Russian Contribution to Allied Success on D-Day
Started June 22, 1944
“Invading Russia. It is always a bad idea.” Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery
“People of Western Europe: A landing was made this morning on the coast of France by troops of the Allied Expeditionary force. The landing is part of the concerted United Nations plan for the liberation of Europe, made in conjunction with our Great Russian allies. “ General Dwight Eisenhower
As we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of D-Day, June 6,1944, we might want to remember that Russian blood, more than 25 million Russians died at the hands of Nazi invaders, contributed heavily to the allied victory. Sixteen days after the allied invasion of Normandy, a general attack by Soviet Forces to clear the Nazis from Byelorussia ultimately broke the back of the German Army in the East and decided the fate of Central and Eastern Europe for a generation to come. This battle that destroyed the German Army Group Center, named Operation Bagration in honor of the Russian general who helped defeat Napoleon in 1812, ended with the Soviet forces near Warsaw. The tremendous Russian victories prevented any German redeployment of troops from the Eastern front to reinforce their beleaguered troops at Normandy.
D-Day was the greatest sea borne invasion in history. Its success required high quality planning, overwhelming military arsenal, and personal courage throughout the command structure. Fortunately, allied losses in the first days, some 10,000 were significantly less that Churchill feared. Occasionally, one hears that General Patton recognizing the likelihood of eventual hostility between England-United States on the one hand and Russia on the other, wished that our troops after defeating the Nazi menace continue east and invade the Soviet Union. From a practical standpoint, the allies were unprepared militarily to loose millions of soldiers to defeat the Russians. Stated differently, the scale of manpower engagements on the Eastern front between Germany and the Soviet Union dwarfed the manpower commitments of United States and England in the West.
On June 22, 1941 when Germany launched their surprise attack on Russia, they used twenty times more troops than the allies employed on D-Day. Between the Baltic and Black Sea, the German forces were arranged in three massive army groups, comprising seven armies, four Panzer groups, and three air fleets. Poised on the frontiers were some 3,200,000 men—148 divisions, including nineteen Panzer divisions and twelve motorized fighting vehicles, 7184 artillery pieces and 1830 aircraft. By comparison, the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 landed a first wave of six sea borne divisions and three airborne, a grand total of nine divisions containing some 75,000 British and Canadian troops and 57,000 Americans, along a front of less than fifty miles, as opposed to one of nearly 1,000.
Since 1942, a hard- pressed Stalin had alternatively begged, cajoled, and threatened the United States and Britain to open up a second front. Historians uniformly agree that the allies lacked the necessary technical superiority to launch Overlord until 1944; that is, the armada of transport ships, barges, planes, tanks, and landing craft required for a successful cross channel invasion was not developed until 1944. In fact, the great contribution of America during World War II—the arsenal of democracy—was both our prolific war armament production as well as our innovative deployment of new military technology. Clearly, the landing and provisioning of 150,000 Canadians, Americans, and English on June 6, 1944 required masterful planning. Stalin was most appreciative for a second front, but recognized keenly the manpower contribution of the Red Army dwarfed the allies. Let me summarize, the Germans had 53 Wehrmacht divisions assembled throughout Western Europe compared to the 180 Wehhmacht divisions engaged against the Red Army.
Operation Bagration pitted over 2,000,000 Soviet soldiers in 200 divisions with 6000 tanks and massed artillery 34 German divisions. This resulted in the death of nearly 350,000 German troops. The German defeat was cataclysmic, on a bigger scale than even Stalingrad. The scale of the destruction visited upon German Army Group Center far surpassed German losses in the West. The Russians achieved a ratio of ten to one in tanks and seven to one in aircraft. At the points of attack, the numerical and quality advantages of the Soviets were overwhelming. Interestingly, the allies had almost complete control of the skies in Normandy. In essence, the Nazi aircraft industry had totally fizzled after five years of combat—their superiority became a liability.
The Russian victory at Byelorussia saved at least thousands of American and British lives. The Allied troops desperately struggling to breakout of their Normandy beachheads were grateful for brilliant, bold initiative of the Soviets.
