By John Farnam
Ft Collins, CO –-(Ammoland.com)- If the amphibious assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France on Tuesday, 6 June 1944, had failed (as it nearly did):
“I don’t know what you saw in Africa and Italy, but I know what I saw in Russia and Poland. We made a cemetery a thousand miles long and a thousand miles wide. Men, women, children, Poles, Russians, Jews, it made no difference. It could not be compared to any human action. It could be compared to a weasel in a henhouse. It was as though we felt that if we left anything alive in the East, it would one day bear witness against us. And, now, we have made the final mistake:
We’re losing the War” ~ German Army Officer Christian Diestl (played by Marlon Brando) in the 1958 movie version of Irwin Shaw’s 1948 novel about WWII, “The Young Lions”
Omaha Beach was the vital hinge of the entire D-Day Invasion. If Omaha failed, the whole Invasion would collapse, and everyone knew it! It would collapse ignominiously, much as did the ill-fated Dieppe Invasion two years earlier.
Had the D-Day Invasion failed, the War in Europe would surely have gone on at least through 1947, and would have likely ended in a notorious “negotiated settlement.” Hitler’s secret nuclear and V2 rocket programs may well have matured, undisturbed by advancing Allied Forces., and Hitler could have been in a position to threaten the UK, all of Europe, and most of Russia, with nuclear weapons.
In addition, the Holocaust would have expanded and continued, and the rest of the world would never know about it, as Hitler would have kept it all a secret, as he wrote the “official” history.
For that matter, the entire Eastern Campaign (Operation Barbarossa), which saw untold millions of Russian civilians slaughtered (as noted by Shaw, above), would likely be also unknown today.
In the West, it is barely known anyway.
As it is, courageous American forces made a success of Omaha Beach, at extreme cost.
As noted, we can only imagine how history would have been different, had they failed. It makes one wonder what future historians will write about us and our time.
In this world, civilizations come and go. In the West, we dare not take our continued existence for granted. Our audacious previous generations surely didn’t.
In this world, when civilizations, even great ones, want to commit suicide, history will only too gladly accommodate them. It won’t be the first time.
There may well be another “Holocaust,” just around the bend.
Either way, history doesn’t care.
“We never looked back. The problem is: we never looked ahead either.” ~ Crystal Woods
/John
About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor John Farnam will urge you, based on your own beliefs, to make up your mind in advance as to what you would do when faced with an imminent and unlawful lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance, if any. Defense Training International wants to make sure that their students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or inactions.
It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to the Planet Earth. Mr Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com
VE Vet, I sure do agree with your comments about the U.N. It is run by third world countries that are trying to bring us down to their level. Trump is trying real hard to make America great and the U.N. is not helping us in any way, shape or form.
Interestingly, it was a British plot that baited a top Nazi military guy (Goering?) to turn east and go fight Russia… on the false premise that England would be surrendering or seeking some sort of alliance with Germany in the near future. Had Hitler not been duped by the glory-seeking Nazi guy, Germaney never would have made the foolish decision to press their Eastern Front and go destroy Russia. It had the double benefit of keeping the Russians occupied in fightint Hitler’s Hordes in the East. Brilliant plan… and it worked. Both men were stupid and vanglorious enough to fall… Read more »
Hitler always wanted to attack east (Russia) for “living space.” He had no real desire to go to war with the British. If Halifax had be asked to form a government instead of Churchill the UK would have made peace with Germany long before the United States became involved in the war. Of course, Germany could not have beaten the USSR in a war of attrition. The Russia has 12 time zones. Eventually the USSR would have won and would have controlled all of Europe. Not a very pleasant situation. We should be thankful D-Day was a victory.
WWII gave the world time to prepare even after the war began. It took years for the USA to build the ships, trucks, Jeeps, tanks and rifles and cannons and ship them to England. If the Germany had followed up Dunkirk with an invasion WWII would have ended in 1940 with all of Europe in the hands of the Germans. The USA would not have had an unsinkable carrier 25 miles from France from which to stage and launch the invasion. Today we face an irrational enemy in Iran and North Korea. Soon they will have nuclear weapons and intercontinental… Read more »
In the days following the launch of Operation Barbarossa, Russian plans to invade West, were found on factory office walls. There could be no doubt that the Soviet Union desired to advance Communism, and annex the West, and then, the World. Nazi Germany also sought to conquer and control the world. Russia’s greatest ally was not the United States, but Hitler, himself. Had he let his generals prosecute the war, history may well have been different. Many military history novels have been penned, scenarios almost without number. Some, far more realistic and plausible than others. Ostensibly, writers “game” things today,… Read more »
We are already seeing in the textbooks in public schools revisionist history, the presenting of history in a politically correct manner. Basically re-writing history in a more “acceptable” manner so as not to offend anyone. It is not actually possible to interpret history, only to present it factually in order to know what happened and who was involved. Trying to understand why someone or some group of people did something 200 years ago is impossible. We can speculate, but we can never put ourselves in their shoes and fully understand. Our attempts to do so are pointless as we interpret… Read more »
Excellent post! The trap of historical fallacy plagues education in the best of times, and it is even worse in this day and age of political correctness.
Had the invasion of Europe failed, the Russians would have continued their march West – and we could have ended up with the whole of Europe under the Russian’s thumb. However, we still would have had the Bomb a little over a year later, and it surely would have been used against what was left of Germany……
Biggest mistake we ever made was setting up the United Nations. We now see how that has turned out.