D-Day. June 6, 1944. One of the great days in American history, the strength of the Republic reaching out to free Europe from Nazi Germany (and, incidentally, make sure that the Russians didn't forget to stop rolling west when they got to the Rhine).
A lot of attention has been focused on the admirable fighting qualities of the German soldier in WWII, most of it by serious scholars and hobbyists, who admire the fight the Germans put up, while still being aware of the horrid nature of the government that had sent them out to fight. Very few of the people who are impressed by the German Army's performance would argue that the world would be a better place if they had won.
Outside the cartoonish antics of Hollywood, the American G.I. hasn't gotten as much attention. Many people find it easy to empathize with the underdog, and the German soldier, hopelessly outnumbered, knowing that his side is doomed, but fighting on with great skill and determination nonetheless, in many ways gets our sympathy more readily than the lavishly equipped G.I., backed up as he was by overwhelming weight of equipment and firepower. The clumsy way many American units were handled, particularly in the early stages of the American involvement, also does not draw admiration.
But the G.I. deserves as much respect as any other fighting man who's had to put his life on the line and enforce his government's decisions at the point of the bayonet. The young men who hit the beaches of Normandy in '44 were not fighting to protect their homes, they were fighting to protect other people's homes, and that makes their courage even more admirable.
Stephen Ambrose goes to great lengths to bring to the young men of the infantry and airborne forces that share of the glory and respect that they have earned. I think he goes too far in this worthy cause; far enough, indeed to be counter-productive.
Unfortunately, one of the ways Ambrose has chosen to glorify the American fighting man is by putting down everyone else. The Germans, the British, even the American transport plane pilots and the field artillery, are all maligned, generally unfairly. Ambrose seeks to replace the myth of the German Superman with the myth of the American Superman.
The transport plane pilots who flew into a storm of flak to deliver the paratroopers to their target come in for so much unjust criticism that the survivors are suing Ambrose. He takes a swipe at the field artillery, for not pulling their weight in the day's fighting (as if landing craft capacity should have been used to deliver guns to the beach when an immense armada was floating just offshore, ready and eager to deliver extremely effective fire support). The British are sluggish and slow to advance, unlike the bold and brave Americans (who are as reckless as young men in their first fight always have been; the British were veterans, who knew what a bullet could do to a man, survivors of 4 years of war).
But the Germans come in for the worst criticism. Some of it is justified; Hitler's paranoia led him to create a confused command structure, as dictators often will. It may have helped him stay in power, but it was a shambles when immediate decisions needed to be made, and no one was willing to wake Hitler up to make them. But mostly, the Germans simply didn't have any good choices, and Ambrose's criticism is contradictory. For example, he goes on at length about how much of the German army in the west was made up of sub-standard troops, not trained for mobile warfare. How, in addition, lack of fuel, and Allied control of the skies further reduced German mobility to such an extent that they really had no chance of winning a mobile battle in the interior of Europe. And on top of that, the Germans desperately needed those men and tanks on the eastern front against the Russians. Even if they did win a mobile battle in the interior, it would take too long; they needed to defeat the invasion on the beaches.
Rommel, following the same logic Ambrose lays out, prepares for as hard a fight on the beaches as he can. He wants the German panzer divisions placed near the coast, to be available for immediate counter attack; he knows that with Allied fighter-bombers prowling the skies they won't be able to move quickly after the invasion. Ambrose vilifies him for this decision, saying that a defense on the beaches is hopeless in the face of Allied naval power; only a fight in the interior makes sense. An armored counter-attack against the beachheads would just be blasted to pieces by naval gunnery.
The commander of the German 352nd infantry division, one of the units the Allies faced on D-Day, chose to only deploy part of his troops right at the beaches, holding most of his division farther back from the coasts. Ambrose vilifies him for this decision, saying that those men should have been right up on the beaches. Other German commanders are also vilified, for not immediately rolling their tanks against the beachheads -- the naval gunnery, so deadly to tanks a few chapters earlier, is forgotten. (In fact, the 21st Panzer Division did make such an attack at the end of the day, and was hammered to a halt by naval gunnery. The German commander, Colonel von Luck, took one look at the Allied armada and knew that there was no hope of stopping the invasion; the best he could hope for was to slow it down. I see no evidence to contradict him.)
In other words, any decision made by the Germans is held up as an example of gross incompetence, and Ambrose has no problem contradicting himself if that's what it takes to make the point that the Allied high command (i.e., Eisenhower, who he never passes up a chance to shine a spotlight on) is so much better than the German.
The Germans had no good options, and were aware of it. A person cannot be counted as incompetent for not taking an option that was not available to him.
At the end of the book Ambrose outlines some mistakes made by the various forces on D-Day. A brief examination of some of these is instructive.
Ambrose says that dropping the two U.S. Airborne divisions at night was a mistake; they should have been dropped at dawn, as the invasion was going in. But in the earlier text he describes at great length how the scattered airdrop was crucial in confusing the local German commanders, who had no idea where the main Allied effort was and lost valuable reaction time as a result. The night drop of the American paratroopers was absolutely critical in the success of the invasion, even by Ambrose's own account.
The Germans, according to Ambrose (and others, I admit), were fools to keep as many troops as they did standing by the beaches waiting for 'the real invasion' while the D-Day landings and Allied expansion through Normandy was taking place. These writers fail to realize that if the Germans had withdrawn their troops from the rest of the coast, the Allies were certainly capable of making a second invasion elsewhere, at Calais, for example, east of the troops fighting in Normandy; between the German army and Germany, in fact. Although Ambrose discusses at length the incredible mobility that the Allied command of the sea gives them, it never seems to occur to him that they might make a second landing. . . even though they did in fact do so.
Ambrose says that the young men of France should have been an asset to the Germans, but instead were a liability. He makes no explanation of this remarkable statement. I cannot see how the Germans might have expected the French to fight alongside them, but Ambrose apparently sees something that no one else has.
I could go on, but I think these examples make the point. Combine these errors of judgement with some errors of fact (mostly minor, but telling, such as referring to British 25 Pounder field pieces as 'anti-tank guns'), and considerable doubt is cast on Ambrose's credibility.
The American infantry who hit the beaches on the morning of June 6, 1944 fought with great skill and courage. But Ambrose's efforts to turn their opponents into hopeless buffoons diminishes the accomplishment of those brave men, and they deserve better.