The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Charles:

Terry, there's too much there to respond to, but there are at least two points that are simply incorrect.

First, close air support was used in Italian campaign, though never as effectively as in the Pacific. Immediately after D-Day, it started being used by Elwood Quesada. There was a real hardheaded refusal to learn lessons.

I asked for the British naval roster, which I don't know. But US carriers were NOT all in the Pacific. They were used to suppress U-boats and there were assets in theater. You may be right about turnaround time, especially in weather, making them a less useful alternative than land-based aircraft. But the Normandy invasion only required a very brief window to get the troops safely to land.

The Normandy invasion was a must-do. If it had failed, Europe might still be part of the Soviet empire. Friendly fire incidents are horrible. But leaving men exposed on a beach for many hours under intense fire, as happened notably at Omaha, is even worse.

Terry says, "It seems an ignorance of how to do it was no small part of the problem; which ignorance probably related to the lack of change in doctrine."

Terry, this is the very point I have been trying to make. Starting as early as 1942, close air support was being used in the Pacific. The Normandy planners refused to learn the lessons of the Pacific and had to re-invent it all in Europe.

Terry also says, "Normandy required the flights to be made from Britian, to a battlefield which was really fluid, and an airspace which was being used by naval guns."

You know, I wonder about that. Why could they not have put aircraft carriers off of Normandy, reducing the turnaround time for refuel/relaunch? If that were possible, they could have tightly covered the sector with a blanket of air power to suppress fire from the beach defenders and prevent any movement of armor inland. Does anyone know the British home fleet roster for June, 1944?

John L says, "the thought process in the Overlord planning team was "Germany is different",

And that's what the problem was. An unwillingness to learn lessons.

All the things that people mention have merit. As Dave Bell says, Allied air had much less time to soften up the landing beaches than in the Pacific-- and it was impossible to cut off the Germans from reinforcements. As Ken Brown said, the main show was in the East. Normandy was, by comparison, a sideshow. As John L said, close air support during an amphibious assault is nearly impossible. Doable, but only with difficulty. Take a look at Bechtold to see that it was not impossible, and indeed was done in the days following Normandy. It was also done in the Pacific even when combatants were close, using aircraft equipped with lighter and more accurate weapons.

John L says, "Remember, the Allies didn't have a whole lot of experience in making opposed landings against the Germans."

All this is true, John. But there was another war, where opposed landings were the norm, namely the Pacific campaign. Those battles began with Buna in November, 1942. It was in the island hopping campaign where close air support as a tactic was critical, since armor and land-based artillery were hard to deploy. And close air support could have done a great deal on D-Day-- certainly better than having naval ships shelling.

In Europe, many chances were missed. Quoting from Wikipedia's CAS article: "Six months before the invasion of Normandy, 33 divisions had received no joint air-ground training. In 1943, the AAF changed their radios to a frequency incompatible with ground radios."

Get well soon, Teresa.

Jim, here are some incidents that people should be pondering:

1. Jeff Gannon
2. Trashgate
3. "Bozo" and "Ozone Man", not to mention rifling Clinton's passport files

The first one goes toward any claim that McClellan was disturbed by the propaganda. The second goes toward his claim on Olbermann that he thought Bushie was non-partisan. The third, same venue, the claim that Poppy Bush was just misled by hyperpartisan advisors.

First a shoutout from someone who wishes there were 48 hours in the day to read all the great blogs. Especially to Jim McDonald for his star quality post on disaster management. And of course to the Haydens for consistently excellent work.

I want to pose the following propositions:

1. There is no failure in Bush planning. As historian Mark Levine said, chaos is the plan.

2. Incompetence presupposes that the Bush Administration cares about America. There is simply no evidence for this, and it must be dismissed as a conspiracy theory widely held by simple loons such as those that populate the cable networks.

3. Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the destruction of New Orleans was deliberate. What could Bush or his contributors possibly gain out of the disaster? (a) several congressional seats, since the suburbanites will return but the city dwellers may not, (b) the governorship, if he can successfully blame Kathleen Blanco, (c) constituent services in the form of resources diverted from a blue area to red areas, (d) a lot of prime real estate that was undervalued because it was occupied by poor blacks in an obviously dangerously undermaintained area, (e) contracts for Halliburton... any other ideas?

As Kaveney noted, it's not important to prove anything. After a screwup on this scale, any other president would be quietly booking a flight for Uzbekhistan.

Anyway, thanks so much for a great blog. I don't have the time to join the community, but are glad you are there.

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