Evening star., 1944-06-11
Fiqht for Cherbouro

The blood and effort which the
Allied armies are expending in the
fight for Cherbourg, one of the main
ports of the French channel coast,
are indicative of the Importance
which the military commanders at
tach to the seizure of good harbor
for the landing of supplies and re-
Inducements for the troops who
have been put ashore on the beaches.
But if this serves to emphasize the
usefulness of harbors, it doubly un-
derscores the truly remarkable prog
ress that has been made in perfect
ing the technique of landing great
armies on the open beaches without
benefit of ports of any kind.
Only a few years ago most mill
tary men would have scoffed at the
suggestion that we might land an
army and maintain it on fortified
enemy shore and in the face of
hostile aircraft. It was believed,
not without reason, that the cas-
ualties of such an operation would
be prohibitive, and that even If the
remnants of an army could be put
ashore, they could not be kept
there. But that was before the
American and British designers of
new weapons and new tactics went
to work on the problem.
When the Allied commanders de-
cided to land in Normandy, they
knew that it might be many weeks
before they could secure the use of
adequate port facilities. The initial
assault troops had to be put ashore
on the beaches. Then there had
to be assurance that continuous
streams of reinforcements and sup
plies could be sent in over the same
beaches. And there was every rea-
son for confidence that this could be
done.
The pioneering in these mass am
phibious landings was done by our
forces in the Pacific. It was there
that the tactical weaknesses were
discovered and corrected and the
needs in new equipment determined
by process of trial and error. The
Mediterranean theater was another
proving ground, and. new lessons
were learned the hard way at Sicily
and in the landings along the Italian
coast. '' ~ @-"'''7 ..ss
The sum of this experience dem
onstrated that harborss while de-
Sirable, are not essential. The
strongest shore positions can be
cracked by direct assault ever the
beaches, and, surprisingly enough,
we have discovered that tn the land
ings themselves the advantage rests
heavily with the attacker, not with
the defending forces, as had formerly
been believed. Given an appropri-
ate "softening up," adequate air
power, surprise and strong con-
centration of force by the attacker,
hostile shores can be stormed almost
at will, and neither the Germans nor
the japanese have shown any indi-
cation of developing effective de-
fenses.
But this is applicable to the in
itial landings only. Once they are
made, the defenders will strain every
nerve to assemble superior forces
for counterattack before the in
vaders can bring in sufficient sup
plies and reinforcements to secure
their beachheads. This presumably
Is what the Germans are trying to
do now in Normandy, and 1t is dur
ing this critical period that the
over-the-beach supply system will
be put to the acid test. Undoubt-
edly the Allied commanders are
confident that they can meet this
test or they would not have begun
the operation, but when one con-
siders what a few days of really bad
weather would do, it Is easy to un-
derstand why no time is being
wasted in the effort to seize a safe
and commodious harbor.