Why was d-day delayed?

Answer 1

Two main reasons: the British, having just been ejected from the Continent in 1940, were skittish about a head-on assault into the German strength, which if it failed, might preclude making the effort again for several years, by which time the Germans might be so strong as to make the effort all but impossible. The British preferred a peripheral strategy, for as long as possible, poking around at the edges of Germany's conquests to draw off strength. Churchill was forever nattering on about the "soft underbelly" of the Axis in the Mediterranean. He never wanted anybody thinking about the question of, all right, supposing you HAVE successfully invaded and conquered Italy, or Greece? What then? Where can you go from there? Any possible Mediterranean area of attack was separated from central Germany by very, very high mountains, extremely rugged mountains, well-nigh impassable for an army with tanks, especially if the passes were heavily defended. In the case of Italy, NEUTRAL Switzerland - and the Alps, were in the way of a path to Germany. Stalin, with Russia fighting desperately for its very life, was needless to say more than a little bit vocally impatient with these peripheral nibblings favored by the British. Also impatient was General George C. Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff, who was the architect of victory in WWII. He was in charge of the US Army AND the Army Air Force (the Air Force did not become an independent branch of the service until the war was over, in 1947). Marshall wanted to get on with it, and land on the coast of western France and head for Berlin.

But the US had gotten a little bit sidetracked. Along with the British we had invaded North Africa in November, 1942, not because of any strategic necessity as far as ultimate victory required, but because Roosevelt and Churchill had promised Stalin a "second front" by the end of the year. Stalin, quite reasonably, allowed himself to believe that this meant an invasion of France, as he was intended to infer. Africa was a poor substitute and drew off only a tiny percentage of German strength, but it did allow the US Army to gain some experience and overcome some teething troubles.

While the fighting was still going on in Africa Churchill and Roosevelt had the Casablanca Conference, in January 1943. General Marshall went there, with only a few aides, determined to obtain agreement to a cross-Channel invasion in 1943. The British sent an entire ship, a ship, full of staff officers, all bearing charts and graphs and plans, all to demonstrate that once Africa was finished, the next move must be Sicily. Sicily, mind you. The British later on at least had the grace to admit this was completely wrong. The correct move would have been to go for Sardinia, or Corsica, if we just HAD to keep piddling around the Med. From either of those, southern France could be reached, or Italy NORTH of Rome. The Allies in possession of Sardinia or Corsica would force the Germans to stretch their defenses to cover all those possibly threatened areas. From Sicily, given the limited range of land-based aircraft of the day, which was a necessary ingredient to the next step of invasions, the ONLY place to go was onto the mainland of Italy, and worst of all, Italy south of Rome. This suited Churchill just FINE! So Marshall was argued down, there was no commitment to a cross-Channel attack in 1943 at Casablanca, and only a half-hearted and insincere agreement of the British to one in 1944, which they later tried to weasel out of, but by that time Marshall had had a belly full and was brooking no more stalling. So in 1943 the US and British invaded Sicily and then Italy. It wasn't all a waste of time, Italy did surrender. But the Germans kept on fighting in Italy, in a country which greatly favored the defenders, and at the peak of the Italian campaign the western allies were occupying no more than 10% of German strength. Late in 1943 Churchill went on a Mediterranean inspection tour, and got the flu. He went to bed to recover, and when he felt a little better, commenced meddling. He couldn't help himself. He revived a plan, which had been considered and discarded, to land near Rome, behind the German lines. He insisted this would cause the Germans south of Rome to collapse and flee northward. Instead what we got was the Anzio campaign, nearly five months of bloody stalemate that helped postpone the Normandy landings from May to June because so many LSTs were needed to supply the whale we had beached at Anzio.

The decision was made to delay the Normandy D-Day from the favorable period of the right combinations of phase of the moon and tides in early May to early June, the next favorable time. This was to get the benefit of an additional month of LST production. LSTs were "Landing Ship, Tanks", sizable vessels which could run their noses right up onto a beach and disgorge an entire company of infantry, or a dozen tanks, which need never get wet in the landing. This points up the other factor which made D-Day so long in coming. The US, eager as Marshall was to close with the enemy, was not ready. Only by the time the landings actually took place did the US have what turned out to be just barely enough trained men in completed units of division strength, and sufficient shipping, and only by June of 1944 had air supremacy been achieved.

Answer 2

Because of bad weather.

Answer 3

bad weather