Why D-Day Should Have FAILED
Franklin's Bird
2,856 views
The night before D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower wrote a short note taking all the blame in case the landings failed. He kept it in his wallet. So how close did he come to sending it?
Frank the turkey counts every reason the Normandy invasion should have failed: Rommel's Atlantic Wall, the leaks (even a crossword that printed the code words), a forecast that hung on one weather report from Ireland, scattered paratroopers, bombs that missed Omaha, tanks that sank, a German division nobody warned the troops about, and a beach the commander almost abandoned. Then what saved it: a fake army, a German forecast that got it wrong, a dictator nobody dared to wake, an empty sky, destroyers that came in close, and small groups of men who climbed. Then the verdict.
Chapters
0:00 June 6th, 1944
1:14 Chapter 1: The Note in His Wallet
3:16 Chapter 2: Rommel's Asparagus
5:26 Chapter 3: The Army That Didn't Exist
7:04 Chapter 4: Loose Lips
9:22 Chapter 5: Two Birthdays and a Forecast
12:17 Chapter 6: Screaming Eagles, Scattered
14:52 Chapter 7: Everything Missed
17:45 Chapter 8: The Wrong Beach
20:04 Chapter 9: Don't Wake the Führer
22:37 Chapter 10: Get On Them, Men
24:56 Chapter 11: The Verdict
The weather call, the fake army, Hitler's sleep, or the men who climbed at Omaha: which one really saved D-Day? Tell me in the comments.
Main sources
Eisenhower's "In Case of Failure" note (NARA): https://docsteach.org/documents/docum...
G. A. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack (U.S. Army CMH, 1951)
Omaha Beachhead (1945), Utah Beach to Cherbourg (1947), Small Unit Actions: Pointe du Hoe (1946), U.S. War Department
Naval History and Heritage Command: "Destroyers at Normandy"; Exercise Tiger (H-Gram 029)
C. P. Stacey, The Victory Campaign (Canadian official history, 1960)
MI5, "Agent Garbo"; Royal Meteorological Society, the D-Day forecast
The National WWII Museum; National D-Day Memorial (4,436 Allied dead, 2,519 American)
Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day; Max Hastings, Overlord
Archival footage (U.S. Government works, public domain, via Internet Archive): U.S. Navy 428-NPC-4239 and 428-NPC-10782, U.S. Coast Guard "Normandy Invasion" (26-7-r2), USAAF "D-Day Minus One" (1945), DoD "The Air Force Story: D-Day" (1953).
Photos: U.S. National Archives, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain), incl. "Into the Jaws of Death" by Robert F. Sargent, USCG.
Animation, maps and drawings: Franklin's Bird. Music: YouTube Audio Library.
5 Comments
And these 50 divisions are also not the best Germany had.....
Why D-Day Should Have FAILED
Franklin's Bird
2,856 views
The night before D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower wrote a short note taking all the blame in case the landings failed. He kept it in his wallet. So how close did he come to sending it?
Frank the turkey counts every reason the Normandy invasion should have failed: Rommel's Atlantic Wall, the leaks (even a crossword that printed the code words), a forecast that hung on one weather report from Ireland, scattered paratroopers, bombs that missed Omaha, tanks that sank, a German division nobody warned the troops about, and a beach the commander almost abandoned. Then what saved it: a fake army, a German forecast that got it wrong, a dictator nobody dared to wake, an empty sky, destroyers that came in close, and small groups of men who climbed. Then the verdict.
Chapters
0:00 June 6th, 1944
1:14 Chapter 1: The Note in His Wallet
3:16 Chapter 2: Rommel's Asparagus
5:26 Chapter 3: The Army That Didn't Exist
7:04 Chapter 4: Loose Lips
9:22 Chapter 5: Two Birthdays and a Forecast
12:17 Chapter 6: Screaming Eagles, Scattered
14:52 Chapter 7: Everything Missed
17:45 Chapter 8: The Wrong Beach
20:04 Chapter 9: Don't Wake the Führer
22:37 Chapter 10: Get On Them, Men
24:56 Chapter 11: The Verdict
The weather call, the fake army, Hitler's sleep, or the men who climbed at Omaha: which one really saved D-Day? Tell me in the comments.
Main sources
Eisenhower's "In Case of Failure" note (NARA): https://docsteach.org/documents/docum...
G. A. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack (U.S. Army CMH, 1951)
Omaha Beachhead (1945), Utah Beach to Cherbourg (1947), Small Unit Actions: Pointe du Hoe (1946), U.S. War Department
Naval History and Heritage Command: "Destroyers at Normandy"; Exercise Tiger (H-Gram 029)
C. P. Stacey, The Victory Campaign (Canadian official history, 1960)
MI5, "Agent Garbo"; Royal Meteorological Society, the D-Day forecast
The National WWII Museum; National D-Day Memorial (4,436 Allied dead, 2,519 American)
Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day; Max Hastings, Overlord
Archival footage (U.S. Government works, public domain, via Internet Archive): U.S. Navy 428-NPC-4239 and 428-NPC-10782, U.S. Coast Guard "Normandy Invasion" (26-7-r2), USAAF "D-Day Minus One" (1945), DoD "The Air Force Story: D-Day" (1953).
Photos: U.S. National Archives, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain), incl. "Into the Jaws of Death" by Robert F. Sargent, USCG.
Animation, maps and drawings: Franklin's Bird. Music: YouTube Audio Library.