The first act of providence was the “never surpassed masterpiece of planning.”[84] All operations involve planning and some planning will obviously be better than others. As imperfect human beings, it is impossible to achieve the best of something all the time. Obviously, the greater the planning, the greater the chance of success. In a perfect world with imperfect human beings, therefore, the greatest act of planning should come in preparation for the most crucial operation with operations of lesser importance having less successful planning. However, since we are in imperfect world, it is highly unlikely for that to occur. The fact that this did occur and the greatest act of naval planning that ever occurred happened on the specific day of the greatest import in history when the Allied forces were attempting a do or die attempt at quickly stopping the Third Reich is a tremendous act of providence. Here is a brief description of the naval planning (although many full-length books have been written to provide more justice to it’s amazing success. The invasion fleet was drawn from eight different navies, comprising 6,939 vessels: 1,213 warships, 4,126 landing craft of various types, 736 ancillary craft, and 864 merchant vessels.[10] The majority of the fleet was supplied by the UK, which provided 892 warships and 3,261 landing craft.[74] There were 195,700 naval personnel involved.[10] The invasion fleet was split into the Western Naval Task Force (under Admiral Alan G Kirk) supporting the US sectors and the Eastern Naval Task Force (under Admiral Sir Philip Vian) in the British and Canadian sectors.[86][85] Available to the fleet were five battleships, 20 cruisers, 65 destroyers, and two monitors.[87] German ships in the area on D-Day included three torpedo boats, 29 fast attack craft, 36 R boats, and 36 minesweepers and patrol boats.[88] The Germans also had several U-boats available, and all the approaches had been heavily mined.[39]
Another tremendous act of providence was a brief lull in impossible conditions during the only window of time where the tide was low so that the defenses would be exposed and the allies wouldn’t have to wade through high tide. Yet, because the conditions were expected to be so bad for the entire month, many Wehrmacht commanders left their posts to attend war games in Rennes, and men in many units were given leave.[44] Field Marshal Erwin Rommel returned to Germany for his wife’s birthday and to meet with Hitler to try to obtain more Panzers.[45] Indeed, the entire month had poor conditions – except for the very day scheduled for the invasion which had a full moon, and the perfect tide, and just enough visibility for the invasion to take place . But the Axis did not believe that the Allies would attempt an invasion with such poor conditions and therefore, the beaches were left with a fraction of their actual forces. Additionally, even the forces that were active were mostly stationed elsewhere – because of the amazing set of deceptions planned by the Allies which were incredibly successful – yet another act of providence.
Another act of providence in regard to the weather was the decision to go ahead with the assault and not wait until the next set of suitable conditions would occur. Eisenhower had tentatively selected 5 June as the date for the assault. However, on 4 June, conditions were unsuitable for a landing: high winds and heavy seas made it impossible to launch landing craft, and low clouds would prevent aircraft from finding their targets. Group Captain James Stagg of the Royal Air Force (RAF) met Eisenhower on the evening of 4 June. He and his meteorological team predicted that the weather would improve enough for the invasion to proceed on 6 June.[41] The next available dates with the required tidal conditions (but without the desirable full moon) would be two weeks later, from 18 to 20 June. Postponement of the invasion would have required recalling men and ships already in position to cross the Channel, and would have increased the chance that the invasion plans would be detected.[42] After much discussion with the other senior commanders, Eisenhower decided that the invasion should go ahead on the 6th.[43] A major storm battered the Normandy coast from 19 to 22 June, which would have made the beach landings impossible.[40]Had they made the decision to wait, the entire operation would have failed!
Another act of providence was a tremendous headache that the Fuhrer had the night before that caused him to give strict orders not to wake him up . Yet, he had personal control of the Panzers and they were not allowed to be deployed without his permission. By the time he woke up and allowed it to be deployed, it was too late.
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