The Devil’s in the detail. D-Day and The Panama Canal

People may be excused for believing that the business of invading a foreign country from the sea is merely a matter of landing enough soldiers on its seashore to run madly up the beach in the hope of dodging all the enemy has to throw back.  Great tales of heroic action and derring-do (from the winning side) emerge from the blooded victors; heavily endorsed by media.

Sure this is an important part, but it should only be considered in the context of  a much larger operation, namely the form of incredible planning and logistics, to enable a proper appreciation of the effort as a whole.

OK – just how do you land 150,000 men on five separate beaches at more or less the same time?  Before the invention of the Higgins boat the only way to do this would be by rowing boat and by the time the soldiers had floundered over the side (ever tried it?) they would be dead in the water.  Remember the enemy had machine guns that fired 1200 rounds a minute, that’s 20 rounds a second, and speed of landing was imperative.

Also consider keeping those men resupplied with the vast amount of material necessary to remain in combat.  Everything, and I mean everything had to follow on behind them for if they ran out of supplies the enemy would simply shove them back into the sea.  In order to maintain the supply program the Allies needed to capture a port town because they needed the port facilities (pontoons, derricks, cranes, wharves etc.) to enable the ships to offload and transport material ashore.  The two port towns in that area of Normandy which had the required facilities were Cherbourg and Le Havre and both were heavily defended by the enemy; certainly to the extent of not being capable of capture in time for the resupply program to happen.  So, the Allies determined they would need to bring their own port with them – not just one, but two artificial harbours codenamed Mulberry (the famous Mulberry Harbours)  located at Arromanches and Omaha Beach.  Each harbour had to be transported piecemeal, meshed in with the Landing Operation, across the Channel and assembled partly on the seabed but with floating roadways connecting to the shore.  It was a miracle of bold, innovative design and its importance lay with the fact that it enabled the Allies to launch a surprise attack in an area of relatively small likelihood of invasion because the Nazis were convinced it would not be possible to resupply troops across the 90 miles of sea that separated England and France.  So much for failing to think out of the box.

I have just read the history of the building of the Panama Canal.  One imagines the immense project commenced with a Navvy digging a shovelful of dirt.  But no.  Nothing could start until the eradication of the mosquito that through its insidious issue had killed an estimated 22,000 engineers, workers and allsorts connected with the project through the twin diseases of Malaria and Yellow fever before they had been there a month.  AND, at the beginning they did not know what caused those diseases in the first place!

The jewel of success in any project of note is not just in the obvious.  It lies in the foresight of meticulous planning, innovation and preparation for the event – so often overlooked by the battle mongers who make movies these days.