General Ismay takes a sane and broad-minded view of the Americans.

They have won their spurs, and the day has passed when we could treat them as green and untried soldiers.

In fact, he went so far as to say that we might well have something to learn from them,

and that maybe we have been a bit

to staff college in our conduct of the war. Sir Alan LaSalle's private secretary to King George

the 6th. Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 446 is Paris Burning.

If you can remember all the way back to 1942, just after the United States entered the war,

you will recall that the Americans initially wanted a ground invasion in Western Europe,

most likely France, in

1943 or even 1942, designated Operation Sledgehammer.

Fortunately for all concerned, except possibly the Germans, the British were able to persuade

their new allies that this timetable was, shall we say, a trifle optimistic.

Back in the days when Operation Sledgehammer was still on the table, thought was given to an invasion

of southern France, ideally to be conducted at the same time as Sledgehammer. This invasion was labeled Operation Anvil, because

Sledgehammer, Anvil, get it? You have heard me reference Operation Anvil a few times, most recently in

episode 423, when I told you that it was cancelled during the planning of the Normandy invasion.

Anvil was dropped because of the organizational problems that would have been created by preparing

and executing two major amphibious landings at the same time at two widely separated landing sites.

Eisenhower and his staff judged the Normandy landings to be the higher

priority, and failure to hold and expand from a beachhead there would be likely to delay the end of the

war by a year or more. Thus, it made sense to abandon Anvil for the sake of ensuring the success of

overlord. But as we've seen, by mid-July, 1945, anvil for the sake of ensuring the success of Overlord.

...