D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

North Africa,’ he had told General Bayerlein on 15 May. ‘The supply lines will be destroyed and we will get nothing across the Rhine as we got nothing across the Mediterranean.’
    The Allied plan, however, was not to seal off the battlefield at the Rhine. SHAEF aimed to cut off Normandy and Brittany by smashing rail communications and destroying all the bridges along the River Seine to the east and the Loire to the south. But ‘Transportation’, as the operation became known, proved very hard to launch, because of British anxieties and personal rivalries.
    Eisenhower’s deputy, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, was the main proponent of the plan. In February, Air Marshal Harris of Bomber Command and General Spaatz of the Eighth Air Force received warning that preparations for Overlord would require their heavy squadrons to be diverted from the strategic bombing offensive against Germany. Harris, who believed obsessively that his bomber force was on the point of bringing Germany to its knees, objected strenuously. He wanted his aircraft to continue smashing German cities to rubble. There should be only ‘minimum diversions’ from the task of ‘reducing the enemy’s material power to resist invasion’, he wrote to Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, the chief of the air staff.
    Above all, Harris fiercely resisted the idea that he should be told what to bomb. Because of weather variations, he must have ‘full discretion’. As for targets in France, he was prepared to offer only Halifax and Stirling squadrons, as they did not have the range of the Lancaster for deep penetrations into Germany. Spaatz also showed great reluctance to change targets. He wanted to continue attacking oil refineries and German fighter production. Their objections were overruled by Eisenhower at a major meeting on 25 March, but they still tried to get their own way.
    Spaatz also pointed out the dangers of killing large numbers of French civilians. This was a matter of immense concern to Churchill. He wrote to Roosevelt, arguing that the Luftwaffe ‘should be the main target’. He feared ‘the bad effect which will be produced upon the French civilian population by these slaughters, all taking place so soon before Overlord D-Day. They may easily bring about a great revulsion in French feeling towards their approaching United States and British liberators. They may leave a legacy of hate behind them.’ Roosevelt firmly rejected his plea on 11 May. ‘However regrettable the attendant loss of civilian lives is, I am not prepared to impose from this distance any restrictions on military action by the responsible commanders that in their opinion might militate against the success of Overlord or cause additional loss of life to our Allied forces of invasion.’ 4
    Tedder, however, still faced considerable opposition from the antagonistic Harris. Bomber Harris was at odds with the Air Ministry, he loathed Leigh-Mallory and he had become increasingly difficult with Portal, his direct superior as chief of the air staff. ‘The RAF was a house divided,’ observed a senior American staff officer afterwards. ‘The air side stank beyond belief.’ Facing opposition from both Harris and Churchill, Tedder went to Eisenhower. ‘You must get control of the bombers,’ he told him, ‘or I must resign.’ The supreme commander did not waste time. He threatened to take the matter to the President and both Churchill and Harris were forced to give way. According to Portal, Churchill simply could not believe that the bombing campaign might succeed in isolating the battlefield.
    This rebuff did not stop Churchill’s anxieties about the French. He had tried to set a limit of 10,000 civilian casualties, at which point he wanted the bombing to cease. He kept asking Tedder whether the figure had been reached. He also suggested that SHAEF should consult the French on targets. ‘God, no!’ came the appalled reply.
    Civilian casualties were indeed heavy, and so too were those of the bomber crews. The bombing programme also had to hit targets further afield in such a way as to prevent the Germans from deducing the site of the invasion. But Harris’s claim that his heavy bombers would not be effective against tactical targets, such as railways and bridges, proved very mistaken. Rommel’s fears were realized even before the invasion began in earnest.
     
    The first warning to the Resistance to prepare had been transmitted by the French service of the BBC on