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1944: The Tide Turns

Marine Corporal F.E. Wilbur, of Downer's Grove, Illinois, snatches a rest under a tree. All his worldly possessions are around him,

At the beginning of 1944, the writing was on the wall for the Axis powers. day by day, the military and economic strength of the Allies grew, fed by the great powerhouse of the United States, by the vast resources of Britain and its dominions and empire, and by the inexhaustible Red Army. That Japan and Germany resisted the inevitable for a further eighteen months is a reflection of the fanaticism of their leaders. In January 1944 there were significant breakthroughs on the Eastern Front, in the Mediterranean, and in the Pacific. On November 3, 1943, Hitler had issued a strategic directive acknowledging that the situation on the Eastern Front was serious. But, concerned about the threat of invasion from the west, he had decided not to reinforce his eastern armies until the western invasion had been repulsed. Hitler was prepared to buy time by sacrificing his eastern army and conceding territory on the Eastern Front. His generals must have known the strategy was flawed, but at the slightest hint of dissent they were replaced by younger, more aggressive commanders. The Red Army attacked in the north on January 14, and on January 27 Stalin declared the long siege of Leningrad over, as Soviet forces crossed the Moscow-Leningrad railway line.

In Italy, the Germans had used the winter conditions to establish a series of defensive positionswhich the Allies called the "Winter Line" - south of Rome. In an attempt to outflank the German line, on January 22, 1944, the Allies mounted an amphibious assault north and south of Anzio. It was not their most successful offensive: the U.S. Navy's official historian later said that putting such a modest force ashore was akin to sending a boy on a man's errand. The problems arose not from the landings themselves, which were largely unopposed, but from the attackers' failure to break out from their beachhead. By January 27, when the Allies were ready to advance, the German commander in Italy, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, had brought six divisions to hold the perimeter. The Allies had over 5,000 casualties by the end of the month, including the greater part of two battalions of U.S. Rangers, wiped out at Cisterna in an ambush. Not until the end of May were they able to break out from their encirclement to join the advance on Rome.

The key to the approach to Rome, and to the relief of the forces stranded at Anzio, was Monte Cassino, a fortified town with, above it, on a rocky promontory, an ancient monastery of great historical significance. The defenders were the best of the German army: panzer grenadiers and paratroopers. Between January and May 1944 there were four battles, featuring both astonishing bravery and gross incompetence. The Allied forces were a truly international mix and the battles and subsequent advance on Rome produced heroic contributions from, among others, Free French troops, New Zealanders and the 2nd Polish Corps, made up of Polish emigres. On May 17, with their defensive line disintegrating around them, the Germans withdrew, allowing the Poles their moment of glory in capturing the hill. Sadly, the sixth-century Benedictine monastery had been reduced to rubble by Allied shelling. The Allies now seized the initiative, and on June 4 General Mark Clark and the U.S. Fifth Army captured Rome. It was an historic moment: though the Italians had surrendered the previous year, Rome was the first Axis capital city to fall.

It was many months since Hitler's "soft underbelly" had been pierced in a campaign intended to preoccupy him and deflect his forces from the main objective: the invasion of France and liberation of Europe. U.S. forces had been building up in Britain for two years, and by spring 1944 over a million G.Ls had arrived. The call to arms in America had been phenomenal. In 1939, U.S. armed forces personnel totaled less than 350,000 - by the end of the war they numbered 12 million. This was a huge accomplishment. Not only had they to be recruited, they had to be equipped, clothed, fed, entertained, and kept reasonably happy. Most importantly, they had to be trained to resist and overcome two remarkably belligerent enemies, the like of which the world had never seen before. That U.S. forces acquitted themselves so well is a tribute not only to their own skill and tenacity, but also to the legion of civilians back home who supported them. The U.S. fighting machine had been built almost from scratch and had learned the rules as it went along.

In Britain, the G.I.s were both welcome and unwelcome. The cry "Overpaid, oversexed and over here" succinctly expressed British resentment at the impact the flamboyant young Americans had on a war-weary nation. Historical inevitability is one thing, but battles still have to be won and wars have to be brought to a conclusion with the minimum of casualties. This was the challenge for General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his fellow planners in 1944. Failure in the Allied invasion of northern Europe would have delayed the end of the war by many months, perhaps even years, and cost countless lives. Two key elements had to be guaranteed: overwhelming numbers and resources, and surprise. The former meant that the whole of southern England had to be transformed into an armed camp; the latter required a web of intrigue and fabrication which would have been comical had it not been so serious.

The obvious place to attack was across the narrowest part of the English Channel, towards Calais, so the Allies endeavored to persuade the Germans that this was the objective. General Patton was chosen as the decoy force's commander and dummy camps, tanks, men, equipment, and intelligence information were constructed to convince the German High Command. Set-builders from the film industry were employed to make cardboard tanks and barracks look authentic. Allied ULTRA intelligence, by intercepting German military communiques, confirmed that the bait had been swallowed. The Germans, under Field Marshal Rommel's command, built massive defenses along the Pas de Calais - Rommel believed the battle would be won or lost on the beaches - closely supported by armored units.

Meanwhile, the real invasion was planned for Normandy, further to the west. Operation Overlord was much more than a beach assault: it involved sustained bombing of German positions, prolonged information-gathering and sabotage by the French Resistance, and an airborne assault behind enemy lines to disrupt defenses and destroy lines of communication. The invasion was set for June 5, but bad weather forced a day's delay. June 6, 1944, became D-Day, the "beginning of the end" for Nazi Germany.

Nearly 7,000 ships took the troops across the Channel. Overhead, massive aerial support guaranteed aerial supremacy. Ahead of the main invasion force, over 23,000 British and U.S. airborne troops had alreadv landed on the flanks of the chosen beaches, which were code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. As in all crucial battles, there was terrible carnage: Some U.S. units, in the first wave of landings at Omaha beach, suffered 90 percent casualties. The bombing of German positions had been too deep and had missed its targets, German reinforcements were better-quality troops than expected, and the low tide meant that many craft could not get close inshore, so that the G.Ls had to cross a vast expanse of open beach under overwhelming enemy fire. Nevertheless, the men fought heroically, and eventually succeeded in establishing a beachhead.

Though a terrible price had been paid - Allied dead numbered nearly 2,500 - by the end of the war's "longest day" over 150,000 men were ashore: the "Beachhead to Berlin" had been secured. But now further disadvantages of landing in Normandy became clear. The surrounding countryside was a mixture of woodland, intricate field systems, narrow lanes, and ditches and hedgerows, all of which provided ideal defensive positions for the Germans. It took almost four months to reach and liberate Paris.

In Asia in 1944, the Allies' main aim was to continue the advance in the central Pacific, westward from the Marshall Islands to the Marianas and, ultimately, to the Philippines. In addition, U.S. personnel lent support in the main British theater of operations on the Asian mainland, to which Burma was the key. British and Indian troops bore the brunt of the fighting, but Generals "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell and Claire Chennault organized two significant American contributions. Chennault's airmen provided a crucial air link to China over the Himalayas, and aerial support for the British and Indian forces on the ground; while Stilwell assisted General Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese nationalists in their struggle against the Japanese. Among Stilwell's troops in Burma from March to August 1944 was the Galahad volunteer U.S. commando force, nicknamed "Merrill's Marauders" after their commander, General Frank. D. Merrill, which included Sioux and Japanese-American Soldiers. The Marauders fought with great distinction behind Japanese lines, in parallel with British General Orde Wingate's Chindits.

By the beginning of 1944, U.S. forces had retaken huge areas of the Pacific. General MacArthur was making steady progress in New Guinea, with the Philippines as his ultimate objective. The next major targets in the Pacific were the crucial Mariana Islands - particularly Tinian, Saipan, and Guam - which would bring Japan within range of B-29 heavy bombers for the first time.

The battle for Saipan, in June 1944, was fierce. The 30,000 Japanese troops, under General Saito, were well dug in and a large fleet was on hand to wreak havoc on the U.S. assault fleet. It took over three weeks to subdue the island at the cost of over 3,000 American lives. The horrendous - over 23,000 - Japanese losses included many civilians who, terrified by stories of rape, torture and death, threw themselves off the island's northern cliffs.

Guam and Tinian were captured in the following weeks, On Guam, the main force of defenders was weakened by accurate air and sea bombardment, but pockets of resistance remained for some time. Incredibly, it was not until 1972 that the last soldier surrendered after he was discovered still hiding in the jungle. Tinian fell in just twelve days, though some Japanese die-hards held out for over three months.

The retaking of the Marianas was the final straw for General Tojo, the Japanese prime minister, and he resigned from office. Perhaps even more significant than the islands' capture was the accompanying naval battle, the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Five Japanese aircraft carriers and their accompanying vessels faced seven U.S. carriers. The Japanese hoped their pilots would inflict such severe damage on the U.S. fleet that it would be unable to support the landings. They were wrong. The U.S. f~eet picked up the Japanese ships on radar and was well prepared when the attacking aircraft appeared. The Japanese lost 350 planes, more than ten times the U.S. losses, and three aircraft carriers (two to U.S. submarines), and were unable to mount a serious carrier threat for the rest of the war.

The tide that had turned in 1943 was now running strongly in the Allies' favor. There had even been an assassination attempt on Hitler, plotted by senior members of the armed forces, but it had narrowly failed. By the end of 1944 Allied forces had liberated almost the whole of France and Belgium and, despite the ill-fated circumstances of Operation Market Garden (airborne assaults and armored advance across the Rhine at Arnhem), they held a strategic salient in Holland.

In the Pacific, U.S. forces went on from the Marianas to land in the Philippines at Leyte. The landings were accompanied by the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the "greatest naval battle in history," involving over 230 Japanese and American warships and almost 2,000 planes. There were heavy losses on both sides, but the Japanese could afford them far less than the Americans and suffered yet another mortal blow, despite the actions of a new and terrifying weapon, the suicide pilots of the "divine wind," kamikaze.

Stewart Binns & Adrian Wood. 1944: Beachhead To Berlin. . Sevenoaks Limited. 2001.

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