1944 - SKYSCRAPER
Through the summer and fall of 1942, planners wrestled with the problem of calculating future needs in troops and materiel. The British Chiefs of Staff, anxious to have the build-up of US forces in the United Kingdom continue at the maximum rate, wanted to hold to the assumption that in the spring of 1944 operations would be either in progress or immediately in prospect on the Continent.
When the Casablanca Conference opened on 12 January 1943 focused attention on 1943 and concluded with a statement that the operations envisaged in 1943 were designed to bring about the defeat of Germany in that year. This was for the record-but there were reservations. The Americans in particular were not sanguine about the prospects of victory in 1943. General Arnold asked for a decision on what might be done in 1944 so that production schedules could be planned in advance. General Brooke replied that "we could definitely count on re-entering the Continent in 1944 on a large scale." The Combined Chiefs of Staff then proposed setting up a combined command and planning organization to plan for small-scale raids, a return to the Continent in 1943 under conditions of German collapse, a limited operation in 1943 to secure a bridgehead on the Continent for later exploitation, and last "an invasion in force in 1944."
Analysis was revised during the early months of 1943, and at last approved by the Combined Commanders on 01 March 1943 and constituted the basic appreciation for subsequent cross-Channel planning. The immediate result was a new outline plan-the final effort of the Combined Commanders before they turned over the planning job to COSSAC. The new plan, SKYSCRAPER, provided simultaneous landings on the Caen and east Cotentin beaches with four divisions in the assault and six in the immediate follow-up. It required in addition eighteen Commandos for special assault missions and four airborne divisions to interfere with the movement of enemy reserves. After the initial beachhead, including Cherbourg, had been established, planners assumed the next move would be to secure additional port capacity for the build-up.
The avowed object of SKYSCRAPER was to provide a gauge of some of the major problems to be faced in the cross-Channel invasion. Chief of these was the large requirement for resources, especially in landing craft. Planners stated the case uncompromisingly. The requirement for ten divisions simultaneously loaded was an absolute minimum, they said. Even that would enable the Allies to take on only the present enemy force in the west, estimated to consist of an average of two coast defense divisions to each hundred miles of assault area. Furthermore the ten division assault force would suffice only if enemy troop movements could be completely blocked. SKYSCRAPER set its sights deliberately high. It was an attempt to break the deadlock which the tangle of interrelated contingencies had imposed on ROUNDUP planning. Planners were pressing now for a decision. "If we are to plan and prepare for the invasion of Western Europe against opposition," they wrote, "it must be on the understanding that the resources considered necessary are fully realized and that it is the intention to provide them." Therefore, they concluded, "To defer the decision is to decide not to be ready." But the sights seem to have been set too high. The British Chiefs of Staff argued that the vague notion of "determined opposition" could not be used as a criterion for the number of assault divisions needed. They decided not to consider the general principles enunciated in the plan.
The attempt to find how large an assault would be required for the job broke down on the impossibility of judging with any realism the size of the job. The alternative was to calculate how large an assault might be practicable with resources likely to be available and then try to see how an operation of such size might be assured a reasonable chance for success.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
