ABSTRACT
The decision to land on the Normandy beaches would not have been possible but for the inventiveness of the British in producing devices which would compensate, in the initial stages, for the absence of port facilities. The assault phase of the operation was assisted by the stratagem which led the Germans to believe that, taking advantage of the shortest sea route, the Allies would attack in the Pas de Calais area, where there were usable ports to try for. Allied air strength prevented German reconnaissance from discovering that the main body of the invasion force was positioned for landings in Normandy. The Germans were thus, in the autumn of 1944, in a military situation in the west comparable to that in which they had been under Ludendorff in the autumn of 1918. The threat of military and national disaster, to which Hitler was bent on leading Germany in which a good many senior officers were involved.
