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The nub of the problem was to take Cherbourg, and to take it fast. To this task a U.S. army under Lieut. General Omar N. Bradley was assigned. It was known in advance that the Americans' job would be tough: the Nazis had flooded 500,000 acres around Carentan to depths up to seven feet. Four days after landing, the Americans captured some of the sluice gates at Trevieres, started to drain the drowned land. But there was no assurance that the land would dry out enough to permit maneuver by heavy armor.
To protect the Americans' Cotentin operation, the Allies had to guard against interference by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's mobile reserves. To this task Ike Eisenhower assigned a British-Canadian army which drove swiftly inland to Bayeux and Caen, and cut the Germans' main supply road and railway from the east.
One Beachhead. But neither Americans nor British attained their full preliminary objectives as early as had been hoped. It was week's end before the Yanks drove through Trevieres to Sully, effected a firm juncture with the British and thus united the beachheads; meantime the British were still battling to close a vise around Caen and there set up an immovable roadblock against Nazi counterattack.
The urgent need for this block was clear: Rommel lost no time in making tactical counterattacks with his 21st Panzers. Around Caen the first tank battles of the invasion were fought. But they were preliminary, minor skirmishes compared with what was to be expected when Rommel finally struck.
Why did he delay? Said a Nazi military spokesman: "If we could be sure that the beachhead would remain only one, we could liquidate it when it pleased us. However, we are counting upon the [Allied] establishment of more beachheads where also we are holding reserves in readiness."
The Priceless Chance. The Nazis had missed their first chance, to cripple the invading forces by vigorous Luftwaffe blows at sea and on the beaches; they had missed their second, to counterattack strongly while the Allies were still disorganized on and near the beaches. Would they miss their third chance, to strike a decisive, strategic counterblow while the Allied bridgehead remained "only one"?
Where was the Luftwaffe? One explanation of its infrequent sorties was that Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, bull-necked veteran of Spain's ill-famed Condor Legion, was saving his strength, to use it in close support of Rommel's army when his counterattack finally got under way.
Meanwhile, Nazi air squadrons made pinprick night attacks. They harassed beachheads occasionally, kept convoy gunners alert to repel assaults for which Berlin claimed good results.
Atlantic Wall. Was there or had there been an Atlantic Wall? Countering boisterous dispatches that the highly advertised defenses were "the biggest bluff of the whole war," the London Times military correspondent rumbled: "This is to do less than justice to the Allied troops." Said Reuter's Stanley Burch: "You could not make a single pinpoint on the map of the invasion beachhead not covered by crossfire from machine guns, mortars or light artillery."