been set in motion.
They had to. It was their business to plan for a ‘worst case’ situation. After much argument among the airmen and heart-searching by the Prime Minister about the cost in civilian life, it was agreed that Allied bombers should carry out an intensivebombardment of seventy-two critical railway junctions in France during the months before D-Day. To conceal the location of the landings, the attacks would be spread throughout the north and centre of the country. Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander, rejected proposals for concentrating the attack on rail bridges, on the ground that these were too difficult to hit. The bombers would go for major rail centres, on the basis that even those which missed their aiming point would probably damage other rail installations.
The Free French, appalled by the prospective casualties, considered the possibility that the rail system could be immobilized by a general strike of SNCF workers from D-Day. But the idea was rejected not only because of the difficulty of carrying it out, but because it was essential to maintain some communication with the great cities of France in order to feed their populations: ‘It was unthinkable to compel 400,000 people to take to the maquis . . . and the total strangulation of the network would cause a famine.’ Contrary to the accounts of some Resistance historians, it was never intended that the entire rail network of France should come to a halt after D-Day.
But the other obvious course, keenly advocated by SOE, of attacking the railways by sabotage at minimal risk to civilian life, was politely brushed aside by the planners. ‘The weight of air effort necessary to produce results comparable to those achieved by the SOE/SO option would certainly be very considerable,’ wrote Kingston McLoughry, Air Commodore Plans and Operations at Allied Air Forces HQ on 10 February. He went on:
However, since these operations must necessarily involve a large measure of chance, it would be unwise to rely on their success to the extent of reducing the planned air effort. Furthermore, the cutting of railway tracks produces only a temporary effect which could not contribute materially to the general disruption of the enemy’s rail communications. For these reasons the results of SOE/SO operations should beregarded only as a bonus, although this may admittedly be a valuable one.
General Morgan added a note to the same file: ‘I agree with you entirely that we must continue to do as we have in the past, and treat any dividend we may get out of SOE as a windfall . . .’
Through all the debates that continued until the eve of D-Day about the role of the French Resistance, this was the unchanging view of the Allied planners. The Resistance should be encouraged to create whatever havoc it could for the Germans, but no part of the Overlord plan should be made dependent on Resistance success. This attitude must have been reinforced by a modest experiment carried out in southern France in December 1943. Local Resistance groups were allotted fifty rail targets, to be attacked on receipt of an ‘Action Message’ from London, of the kind that would be transmitted across all France on D-Day. The message was duly sent. A few weeks later a full report reached London. Of the fifty targets specified, fourteen had been attacked, together with a further twelve chosen on local initiative by résistants . SHAEF was not greatly impressed. One of the officers who served in SHAEF’s G-3 division in 1944, liaising with SOE and SFHQ remarked:
In the normal course of events, if one makes a military plan, provides the forces and avoids some Act of God, there is a good chance that the plan will be carried out. But in the case of guerillas, there is never any certainty whatever that the plan will be carried out. It is unthinkable to make a major military operation dependent on irregular cooperation.
But to the Free French, the role of Resistance on D-Day
They had to. It was their business to plan for a ‘worst case’ situation. After much argument among the airmen and heart-searching by the Prime Minister about the cost in civilian life, it was agreed that Allied bombers should carry out an intensivebombardment of seventy-two critical railway junctions in France during the months before D-Day. To conceal the location of the landings, the attacks would be spread throughout the north and centre of the country. Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander, rejected proposals for concentrating the attack on rail bridges, on the ground that these were too difficult to hit. The bombers would go for major rail centres, on the basis that even those which missed their aiming point would probably damage other rail installations.
The Free French, appalled by the prospective casualties, considered the possibility that the rail system could be immobilized by a general strike of SNCF workers from D-Day. But the idea was rejected not only because of the difficulty of carrying it out, but because it was essential to maintain some communication with the great cities of France in order to feed their populations: ‘It was unthinkable to compel 400,000 people to take to the maquis . . . and the total strangulation of the network would cause a famine.’ Contrary to the accounts of some Resistance historians, it was never intended that the entire rail network of France should come to a halt after D-Day.
But the other obvious course, keenly advocated by SOE, of attacking the railways by sabotage at minimal risk to civilian life, was politely brushed aside by the planners. ‘The weight of air effort necessary to produce results comparable to those achieved by the SOE/SO option would certainly be very considerable,’ wrote Kingston McLoughry, Air Commodore Plans and Operations at Allied Air Forces HQ on 10 February. He went on:
However, since these operations must necessarily involve a large measure of chance, it would be unwise to rely on their success to the extent of reducing the planned air effort. Furthermore, the cutting of railway tracks produces only a temporary effect which could not contribute materially to the general disruption of the enemy’s rail communications. For these reasons the results of SOE/SO operations should beregarded only as a bonus, although this may admittedly be a valuable one.
General Morgan added a note to the same file: ‘I agree with you entirely that we must continue to do as we have in the past, and treat any dividend we may get out of SOE as a windfall . . .’
Through all the debates that continued until the eve of D-Day about the role of the French Resistance, this was the unchanging view of the Allied planners. The Resistance should be encouraged to create whatever havoc it could for the Germans, but no part of the Overlord plan should be made dependent on Resistance success. This attitude must have been reinforced by a modest experiment carried out in southern France in December 1943. Local Resistance groups were allotted fifty rail targets, to be attacked on receipt of an ‘Action Message’ from London, of the kind that would be transmitted across all France on D-Day. The message was duly sent. A few weeks later a full report reached London. Of the fifty targets specified, fourteen had been attacked, together with a further twelve chosen on local initiative by résistants . SHAEF was not greatly impressed. One of the officers who served in SHAEF’s G-3 division in 1944, liaising with SOE and SFHQ remarked:
In the normal course of events, if one makes a military plan, provides the forces and avoids some Act of God, there is a good chance that the plan will be carried out. But in the case of guerillas, there is never any certainty whatever that the plan will be carried out. It is unthinkable to make a major military operation dependent on irregular cooperation.
But to the Free French, the role of Resistance on D-Day
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