divisions, with two brigades to be airdropped. Another 11 divisions were to be landed within the first two weeks through two artificial harbors that would be towed across the Channel. Once a foothold had been established, a force of a hundred divisions, the majority shipped directly from the United States, were to be assembled in France for a final assault on Germany. In January 1944 Eisenhower became supreme Allied commander, and the COSSAC staff was redesignated SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force).Hitler had long been aware that the Anglo-American allies would eventually mount a cross-Channel invasion, but, as long as they dissipated their forces in the Mediterranean and as long as the campaign in the East demanded the commitment of all available German forces, he downplayed the threat. By November 1943, however, he accepted that it could be ignored no longer, and in Fuher Directive 51 he announced that France would be reinforced. To oversee defensive preparations, Hitler appointed Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, former commander of the Afrika Korps, as inspector of coastal defenses and then as commander of Army Group B, occupying the threatened Channel coast. In January 1944 the Allies also appointed an invasion commander. Bernard Law Montgomery, Rommels desert opponent in North Africa, was nominated under Eisenhower as commander of the ground invasion forces. Walter Bedell Smith, an American, continued as Eisenhowers chief of staff, but his other principal subordinates were British. Air Chief Marshall Arthur Tedder as his deputy, Admiral Bertram Ramsay as naval commander, and Air Chief Marshall Trafford Leigh-Mallory as head of the expeditionary air forces. Montgomerys first acts were (1) to demand and get five divisions to make the initial landing and (2) to widen the landing area to include the Orne River estuary and the base of the Cotentin Peninsula. It was finally decided the invasion force was to consist of fi...
