大象传媒

With Hitler and his armies having not learned the lesson of Napoleon - namely that of undertaking an invasion without sufficient thought given to proper clothing to tackle a Russian winter - and thus suffering defeat, I always feel that D Day planners completely ignored the genius of Lord Nelson. There's no doubt he'd have had a completely different strategy, and like all his battles - Copenhagen, the Nile, and Trafalgar, the outcome was decisive and positive. It strikes me this was because he intended winning, and for that purpose he believed in taking the fight to the enemy at close quarters.

When I see newsreel footage of the Normandy landings it's immediately very noticeable that there was a general lack of smoke cover for the seasick chaps struggling ashore weighed down with 'clobber' and soggy clothes. Luckily I was only just 17 years old at the time, still a civvy, but chafing at the bit as they say, for I had definate plans of joining the 'show' in my due time.
But now in my wise old age I'm eternally grateful that I missed the 'call' to meet the Jerry foe by six months.

It's said officially, that the D Day landings was a close run thing -and it was, there's no doubt about that. Also it's said that much of the German forces composed of poor grade soldiers, men of mixed nationalities from occupied countries, and boys and sick old men.
Whatever, although Lord Nelson wasn't a soldier, his tactic would still have been to close his capital ships with the enemy. After all, it was an established fact before 1944, that the day of the great battleships was over;aeroplanes had proved the point time and again, from Taranto, Pearl Harbour, battleships at Alexandria, Barham, Repulse and Prince of Wales, Bismark and Hood, Tirpitz and the Japanese giants. Therefore by 1944 most battleships still active were merely big gun platforms for shelling land targets in the Pacific advance on Japan and the landings in North Africa and Italy.
Therefore by June 1944 - knowing how ineffective these long range shellings were against the dug-in-deep Japanese on their islands, that hefty shells at Salerno and Anzio achieved nothing, our war planners should have realised that Germany's west wall soldiers would have deep shelters to avoid the soften-up shelling just as they had done in the Great War. The lesson was, all shelling counts for nothing if you're not killing the defenders.
And this was the story of D Day too; few German soldiers were knocked out by the inaccurate battleship shells fired at long range, etc. There was no other worthwhile employment for them by mid 1944, and soon - after we had won the WAR - they'd be just so much unwanted scrapyard junk. So on D Day these giants should have been better employed by doing the Nelson thing - that of closing the enemy. Some - not all - should have been run ashore at full speed ahead at high tide to form beach fortresses. Perhaps with some extra bow re-inforcement (experiment) or full ice-breaker stem, these unstoppable giants would have cleaved a path clear through the obstacles and their anti landing craft mines - exploding them with little effect on battleship hulls - and driven themselves full onto the beaches and sand dunes. Here every great gun shell would have dug out any beach or cliff fortifications both dead ahead and in left and right enfilade, and with all the secondary armament in support of its own defence and, following landing craft troops arriving via the big ship's cleared channels.
Two expendable battleshps per landing beach would seem to be ideal, for now massive crossfire could come into play; and, together with their varying height advantage over the German beach defenders - and creating belching gun smoke - the mile apart steel forts would be un-matchable. This was 'Victory' at Trafalgar; with Lord Nelson in visible close contact and making every cannon ball and musket shot count. Both British and French ships were moving quite slowly due to light winds, thus in effect making static targets - similar to land conditions. Here Lord Nelson became an easy musket target for a marksman for, being himself at deck level, the high ground/masted Frenchman's shot struck downwards through Nelson's body. So while the high ground proved its value yet again, the threat of Napoleon's cross Channel invasion melted with the French ships in defeat.
Battle was won by nerve and sacrifice, while the steel monsters of majestic shape could, after also serving as breakwaters, remain as long-lasting monuments for thousands of D Day veterans and enthusiasts to marvel at in the years to come.

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