DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL
HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
United States Naval Administration in World War II
Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe: Volume V
Editor's Note (1948)
This substantial and well-document monograph is still (June, 1948) the most complete
study which has been made of the strategic background of the invasion of Normandy, and
of naval participation in that operation. The author had access not only to U.S. naval
documents, but also to papers of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the British Chief of Staff,
and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. He was thus able to produce a work of extraordinary
value, especially in its early part. The complexity of the problems dealt with in the firs
three chapters is so great, however, and the range of sources so wide, that these pages
cannot pretend to contain the final word on the subjects which they cover. No doubt the
history of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, when it has reached Operation OVERLORD,
will provide materials for correcting shortcomings in the present volume.
This study was finished in the summer of 1946. It was submitted to the Historical Officer
of the U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, and somewhat revised by him, then it was forwarded
by COMNAVEU to the Director of Naval History. It has not yet been extensively
criticized by U.S. naval commanders of the operations described, but has been submitted
to some few such officers.
For information on other aspects of this operation, the reader is referred to Volume IV of
this series; also to the first study in Volume VII. On file in the Office of Naval Records
are two brief narratives of small naval units: "ComNavEu Special Intelligence Unit", and
"ComNavEu Forward Intelligence Unit"; both of these present interesting additional
details concerning U.S. Naval Intelligence aspects of the operation.
At the beginning of each chapter of this monograph will be found an analytical table of
contents of the chapter.
Editor's Note (2006)
The source document used for this web posting (Naval Administrative History
of World War II) is a carbon copy of a typewritten document from 1948 that appears to
have been a first draft compilation which was not well-proofread before it was bound
for preservation. It contains errors and inconsistencies in punctuation, hyphenation,
usage, capitalization, numbering, and alphabetization. In preparing this historical
document for posting on the web, current proofreaders focused on readability rather
than on exact reproduction of the original. Misspelled words and mistakes needing
clarification were corrected without indicating the change from the original.
For example: "Pointe du Hoe" was changed to "Pointe du Hoc," and "Operation TINBEL"
to "TINDEL." Other inconsistencies in the original, such as "RAdm," "Radm,"
"Rear Adm," "Cincs," and "CinCs" are found throughout the document and are for
the most part repeated verbatim in this version. Footnotes were moved to endnotes
to make the web-formatted document easier to read. Therefore, when the Index refers
to a page number, the reference will sometimes be found in the endnotes instead of on
the page number referenced. Chapter numbers were standardized by using Roman numerals
(Chapter I, Chapter II, etc.). Parts of chapters were standardized by using Arabic
numbers (Part 1, Part 2, etc.). The footnotes refer to Sections I, II, etc., when they
mean Part 1, Part 2, etc.). In summary, the original document appears to have been
hastily assembled from notes, letters, and directives, not as a scholarly or
well-edited document. Therefore it can be expected to have a wide variety in usage,
grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The current editors have not attempted to correct
or standardize all the variations.
1 October 2006