James Holland: belief

Transcript context

…So it is absolutely job done. Meanwhile, comparatively new ground attack fighter planes, like Typhoons and Tempests and adapted P-47 Thunderbolts, are attacking the German radar stations all along the coastline because they, now, do have an air defense system. They’re destroying 90% of their effectiveness. And in the intelligence game, they’re winning that one as well. They’re just much better because, in Germany, intelligence is power, so people tend to… And Hitler always has this kind of divide and rule thing going on, so you have parallel command structures, which is not conducive to bringing together of intelligence. And while much play has been made about the successes of Bletchley and code-breaking and all the rest of it, actually what you have to do is you have to see the decrypts that the Bletchley cryptanalysts do as just a cog. And those various cogs together, from listening services to photo reconnaissance to agents on the ground to [inaudible 03:13:52], the cogs collectively add up to more than some of their individual parts. And so the intelligence picture is a broad picture rather than just code-breaking. But anyway, they win that particular battle as well. And what you see, really, with D-Day, I think, is the zenith of coalition warfare. What you’ve got is you’ve got multiple nations who have different overall aims, different cultures, different attitudes, different start points, but they have all coalesced into one common goal. And until they’ve achieved that common goal, they’re going to put differences to one side. Much play has been made about Anglophobia amongst American commanders and America phobia amongst Ally British commanders, but actually it’s nothing. It’s a marriage made in heaven compared to the way Germany looks after its own allies, for example. And what is remarkable about the Allies is they’re not actually allies, they’re coalition partners. So, there’s no formal alliance at all, and there is a subtle difference there. But what you see them is that you see them really, really pulling together. And you see that manifest itself on D-Day, I think, where you’ve got 6,939 vessels of which there are 1,213 warships, 4,127 assault craft, 12 and a half thousand aircraft, 155,000 men landed and dropped from the air in 24-hour period. It is phenomenal. It is absolutely phenomenal. And while it is still seen as a predominantly American show, all three service commanders are British. Two-thirds of the aircraft are British. Two-thirds of the men landed are British and Dominion. You never forget the Canadians who consistently punch massively above their weight in the Second World War, in all aspects, it has to be said, air, land and sea. They’re key in the Battle of the Atlantic. They’re key in air power. Their key D-Day and, indeed, in the battle for Italy, as well. So, the Canadians should never be forgotten. aid, air, land and sea. They’re key in the Battle of the Atlantic. They’re key in air power. Their key D-Day and, indeed, in the battle for Italy, as well. So, the Canadians should never be forgotten. But one of the reasons it is the British Navy that dominates in D-Day is because, of course, the incredibly enormous strength of the Royal Navy in the first place, but partly because most of the U.S. Navy is, by this stage, in the Pacific fighting its own fight. So, it’s not slacking by any stretch of the imagination. It is because it’s elsewhere doing its bit for the overall allied cause. But D-Day is just extraordinary, and despite the terrible weather, which is such a debilitating factor in the whole thing. I mean, it puts people off course. It means many more people get killed on Omaha Beach than they might have done, and on other beaches besides, incidentally. And actually, in terms of lies lost, proportionally, it is the Canadians that suffer the worst, more so than the Americans. It’s just it’s fewer of them, overall. D-Day has to be seen as an unqualified success. I mean, it is absolutely extraordinary what they achieve. And while they don’t 100% achieve their overall D-Day objectives, the objectives are always going to be the outer reach of what can be achieved, and you’d need absolutely perfect conditions for that to happen. And they don’t get perfect conditions, but they’re so balanced, they’ve so thought of absolutely everything, and their logistics apply. I mean, even things like the minesweeping operations, it’s the biggest single minesweeping operation of the entire war because there’s huge minefields off the Normandy coast. And ahead of the invasion force, the minesweepers, which amount to, I think, something like 242 different minesweepers in five different operations opposite every single beach, creating lanes through these minefields through which the invasion force can go, not a single ship is lost to a mine in the actual invasion. That is phenomenal and can only be done with the greatest of skill and planning, and all in a period where there are no computers. There’s no GPS. There’s nothing. I mean, it is absolutely astonishing, and the scale of it is just, frankly, mind-boggling. Yeah, and that was really the nail in the coffin, the beginning of the end for Hitler, now, for the European theater.…

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