ABSTRACT
Churchill began to think about an invasion of Northern France at the time of Dunkirk. He appointed a Combined Operations Staff under Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, who had led the raid on Zeebrugge in 1918, to investigate all the problems of large-scale amphibious warfare. Proposals of Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) were ready in three months and suggested a landing by three divisions in Normandy with an airborne attack on Caen. The invasion force would then secure the Cotentin peninsula and open the port of Cherbourg. Churchill favoured the appointment of Alexander as commander of the British troops, but Brooke preferred Montgomery who he felt had more drive and vision. Eisenhower's strategy was to surround the fiercely defended Ruhr and send Bradley's 12th Army Group straight across Germany in the direction of Leipzig and Dresden to meet the Red Army on the Elbe, thus cutting Germany in two.
