Britain and while both round up and Sledgehammer Sledgehammer were ultimately shelved um in favor of Operation Torch which was as we know was the Allied invasion of North Africa these troop movements and the infrastructure that was constructed to support them laid the groundwork for Operation Overlord and speaking of groundwork some of the first Americans to arrive in Britain were part of the black Aviation engineering battalions who were tasked with building airfields for the US Army Air Forces now in all um around 150,000 of the US troops stationed here were black um and unlike their white com comrades black Personnel were largely consigned to service and supply roles their work was characterized by long hours of physical labor and uncomfortable accommodation but their importance in facilitating the American war ethic cannot be overstated and for the rural population of England the arrival of black Americans um led to the F their first encounters not only with an American but also with a black person so at this time the black population of Britain was um relatively small and was mainly concentrated in in urban areas but for the most part black troops were warmly received by the British people um and we we in the museum we tell the story of James W who was one of the men who came over and served with an aviation engine Engineering Battalion but as more white Americans arrived so too did the US military's policy of segregation and rules were established by us commanders that restricted entry to local pubs and social facilities and even whole towns um to uh certain nights of the week so um in my local town for instance um certain days of the week would um have been um left for black troops and other nights only white troops could visit so the this kind of informal policy of segregation made its way over to the UK so in September um s skipping ahead there so the most likely um place for Brits to encounter Americans would have been during their free time hubs once the domain of local villagers welcomed curious Americans who had to grow accustomed to that warm mild and bitter which so many Americans talk um less than fondly about and photos in our collection show Americans visiting towns and cities across the country they explored cathedrals and castles went to the theater and rode bicycles through the countryside of what they described as Merry Old England however it's also worth bearing in mind that the average age of the American Soldier participating in D-Day was only 26 and where do Young Americans visiting Briton for the first time go well that answer is London the capital was the largest city in the world and despite the toll that the blitz had taken it still offered much for the visiting American the first stop for new arrivals was usually Picadilly circus in the Heart of the City and Picadilly circus um and a less favorable reput reputation as the center of a sex trade that catered predominantly to Americans and these women um were nicknamed Picadilly Commandos as a result veneral disease was one of the the biggest concerns of the US Medical Department who worked to introduce special Recreation programs in a bid to divert soldiers attention away from sexual relations um and to some Tamer um recreational Pursuits um one of the major ways that they did this was by cooperating with the American Red Cross and in Picadilly an American Red Cross service club called rainbow Corner opened to cater for American GIS it could seat 2,000 people and when it first opened in November 1942 the key was ceremoniously thrown away to symbolize that the club would be open 24 hours a day until the war ended so by this time there were Red Cross service clubs opening up in towns and cities across Britain but these facilities were only available to Men on leave so enter the club mobile Club mobiles entered service across the country to bring a taste of home to the US personnel there were converted London buses essentially and they were kitted out with donut making machines and coffee making facilities and they were manned by a team of four Club MERS the rear of the trucks were also fitted out with a lounge containing a record player Hometown magazines and a map of the USA um and in in itself it was recognized that the appearance of an American woman on a lonely Airfield um would in itself be a morale boost and these women underwent a really rigorous process of selection and training in the states um primarily at the American University in Washington DC and the club M's story is just one of thousands um represent kind of one of thousands of American women who served in Britain and their roles varied from nursing um to running recreational programs to even performing in in the Uso um to military roles with the Army and Navy and there stories that often go um unrecognized in this wider picture of the friendly Invasion so in in September 1943 the Red Cross Club mobiles were really expanding their service and gearing up for the the planned Invasion and one way one of the ways they did this was to start um serving coffee and donuts at the Liverpool docks to the disembarking Troops and um it's worth noting too that that um that there was quite a lot of rivalry at this point between the Americans and the British Personnel um even though uh Americans were were very much taught about how to um to treat their British counterparts bites still broke out occasionally and there was a resentment among the British troops um against their better paid and better dressed Americans and the phrase overpaid over sex and over here was a derogatory way of describing the Americans presence however there were one group in society who remember the Americans much more fondly um they remember their generosity with chocolate gum and comics and the the children's cries of gots gum Cham were um often met by the retort got Sister Mister and we've got one one interesting story in our collection um and and that's this collection of chewing gum rappers which were collected by a 10-year-old boy living in Oxford called Michael Stockton and he collected them and and exchanged them with friends in the playground um and then donated to them um donated them to us after the war and um the American troops were also very fondly remembered for a popular tradition that emerged during the war where the Americans hosted Christmas parties on on American bases for young um children in the local area and for many children this was their first time tasting ice cream peanut butter and even cranberry sauce um these are foods that we now consider to be staple parts of the British diet so by early 1944 Britain is just one huge training ground um and as as a result of this of all of the training exercises that are going on some compromises have to be made in Britain and one of the most poignant examples of the sacrifices made by both Americans and British um Comes In late 1943 when 3,000 people were evacuated from slapped in Sands and the surrounding Villages uh in South Devon in order to provide a training ground for the American Army to prepare for the D-Day Landings and these local people um some of whom had never left their homes and Villages before had just six weeks to pack up everything and move away and many never actually returned to their Villages and they were making way for 15,000 US troops who over the following months engaged in a battle exercise often involving live ammunition and in April 1944 this training culminated in a dress rehearsal for the planned um Landings on Utah Beach known as exercise tiger however the exercise would end in disaster when a combination of a German ebo attack and friendly fire led to enormous um casualties and at the Museum we tell the story of Harry H Evans who was a combat medic taking part in the exercise aboard LST 289 and he was awarded the bronze star with a via Valor for aiding the soldiers and Sailors wounded by the torpedo attacks he wrote the name of his LST and the date of the attack on the Belt he wore when landing on Utah Beach on D-Day however despite this tragedy the rigorous training at slap in helped to reduce the number of casualties on dday itself so while 749 soldiers died in exercise tiger only 175 US soldiers were killed or wounded on at Utah Beach on D-Day so I want to end my presentation on a slightly U more positive note and that is the topic of wartime romance so in our collections we have plenty of examples of British women marrying American soldiers and this is just one example here the story of Peggy Albertson who joined the women's land Army in 1943 and it was during her time serving in the rural East anglian Countryside that she met her husband to be uh at a dance at an a Red Cross dance at Burly Air Force Base and they later married and um she waited until the end of the war like thousands of other British women to um get her visa so that she could go over to the states and she she noted that when by the time she got over to America and was reunited with her husband she barely recognized him because he was in civilian clothes and it was the first time she'd ever seen him in civies so in all more than 60,000 British women married Americans um and most of those would immigrate to the United States with their new husbands and I've also included this photo here which shows uh a tent where with the message sorry Jean had to go Johnny and for many British women that was the end the the end of their relationships D-Day um during D-Day itself um the men were suddenly um suddenly left the country often without any warning and for many British women their sweethearts would end up being lost in in the ensuing battles um so so as much as um love was uh was certainly um on the cards between many of these women there was also heartbreak so just to to finish I want to quickly talk about the friendly Invasion 80 years on so there are plenty of tangible reminders of D-Day in Britain today just one example is this brick wall in Southampton which is where the invasion forces departed from and the wall is covered by signatures from American soldiers and I found this one particularly poignant um it's by a man called Delbert W Smith who was serving with the 424th regiment as a driver and he wrote his name on the wall but he also wrote the names of his wife and his U newborn daughter and uh the photo of the bricks on on the bottom right are actually um in my hometown so uh my in my local area had a number of US Air Force Army Air Force bases and the the men in their spare time would often inscribe their names so that's just a tangible reminder of the American presence so close to my home so obviously the American presence in Britain the friendly invasion is commemorated in memorials um which is scattered across the country and meticulously maintained by armies of volunteers is we also have two cemeteries brockwood Cemetery which holds 468 us War dead and madney Cemetery which um is the final resting place of 3,811 US servicemen and women and finally we have the American Air Museum um which is which is where I work I'm the curator of this fantastic organization and within the museum we tell the stories of some of these men and women um both British and American who served alongside each other and most importantly of all we're a memorial to the the three the 30,000 Americans who died while flying or serving from Britain um who will never be forgotten so um I'd like to end my presentation there thank you very much for listening and if you have any questions please drop them in the chats uh thank you Dr Hearn um I'm sure there will be a lot of questions and comments from our audience about the friendly Invasion uh but I'll hold on to those until all of our panelists have spoken today next up on our panel is Dr Christopher Kerry who will be presenting why D-Day matters 80 years later Dr Cary writes and directs documentaries for Army University films trained as a historian Dr Cary collaborates with military units researchers at the AR National Archives and Library of Congress and enjoys speaking on while why the film Predator released in 1987 is an allegory about the Vietnam War Dr K's most recent films include D-Day planning the impossible released in 2023 and deception of D-Day released in 2022 both of which are available on YouTube and dvids divid thank you for being with us today and over to you Dr Carrie great thank you uh Dr Macy can you see my slides okay yes great thank you okay this uh photo appropriately comes to us from the National Archives and it's one of the few in color that we had prior to D-Day uh you can see kind of down here in the right they're down by the water and they are preparing to uh to get in the ships so this probably isn't going to surprise our audience too much here today but people love World War II um World War II cells whether it's um Scholastic or po popular histories they they often um sell you know above other Wars and I think part of the reason that this occurs is um in the mind of the general public the Revolutionary War is almost like this fantasy different world different set and the American Civil War of course is sort of in the similar vein um armies lining up uh marching at each other with Napoleonic Styles and again I don't think that that necessarily relates the general public today now World War I uh of course is closer TimeWise and it's the period where we begin to see the development of um the fighting for World War II but again um most people associate that with trench warfare not so much with World War II so I think another reason why this is such a big thing in the general public is it's seen as a just War so um we often feel as though Nazi Germany or imperial Japan started the war with their invasions which of course in many ways they do for the Americans Pearl Harbor is the rallying call December 7th 1941 a day that is going to live in infamy and and people remember that date as the day that the United States was attacked unprovoked right whether rightly or wrongly that's true but um that's the day that this whole thing started for the Americans and and fighting against the Nazis it's very easy to vilify um given their War atrocities that they were were committing um you know against civilian populations throughout Europe um civilian and Soldier alike and all of this I think kind of combines and makes sort of a romanticized notion of World War II and uh as I I chose this picture right here another one that we that we got from the National Archives um it it wasn't necessarily like that for the for the um Soldier Sailors and Airmen that that participated in the war so today I want to talk about um the deception operations at dday so I thought we should start here by showing the overall plan um you can see where everybody starts and where we're going to be going down here to Utah Omaha gold Juno and sword and I really like this map um in particular because I want us to pay attention and kind of keep this in mind for the rest of the talk about over here in the Straits of Dover and this is the this is the closest point between England and the continent and yet um the Allies are going to choose to go the longer way and we're going to talk about why they do that here shortly um also the reason I called this Slide the D-Day is it's important to remember that all operations have a D-Day um they all do it's the starting point of the operation but everyone today refers to the Normandy Landings uh the invasion of France as D-Day that's um it's just that iconic so once the Allies are going to land here on our beaches right up here there's um three things that they really need to do pretty quickly and this is the plan as of uh February of 1944 so the first thing that they really need to do is they're going to link up so you've got the Americans here split over here on Utah and then over here on Omaha which is going to be the worst of all of your beaches and then you've got the Canadians and the British over here so the first thing they need to do is they need a link up which means they need to take this whole territory right in here and unify it and start their defense their defenses there the second thing that they need to do is they need to get to a port because they need to be bringing in larger vehicles and to be bringing in supplies so they're going to decide that they want to do that at shareboard even though the direction that they really want to go is this way they're going to choose Sher Borg right here it's also part of the reason why the Airborne units the 82nd 101st are going to land right here and then of course we have the six British which are going to land over here to try and stop the British Counterattack uh the U Nazi Counterattack then after that they want to break out and so uh you kind of see here on each the D plus the number that's how many days how far they want to be so by D Plus 90 they want to be all the way up here by the edge of Paris so they have some concerns there are these fears um surrounding this is obviously a giant operation and they have particular fears starting with spies so they're worried that the secret is going to get out as to where they're going when they're going how large their force is going to be and so we're going to talk about that and Allan actually is going to talk about that as well here I think after I finish um another thing they're very concerned about is the V1 Rockets the uh Germans have been starting to post these up along the coast um they're able to hit uh London uh but what Eisenhower is really concerned about is that they're going to be able to hit the ports um prior to the buildup he talks about that in his Memoirs is one of those things that was really concerning and we don't talk about that too much um the the histories don't talk about that too terribly much uh as you might imagine the air and the Navy the German air and navy are both concerning you don't want the German air force lose coming over here and seeing where um the buildup was going to take place because it would indicate the direction in which they were going to go you also don't want um Fighters being able to hit you during the crossing you don't want the Navy coming up OTS hitting you in the channel as well so the Allies are going to really work to try and neutralize those those aspects and then the last thing that they're really concerned about is the is the German Counterattack the tanks the panzers and so you can see here um these red squares represent uh the German units in France and ones that they are most worried about are these ones that have uh it's a box and then a little circle in it uh my team colloquially calls them the burritos when we have to build these Maps out so they're worried that all of these units are going to move uh towards uh towards the invasion force and that's what they really want to limit so uh deception uh deception everybody's doing it the Soviets are doing it the Japanese are doing this um all the major players in World War II are doing are using deception operations in one capacity or another and the British are the ones who really invests the most in this um they're also the ones here are what I'm going to talk about today Operation Fortitude that um they invest the most Upfront for this and and the American counterparts are kind of uh dubious uh they're not too sure that it's a wise investment now prime minister Winston Churchill loves these unorthodox Concepts and he's been doing this throughout the entire war and he's he's always pushing for deception operations wherever he can and he's the one that's going to give us this quote down here that maybe maybe some of us have heard um in Wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of Lies out of that famous quote uh we're going to get operation bodyguard which is a larger operation several fall underneath it uh series of deception operations um that the Allies are going to uh attempt to convince the Germans uh of things that are not actually going to happen and under um operation bodyguard is where we come Operation Fortitude falls out uh comes underneath operation bodyguard and um two of the largest factors that are going to really play a role in this are double cross the double cross system which is the Turning of British uh the Turning of German spies uh operating in the UK or creating um uh fake spies that they can feed information back um back to Germany uh the second one is Ultra which I'm going to leave to Alan because he's going to be talking about it here in in just a few minutes I believe and then um so Operation Fortitude has broken up into three components fortitude North Fortitude South phase one and then South phase two uh and Eisenhower approves this on 23 February 1944 so fortitude uh North okay this plan is not real this is what they are trying to convince uh the Germans uh that they are going to do first so they're trying to convince them that they are going that the Allies are going to try to invade Scandinavia uh the first spot they're going to go is into stavenger right here in Norway and then a second force is going to go up here into narvi you can see the dates so the stenger is going to be D minus 30 D minus 30 means that it's going to occur 30 days prior to the Cross Channel attack to dday uh similarly uh the narvic um uh Expedition would occur D minus 17 so they're starting to feed the Germans the plan in the order of what they're going to do stuff so stavenger is first narvi is second and then a Soviet Force they they brought in uh the Soviet allies as well on this deception operation saying that they are going to link up here uh and that they're going to come with the spring offensive so they want to create this sort of domino theory so that the Germans are confused as to the order of what's going to occur what's going to occur first so that when they actually do land in Normandy the Germans are confused as to what's occurring they also try to convince them that they require 50 divisions to do this and and shipping for 12 so um that's a very large buildup that they would require um in the UK so Fortitude South phase one the Allies have decided we cannot hide this buildup it is it is just G to be too large uh to hide this from German reconnaissance from German spies they're going to figure it out so how do we resolve this so they create something called uh Fortitude South 1 which is going to occur before D-Day and then fortitude Phase 2 the second part that's going to be after dday and the overall goal of both of these is and to some degree too north but is to achieve strategic and tactical surprise at Normandy so the Germans do not know where they are going to be landing that's in layman's terms what we're trying to do so uh South one the again this is not real the trick is that uh they're going to start feeding the Germans uh information saying that the real Target is Cal we showed that up on that beginning map over there across the straights of DOA the shortest point between uh England and the continent now the earlier in the War uh the Germans had actually considered invading uh England at one point it was called Operation Sea Lion and uh they don't end up doing this because the Battle of Britain turns against them but the point that the Germans had planned to invade from was Cal so that made sense to the Germans that that would be the point that the Allies would come the other way and in the Ally or in the Germans defense um the Allies had seriously considered going to Cal they had looked at uh six different Landing spots um and and they came down to two finalists if you will and the two finalists were at calala and at Normandy of course they choose Normandy uh for fortitude uh South uh part two um the real fear here is the German Counterattack the the tanks that we were talking about are going to come up and everybody's going to come in here and they're going to get pushed back into the sea that there's going to be no ability to build up troops down here on the beaches so what they need to do is figure out how can we buy time that's what South 2 is really all all about so again this is not real but this is the information that they're feeding to the Germans they are going to tell them that Normandy so the landing is going to occur The Landing is going to start at the Germans are going to start reporting this but what they want the Germans to think is that this is a fake this is a faint um that the real Attack is going to come over here so it's really a genius way of of trying to cover up the initial Landing so they The Landings would start right here all of these German forces that can move would move in that direction then the Allies would start crossing right here at Cal the real Invasion um one other point uh these boxes that have nothing in it are static units it's actually a huge problem for the Germans because they can't move everybody talks about German mobility and how great it is uh Blitz cre and all that and actually they weren't nearly as mobilized as people really think that they were uh okay so how do you convince the Germans to do this we have to convince them that the Allies are going to go north up to Scandinavia another force is going to come and start at Normandy and then another force is going to go over across uh to Cal so how do you do this you need to convince the Germans that there are a lot of soldiers um built up already um Dr Hern just talked about Bolero um that that buildup is a is massive and uh this right here on the left is one of the things that they're going to do they're going to create an entire fake United States the first United States Army group um this is not real and these numbers have been inflated since the start of 1942 not because they're necessarily um concerned about dday at that particular point but just because they wanted to keep the Germans on their toes and so this um this structure right here we are talking about a ton of soldiers um the skeleton existed for it but these units were not were not prepared um to cross uh to cross the English Channel and the next piece that they add to that is that they put General Patton in charge of the first United States Army group and start to feed that to the Germans um similar to the other point of c and operation Seine this made perfect sense to the Germans because they hold uh General Patton in high esteem they think that he is one of the best uh fighting generals so it would make sense that he would lead the real attack at Cal and not be found uh there at Normandy people always want to know did the deception work did Operation Fortitude work this is kind of a difficult thing to measure there's something called the McGruder uh the McGruder principle which says that it's easier to convince um somebody of something that they already believe than to convince them of something a completely new concept and so the Allies the allly deception plan particularly fortitude really um hones in on this concept uh we do know that the Germans thought in January of 1944 that there were 55 divisions in the UK when in reality there were only 37 and then in May of 44 so talking about right before um June of course which is when the cross Channel attack occurs that they think that there are 79 which in reality there are only 52 which really speaks volumes um to what the double cross system was able to do uh to this whole um deception operation yodel and boring two um high ranking decision makers uh in in the German military both expect a second attack uh most likely at Cay after the war they they speak about this um um with American interviewers and then Hitler of course is the primary decision maker as the person who controls everything um and he kind of guesses across the board he's always saying different spots where he thinks that the um that the Allies are going to come ashore he does guess uh or he he mentions to the Japanese prime minister on 28 May so you're talking about just a little over a week before the actual Invasion that 80 divisions could invade Norway denway Denmark southern France and Normandy so he doesn't really know he just sort of says everything kind of changes um kind of changes his mind whenever he wants um we can also uh it's also of note that the Cal reserves are not released until the end of July remember the Allies they need that time uh and this gave them a lot of time to build up before the Cal units begin to move towards the Normandy um sector so this is my last slide uh why does D-Day matter 80 years later let's bring bring it back together um militaries today are very interested in something called large scale combat operations and um D-Day is a perfect example of a large scale combat operation particularly it has Airborne units and an amphibious Landing which I think are going to be important for future um fer operations at are large scale um so there are still valuable lessons from D-Day that that militaries can glean um what what we call Lessons Learned uh this is another one it was an Allied plann and Allied it was an Allied success um uh it was very much built between the operation was built very much uh initially led by the British um and then the Americans come in as well but it is very much an Allied success I think we have so many problems today uh in the international realm that require um you know multiple countries coming together uh there are certainly some lessons here of how they of how they were able to do this and then lastly I think it's important and Dr Hearn just mentioned this in her talk kind of here as well is that it's important to remember in honor uh the veterans uh of World War II in the United States there were 16 million who served and today there are less than 1% who are still with us um on a personal side note my last final uh vignette here uh we uh my office has been working with um a World War Two vet who is 103 and we interviewed him a couple of weeks ago and then unfortunately he passed away last week so um I'm dedicating this talk here today but um it's important for us to remember and honor those uh who who served during World War II and on dday uh and that is the conclusion I look forward to uh to your questions thank you well thank you Dr KY for that excellent presentation um and and your thoughts I see we already have many questions and comments in the chat area but I will hold those until our third panelist has presented his paper for today's program audience members please continue to contribute questions and comments in the chat area and we'll get to as many of those as we can our third panelist today is Mr Allan connman the supervisory archist at the American at the Army Heritage and education center in Carell Pennsylvania Mr conman has been the chief of the Ridgeway Hall branch of the US Army Heritage and education center since June of 2020 before that he was the chief of the archives Branch at the military history Institute US Army Heritage and education center from June 2016 to June 2020 before coming to carile he served as the deputy Branch head of the archives Branch histories and archives division Naval History and Heritage command at the Washington Navy Yard from January 2015 through June 2016 while concurrently serving as the acting Branch head from September 2015 to May 2016 the subject of Mr man's presentation today is Overlord and Ultra an examination of an operational use of ultra during the invasion of Normandy over to you Mr kman thank you thank you Dr Mason waiting for uh the slides to come up there we go so Overlord and Ultra it's an examination of uh an operational use of ultra intelligence during the invasion of Normandy uh this is based on uh really the the story of a document it was a document that I encountered when I was working for the Navy it was a a a letter from uh General bradle to Admiral Kirk who commanded the US Naval forces uh during the Normandy invasion and it had a very interesting uh reference in it and we'll get to that later in the slideshow uh it wasn't until relatively recently however that some information that came out of the National Security Agency uh allow me to confirm uh some suppositions I had made about that document so this uh presentation will be about that document and surrounding and and supplementing information to allow people to understand exactly what uh the significance of the document okay can we go to the next slide please so uh what was Ultra Dr uh krie had uh mentioned that in his presentation I mean uh at its most basic understanding it was a uh signal intelligence effort uh by the United States in written uh during World War II it was uh a very top secret or for the British most secret uh effort uh and it was predicated upon the uh breaking of German uh radiographic uh Transmissions uh that were encoded using a system called Enigma uh the existence of this system was uh maintained uh at a very classified and secret level until the early 1970s uh when the British government uh decided that uh uh some of the details could be uh finally released uh the most significant early uh release of information on Ultra was the a book called the ultra secret written by uh Frederick uh winterbotham uh was published in 1974 winterbotham uh was a key player in Ultra uh from the early days before the United States even had gotten into the war and uh he laid out you know a lot of the framework of how Ultra operated so next slide please so Ultra was reading uh the German Enigma transmission so what was Enigma so Enigma was a code system and it was based on a cipher substitution system where characters are replaced in a series of randomized ways uh by a machine you can see a a photograph of one of the earlier versions of the Enigma machine if you notice where it says rotors there are three rotors on that machine that's an early version uh the Germans later introduced a fourth rotor which uh greatly increased the number of possible per permutations and uh the Allies in order to compensate for that increase in the encryption possibilities had to seriously augment their efforts uh at Ultra which was headquartered in a place called Bletchley Park in England uh to give you sort of an idea of how of how hectic and how stressful the codebreaking effort was uh on at least a weekly sometimes on a daily basis uh someone would have a nervous breakdown would have to be relieved a new person brought in and the other person allowed to recover from the breakdown from the stress uh the Germans uh understood very early on that the system had was vulnerable to uh to permutation analysis and the polls Ironically in 1932 had actually broken uh the first generation three rotor machine coding uh and they' revealed that to uh the British and French just before the outbreak of World War II uh however the Germans did not think that in uh an era where there was no such thing as uh digital Computing that uh any potential enemy would possibly uh muster the resources needed in order to go through all the permutations uh they underestimated the uh Ultra effort in terms of the numbers and quality of people brought in and they also o underestimated the uh em the emergence of uh what would now be called analog Computing which greatly aided the Allies ability to uh crack the codes and uh make op make intelligence available to commanders in the field so next slide please so what was the US Army's role in Ultra so the Army uh had a team of cryptographers it was under the command of Captain William putam Bundy uh Bundy was an interesting fellow uh his father uh was a clerk to a Supreme Court Justice so was pretty highly placed uh in uh the American government and American society uh he had a younger brother named MC George Bundy who was US Navy officer and he was assigned as R Admiral uh Kirk's uh Aid during Operation Overlord uh Kirk as I mentioned earlier commanded uh the Western Naval task force during The Invasion next slide please so uh here's a picture of MC George Bundy later in life he later became a very high level National Security advisor under uh presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson and here's a picture of him uh being greeted by General William West Morland in Saigon in 1965 just before the United States uh fully committed to uh intervention in that conflict so inter ly this is where you know the National Security Agency uh coming to uh validate some of my suppositions from earlier in my career come through so uh a fellow named David Sherman who works for the NSA and has published uh on the matter of uh the US and British signal intelligence efforts uh from 1940 to 1950 uh had this interesting statement about MC George Bundy it's and it basically states that uh MC George Bundy uh almost certainly had been uh reading uh intelligence derived in part from Ultra decrypts uh this is going to be very important based on uh additional cooperating documents that I've been able to uncover next slide please so uh going back to a summary of ultra leading up to the invasion as Dr kery had mentioned uh the Germans uh had been uh anticipating uh an Allied invasion uh they continued however to use ultra to transmit operational planning and orders and the Allies were intercepting these by and large uh however uh in a few key cases uh the Germans uh did not use radio communications and Ultra Mist uh intelligence for example at uh Omaha Beach the German 352nd infantry division which had been placed farther behind uh the beach uh on Allied intellig in the Allied intelligence picture had actually been moved forward the Germans did not uh communicate this uh accepted landline the French Resistance did attempt to warn the Allies that this was happening on two occasions but they used uh carrier pigeons uh and the Germans uh unfortunately shot them down they had the Germans had become aware that the that carrier pigeons were being used to transmit information and troops along the coast were given orders to shoot all birds flying out the sea and so the two uh pigeons that were carrying the information uh were intercepted and because of that uh Omaha Beach uh suffered considerably higher losses than the other uh beaches did and this will feed into uh a serious operational problem in the days immediately after the invasion and attempting to link up Omaha and Utah beaches next slide please so what's known about the operational use of ultra during the securing of the beach heads so we know from uh the ultra secret uh that uh information from Bletchley Park uh was forwarded to uh Omar Bradley's first Army Headquarters uh through a system uh called specialty Aon units these were officers who were cleared to receive and disseminate Ultra intelligence uh they received their information uh through special Communications units the special communication units were equipped with specialized equipment which could receive uh the information which was encrypted in the highest uh codes that were available to the British uh and then train signals Personnel will be able to decrypt them and then hand them over to the special ason unit Personnel next slide please so here uh we can see a picture of the USS Augusta this was uh Amal this was a general Bradley's uh command post during The Invasion and if you look closely at the photograph you can see the communication array that has been installed on both the main Mast and the for Mast uh so this would certainly have supported a special Communications unit uh and the Augusta had already been uh used and equipped as a headquarter ship uh since the time of Operation Torch so it would have had an experienced uh signals uh element on board by the time of Normandy so next slide please so what did the information go after that uh the uh US Army Heritage and education center has a collection uh from Captain Chester byard Hansen who was Omar Bradley's Aid to Camp Hansen kept a very uh detailed uh wartime diary and uh a couple of the entries from his diary uh yield some very interesting information so on uh d+1 so on J June 7th uh he records that uh uh none other than MC George Bundy is waking him up in order to let him know that uh General Montgomery uh is going to be coming uh along alongside in a British Destroyer uh to discuss with Bradley uh the necessity and the imperative uh urgency of getting Utah and Omaha beaches linked up so at this point we can see that uh MC George Bundy uh is obviously very well connected with with Bradley and his Aid so next next slide please so in the afternoon of June 7th uh Bradley became aware uh in part through uh the ultra information he was receiving on board the Augusta that a major German Counterattack uh that was designed to prevent the connecting the two of the two US Beach heads was going to take place uh he turned to the Navy for support now this is the document that I found uh back in 2007 it's in the uh Admiral Kirk papers at the time the Naval History and Heritage command held the held the material it has since been transferred to the National Archives so he wrote he uh handw wrote a letter to Admiral Kirk uh the transcription is on the right saying basically okay we're expecting a German Counterattack uh you know very weak uh where they're going to be attacking uh your guns from your battleships uh can reach that can reach that point uh you're planning on pulling them off and sending them home please don't do that keep them on station until this thing's cleared up now on the second page he says this information comes from Bundy's black market and prisoners now it's the Bundy's Black Market that always had me scratching my head what was Bundy's block market and with the nsa's uh release of information in 2019 it's clear that that was MC George Bundy who was receiving uh information through through uh the ultra channels uh he very possibly could have been receiving information on the side of him as brother uh don't have any hard confirmation of that but it's one of those things where I'm going to continue to look because it's the family uh connection is I think a little too you know it it there's more than coincidence there in in that relationship and uh Admiral Kirk and his staff had appended a memo which is on the left side of the slide basically uh a test ing to the importance of the message and saying that yep it was received and we will be ready for the German Counterattack so next slide please so here we have a photograph of on June 8th on board the Augusta Admiral Kirk and uh General Bradley they're uh visible on the left part of the photograph they're watching uh operations on Shore so they're watching uh you know how the naval gunfire is uh affecting the operations uh between Karen in his signy and uh from a couple of uh published accounts uh from the fighting we see that the Third Battalion of the 175th infantry of the 29th Infantry Division uh basically had its path cleared for it by the uh Naval gunfire and they moved into a signy on June 8th uh the town was INF Flames from the shelling but they had taken it and then uh from the uh account of the USS Texas from from uh the naval US Naval History and Heritage Commands dictionary of American naval fighting ships uh we see that the Texas uh was firing on the town of travier then on ay and then back to travier all trying to break up German troop concentrations so here's the ultra intelligence uh having been operationalized and achieving effective Battlefield results next slide please so by June 12th uh we go back to Chester Hansen's diary and we see that uh the situation has been stabilized so favorably that uh all three of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff uh General Marshall general Arnold and Admiral King are come ashore to tour isigny and this visit uh was uh an indication of the confidence that the Allies had in the efficacy of ultra and Ultra will continue to play an important role in the Nory campaign as operations progressed uh for example uh in July Ultra picked up the movement of the German Panzer Lair division from the British Zone into the American Zone uh this would uh affect operational planning uh for operation Cobra for the breakout from Normandy because it allowed the Allies to uh locate and fix the German division which was subjected to uh a carpet bombing on July 20th uh which uh LED then to the breakout from Normandy next slide please so uh for conclusion uh what do we know I mean what can we conclude about Overlord and Ultra so you know timely receipt of operational intelligence uh was crucial in stabilizing the situation at Omaha Beach uh immediately after the landing uh it's very likely that if uh Bradley had not gotten that information through Ultra uh the German Counterattack may very well have uh succeeded in preventing uh the linking up of Utah and Omaha Beach heads uh possibly even have allowed uh you know even more operational gains by the Germans it really was the the Germans best opportunity for driving uh the Americans back into the ocean and it did not happen uh we can also conclude that uh the personal connections between the two bundies Hansen uh and Bradley facilitated the use of this intelligence in an agile way uh I also think it's kind of in congruous that you know Bradley uh alerts uh Admiral Kirk to the operational problem in the form of a handwritten note it almost seems like it's like a 19th century type thing you know Americans are frequently will reference the the Battle of antium where uh General Robert E Le's orders were written around a pack of cigars and the soldier who was carrying them lost them and then the northern troops founded and understood what what what uh uh General Lee was about to do and you know the Germans of course didn't have a chance to intercept that but just struck me as like well in the mid- 20th century they're still doing handwritten Communications uh on the downside however uh the usefulness of ultra uh and signals intelligence in general led to an over confidence uh in that form of intelligence gathering uh at the by the time December 44 had rolled around when the bowle of the Bulge was starting the Germans achieved complete operational surprise because they did not use a means of communication that allowed for interception by Ultra so they achieved operational surprise for the Battle of the Bulge uh however uh the overall strengths of ultra and signals intelligence in general uh was proven during World War II uh it contributed directly to the establishment of the National Security Agency in 1946 7 as well as the establishment of current uh intelligent sharing Arrangements uh between the United States and its allies the so-called five eyes uh with that I conclude my presentation thank you very much Dr Mason oh thank you Mr connman for that fascinating presentation um I would like to open the floor up now to questions and thoughts from our audience the first question today is were there differences in the leadership styles of the American and British armies that led to disagreements in the planning for D-Day Chris why don't you go ahead and tackle that one first ha happily yeah so and I'd love to hear from the rest of the panel on this as well um can you read it to me one more time were there differences between the Americans and and uh the British in terms of planning for D-Day in terms of leadership styles ABS yes yes ABS absolutely so um one of the one of the things that comes to mind R of the bat is um sha which is the Supreme headquartered Allied exhibitionary Force they need to get a leader which is eventually going to become Eisenhower and prior to that they um they have something called kasic which is building um the initial components and there is a big disagreement between the style of how they want to break down and how much power power should uh the head of scha actually have so the British want to be able to um lower it down so that that the uh lower commanders are able to make to take more action the Americans want more of a rigid structure which is kind of interesting because um that's not the way the Americans necessarily work today but they did want at this at this time so um that's the thing that comes off uh right off the bat but there are continuous cultural differences between the US uh and British militaries at this time that that play a problem and um that that I I sort of talked at the end about how there needed to be you know the Coalition Victory it was Allied plan Allied Victory um there was a lot a lot of argument and discontent between the British side and the American side as they tried to figure out even the most basic thing of how much power does our um number one Commander have I'll pass it over who would like Hattie would you like Dr Hearn would you like to go next yeah I'm just really gonna Echo everything that you you said um there Chris I think yeah I I think that the cultural differences is quite important um and also this the experience um up until 1944 um the Allies had obviously worked together up until then but this was a real testing ground for that relationship um and my my own kind of experience um is in the um Allied combined air offensive and I know it's certainly in the leadup to D-Day with um the things like the transportation plan which was um the operation to basically um destroy as many German installations in France and um in in Normandy and the areas around Normandy as possible and there was certainly many differences in how that should be approached and particularly when it came to targets um the British favoring civilian targets um and the Americans very much try trying to keep their sights on um strategic um and Industrial targets so yeah I think at every level you see some levels of conflict but I think it's really Testament to their their joint mission that they managed to pull it off and get put their differences aside and work together uh Mr kman um any thoughts on uh differences between how the British and the Americans believed Ultra information should be used and how it should be secured from compromise well I mean with regard to ultra I mean it was the British had uh the uh Primacy in it it was their effort initially you know we were we were the the the Johnny C least to the effort uh the slus uh were uh they they they they came out of they came out of the British structure not the American structure Americans got read into it but it was very much a British effort so the British had control over how Ultra information was disseminated now obviously once a a commander who was entitled to receive the ultra information got the information then it was up to that Commander as to how it got used so we saw for instance with General Bradley so that you know they got information that you know the expected there was you the German they were expecting the Germans to Counterattack but this was very specific localized information about where they were going to Counterattack and so at that point you know it's it's an operational matter for the Commander in question uh so I think because the British uh control Ultra you know they they had the ultimate say in the matter thanks the the next question from our audience today concerns code names for the operations and that question is how were the code names for the real and fake operations chosen was there a Bank of names to choose from or did they choose random names so for Overlord uh that was Winston Churchills choice but it was not the first choice and there was actually a fair amount of informal discussion amongst certain key leaders both American and British who were more or less read in on uh the planning for the invasion and so a number of terms got bandied about and the church will finally said no I want it to be called Overlord and that's how it came to be called Overlord uh I'll let Dr krye talk on uh how the deception operation came to be codenamed yeah so wek thank you Allan thank you for the all these questions it's fabulous when we have interaction so thank you to our audience for for sharing um yeah so one of the things that I find really interesting is why they choose them and we see a lot of them are kind of like cheeky um the decision of the of them like picking the name that they did um one of the ones that I think is kind of interesting and I I'm pretty sure I have this right is oper uh is Copperhead which is a component of of this and it was um a plan where they were going to uh bring an actor uh who looked like General Montgomery and send him to North Africa at the same time as D-Day and the the before D-Day and the reason they would do that the thought process was if this actor can run around and look like General Montgomery is somewhere in the Mediterranean it would then signal to the Germans well there's no way they're about to invade if Montgomery is down here he would most certainly be at the Forefront of the invasion so uh it doesn't appear as though something like that had too much of a an impact but I I think it's sort of interesting like the the choice of copperhead I also know that um and we talk I talked just very briefly about the double cross system which is fascinating um kind of a difficult thing for a long time because the information wasn't available because it was so classified to historians until the 1970s people didn't even know about this um and then it started to to come out and a lot of that is remains classified but one of the things that I think is really interesting is the way that they named um their uh the people who were feeding the information back the spies themselves um and they have a long list um of rather humorous names and they tie into um they connect with that individual whether it's their name uh whether it is where they are from whether it's their occupation and so they chose the British chose these names sort of sort of again like I said the very beginning sort of cheekily um so that I don't know I don't know why they did it for fun or why just to be clever but um as a historian today when you uncover those and you start realizing oh wow that's uh that that's pretty ironic that they that was not a mistake um so uh yeah I round about their answer uh Dr Hearn would you like to add anything on that um not particular absolutely fascinated by where all of these um cames originated from it does remind me of a Funny Story I heard recently um from a D-Day veteran and his name was Derek day and just the night before he was due to board his ship at Southampton he scr he wrote his initials D Day on his um havac and then as he was walking up the gang plank onto the ship the next day um a military policeman stopped him and looked very very concerned and said where why did you write that on your your bag where where did you hear that um that word and he he was like there's my name and uh yeah they had to call his mom to kind of verify that that was his name because they thought somehow the term D-Day had got out and obviously yeah I guess that story just kind of emphasizes the secrecy around all these Coden names even D-Day which is now so so synonymous with with that event um can I have one one more piece to add Dr Mason can I add one more thing there yes please I I was going to um also ask you if to elaborate a little bit on how this uh in in addition to the double agents how all this fake information was transm translated to transmitted to the Germans without them becoming suspicious that uh you know that they were being fed uh fake information absolutely so I'll I'll start with that and then I'll come to your question it's a great question so uh the thing I was gonna add to to that and I should have Maybe started with is um when since we're talking about naming conventions one of the things that I found really interesting in this research is that we see this today too but the the it did not start as fortitude the name the name changed over time and then the final name that they had was fortitude so it was also a mixture of different plans so they have all the they have these different groups um like the lon controlling section opsb all these different groups are kind of like coming up with these plans and then they eventually meld them together and end up with bodyguard and then the components of fortitude fortitude prior to being uh titled that was actually believe called mesot um and prior to that I think it was a piece of something that was inocular called appendix Y and so all of these it's also partially to protect um because the Germans may have found out what one thing meant but not know what the next iteration of that same plan meant so um that that was also a component we saw that with the North African Invasion as well um okay your second question was uh how do they feed the information is that correct Dr Mason yeah in addition to double agents how did they manage to feed all of this deception over to the Germans without them getting suspicious so the Germans were suspicious uh we should we should certainly add that the Germans were not completely lost one of the big problems for the Germans uh during this period is that they have uh too many intelligence agencies that are not communicating um it's a problem that in agency uh coordination continues with all large bureaucracies our our military continues to have that problem today um they write a lot about it in the 911 Commission where one where one entity isn't talking to the other and the Germans have this problem so um with the double agents some of the double agents the Germans didn't trust hardly at all they they almost knew for sure that they were feeding them false information but they were just continuing to get it because they thought that this might give them some sort of insight and it could lead to something they might know certain other ones um the one that was particularly good for fortitude was Brutus was the title uh was was the code name for Brutus was one of the ones um that that they believed heavily and one of the things that they would do is they would allow Brutus to tell certain things that were true so for we talked about fortitude uh South part two the part where they're trying to convince them that Kell is going to be the second point they allowed Brutus to share with the Germans after the invasion of Normandy had started a few of the actual units that were there so that the Germans could check and say Brutus isn't lying this is these are the units that we're being reported we're seeing the 29th ID is here the first ID is here he must be telling us the truth so they would allow some Colonels in there to to to um to to so it wasn't a complete Fabrication in order to maintain that kind of trust between the Germans uh and and the double agents um but other ways that they would do this is they would you saw the picture that I showed of the tank that had been flipped over the the dummy tank so that would be another way they would use dummy Vehicles there are these great picture Imperial War Museum Dr Hearn has these the Imperial War Museum has a great collection of photos of this and it's dummy tanks dummy soldiers uh dummy planes um uh one of the things they did is they dropped uh dummy parachutists so dummy parachutists were coming down in France during the D-Day invasion so that certain German units were reporting this isn't really an invasion there it's it's just a straw man that landed with a parachute I don't know what's going on in order to cause further confusion for the Germans so um but with the dummy tanks they wanted the Luft Waffa to see them right so they they wanted him to see these fake camps and they would go out and they'd have to move the dummy tanks around or the tents they would move the tents around or make fire so it looked like there were people in the tanks also and I'll stop talking because I've gone for way too long signals uh the signal core was another way is they would they would have fake radio Transmissions that they wanted the Germans to pick up and that's what they do with the first United States Army group is while there was no first United States Army group they were transmitting stuff as though there was a first United States Army group so anything that the Germans were picking up they would think wow this is a real unit they're talking to each other the same way that any other Army group would with that I'll stop talking because nobody wants to hear me anymore um Alan please yes so uh with regard to uh you know deception uh on the German side uh uh with regard to their Counter Intelligence capabilities uh the one of the main German Counter Intelligence groups the OB was run by a German Admiral vilhm canaris uh canaris uh by uh the summer 1944 uh had turned traitor and he was working with the Allies likewise the uh Chief of Staff of army group b h spidel uh had turned Traer and uh was uh working with Allied agents and spidel uh fed false intelligence to uh Hitler's headquarters and up his chain of command which greatly uh uh helped in keeping the German Panzer Reserve tied down at the pakal until it was too late to operationally uh stop the the breakout uh thank you Mr neckman um our next question uh from the audience concerns the Legacy and the heritage of uh of Americans in England uh during during World War II Dr Hearn to what extent did that American culture remain uh in in England what what was the lasting effect of that do you think yeah that's a great question um so I think in in the short term um this just in the short period that the Americans were were based in Britain probably a period of about 100 days um sorry 100 um yeah uh they um it was it was huge so they bought new dance moves the Jitterbug um they bought they bought food as I mentioned we never really had chewing gum before um ice cream was pretty much unheard of um they also bought uh popular brands like Coca-Cola um and um yeah all of these food stuffs that we we'd never really really had especially in Wartime economy um so the the colorful chewing gum rappers for example it was it was uh a real culture shock for a lot of these British people so in the short term um these relationships that formed between Brits and Americans um led to some some change in habits um some some cultural change but I think long term um because a lot of the the people who really were really kind of influenced by the arrival of Americans were children so as they grew up they would would um share their memories of the American and they would um kind of adopt a lot of things that they had picked up during the war um so it for example even had an influence on our language and some of the the slang that we we say today um so I think I think that the the biggest impact was just kind of opening the eyes of that that Young Generation to a world Beyond um Britain because most of these these kids at the time they wouldn't have left their their Villages and they were living in quite a gray aere environment of wartime Britain and suddenly they they had their eyes opened um to these kind of Hollywood characters brought to life um so I think that that was really important um yeah and and obviously the American presence did continue throughout the Cold War as well and we still have a um a couple of of really large um installations American installations here um most notably at RF Len Heath and um RF milen Hall so Americans are still very much a part of our society even though in on a much smaller scale and I I I think that that kind of um friendly relationship has continued um to this day really fascinating thank you Dr Hearn a question here uh for Mr conman uh regarding the use of intelligence information derived from Ultra there's there's always a risk if you use intelligence information that the enemy will realize that you used it and figure out how you got it uh the the use of of ultra uh led to U very high German ubot losses for example were were there were there concerns that using this information might um you know might compromise the whole Ultra operation yes there very much were concerns by Allied commanders that uh the consistency with which they were able to be there uh at the right time with the right amount of forces to uh thwart uh German plans uh would be would be perceived as this is way this is beyond coincidence there's something else going on here now as I mentioned earlier in my talk the Germans were aware that uh that Enigma was vulnerable to uh permutation analysis uh but they did not believe that the that anybody could have amassed the the resources necessary in order to crack the code because there were so many possible permutations and and like I said they they greatly underestimated the uh willingness of the Allies to Marshal uh the number of people with the requisite analytical skills to do the work and they also greatly underestimated the emergence of uh analog Computing and its ability to speed up uh mathematical calculations uh one of the British analysts at Bletchley Park a fellow named Alan Turing uh developed the thing which was called the Turing bomb uh it was an it was an analog computer and it was used to basically you know crank through uh the permutations uh at a rate that was sufficient to you know provide information in a in a more or less timely way earlier in the war you know Ultra tended to be uh more of the Strategic level by 1944 uh it's definitely becoming oper it's becoming much more operationalized information is getting down to the commanders fast enough uh that they're able to affect you know the outcome of battle field uh operation as opposed to well you know we know the Germans are going to move an army from here to there in the next you know three months so we'll we'll we'll take countermeasures of that it's like no we know this division is in the process of moving from here to there and uh we understand the significance of that will be we'll have countermeasures available uh going back to uh the battle of the Atlantic uh codebreaking uh sort of reached its peak uh in 1943 May of 1943 is when the Battle of Atlantic is generally acknowledged to have been one quote unquote uh because the German OT losses became so severe that they basically had to you know break off uh the main effort in trying to interdict convoys but at the same time the Germans were breaking uh allly codes uh and interestingly when I worked at the Naval History and Heritage command uh I highlighted uh one particular Convoy battle in March of 1943 where both the British and the Germans were breaking each other's codes almost in real time and the so the British were adjusting the Convoy away the Germans were breaking the British code realizing the Convoy had been moved adjusting the uots this kept going on back and forth and it was a very bloody and awful com uh Convoy battle that's fascinating uh question here um about operation minc meat uh one of the one of the most maab uh intelligence operations of the war involved British intelligence actually using a a dead body and floating it ashore with uh information planted on it uh did um did that um was that information concerning uh D-Day and Operation Overlord and did the Germans fall for it Dr Carrie I'll I'll take a shot not my not my area of expertise on that but I'll I uh I I from I don't know if I want to weigh in because I don't know the answer but I will because I that's what we do uh I'm pretty sure that that had to do with um the Mediterranean campaign if I'm if I'm not mistaken Allan do you know I I I think that that one had to do more with the Mediterranean than it did with uh dday right the B the body uh was was off the coast of Spain uh so I don't I don't believe it had anything to do directly with uh with Overlord planing I think it probably had more to do with uh Allied of operational planning in the Mediterranean in 1933 I think it was the invasion of Sicily it was H yeah right um another question here from our audience um is um maybe a great way uh to begin uh to begin wrapping up our presentations for today and that is um uh what why is it that D-Day has such a reputation in military history uh why um why the the legacy of D-Day um so I I'll ask each of you perhaps to to um take that in turn maybe in the order that the presentations were given uh at the top of the program so um Dr Hearn your thoughts on why D-Day has such a reputation in military history yeah it's it's a great question um I think it's because of a number of reasons uh you've you've got the the military significance but you've also got the social and cultural significance so um certainly interest in D-Day has um been been there since since the war but particularly in the late 90s early 2000s um films like Saving Private Ryan and uh band Brothers had really kind of solidified our kind of cultural memory of D-Day and it's now as kind of well known as any other Battle in History um but I think really it's it's kind of significance as not necess neily military turning point in the war but as um the turning point where we could where the it was so visible that the shift of the war had changed and that we were suddenly um start beginning that that great Crusade um and all of the kind of um symbolism that went with that we were returning to the continent of Europe and we were beginning the the kind of final um stages of the war so I think it's its place in the timeline and the chronology of the war is important um but it's that as Dr Carrie was saying the the um the the Allied cooperation um I think that's really important as well it wasn't just a British operation it wasn't an American Leed operation it was a an Allied um offensive right thank you um Dr car your thoughts on why the legacy of D-Day uh looms so large in history a great question all these have been fabulous questions I I wish we were all in a big room so we could just talk about this all day um I think the first thing that uh comes to mind is that it's a massive operation um it's very complicated and so I think when you're talking about something that's that large the Allies by the end of D-Day by midnight and again these numbers I I don't love using numbers because the Americans were particularly not great about keeping their numbers on D-Day the British and Canadians more organized uh than the American side was but it's generally recognized is 156,000 Allied troops are are now in France so if you think about 156,000 people um that have have landed uh it's just a massive operation I talked at the beginning about um that again I think this is again a very romantic it's a romanticized point in the war in a lot of ways um uh you can still visit the beaches today right you can go and see the beaches and you can visit it um and it can be celebrated by so many different countries um Dr Hearn was just kind of alluding to this as well but like it it doesn't it's just not a big thing for the British the Americans it's liberated France it's liberated all of these other countries throughout Europe that can continue to celebrate D-Day as this thing and um this my last Point uh I I was talking with the um the veteran that I had mentioned earlier the 103y old veteran a couple of weeks ago and I said what were you thinking like what are you thinking before you're getting ready getting ready to go over there and he said he thought about it for a minute and he said um we knew we were going he's like there was we knew we were he's like we knew we were going to France uh and he said uh he goes we knew that if we won there we we would win the war and so I think um that kind of sentiment continues with like D-Day that it's like this is that turning point where it's the end of Nazi Germany of course um Imperial Japan continues to survive past but um that's a different talk for a different day next year when they bring us back to to do to do that talk um yeah and it would be I guess in August um okay that's the end of my answer Alan so continuing on with what Dr kry had just said I mean uh largest amphibious invasion in uh in history so the sheer size is definitely going to uh have a a culture shaping memory to it so many people were involved in it and it was recognized that the time the importance uh as soon as the lodgment was secured you know people were celebrating in the United States and in Britain they they they they understood that you know that you know the war was going to end favorably for the Allies uh also uh I would I would posit that the person of J D Eisenhower uh had a lot to do with the longevity of the memory uh he when he became president uh of course that kept the memory alive in American politics uh lesser known however is the fact that Eisen how worked assiduously throughout the remainder of his life to ensure that there was a curated Public Image of the allies during World War II he would not allow the frictions which most certainly were there to be publicized in any way and interestingly you know at the working for the old military history Institute you know I I have encountered you know bits and pieces of that Legacy in the way in in terms of restrictions that you know previous generations had placed on the use of materials so uh and because it survived for you know through through the end of Eisenhower's life because he died in the 1960s uh and popular culture by the 1960s has started to pick up on the theme Cornelius Ryan had published his book The Longest Day uh which was almost simultaneously produced into a movie you know with a lot of famous people there like John Wayne so that's certainly going to keep you know D-Day in in in the minds of PE of the common person and the the longevity of the World War II generation I think also contributed a great deal a lot they passed on a lot to their children I mean I'm a grandson of the World War II generation uh I certainly knew all about World War II when I was growing up you know it was it was never a cultural novelty me to me at all and most of my classmates it was the same way everybody everybody knew what it was everybody knew the significance of it it was it was just was just part of part of part of American culture and with that I'll I'll stop well um thank you um uh this has been a fascinating uh program today but I think uh I'm afraid uh that's about all we have time for today uh we've come to the end of the program I'd like to thank you all uh thank all of our panelists for being with us today uh thank you again to Army University press and army University films the National Archives the Army Heritage and education center the US Army war college and the Imperial War Museum for this program and to everyone in our audience for being with us today a reminder that a complete recording of this program will be available on the US National Archives YouTube channel shortly after the conclusion of today's discussion I look forward to the next program and to seeing you all again soon goodbye for now e e e e

Channel: US National Archives

Views: 1,639

Keywords: US National Archives, NARA

Id: 1OZCoaDylPw

Length: 97min 0sec (5820 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024