Allied Amphibious Doctrine , the Landing Craft Shortage of 1943-1944 , and Operation OVERLORD
using a lack of resources to justify delaying or even canceling the operation . The Chiefs did not agree and revoked their approval for SKYSCRAPER for its flawed approach which based resource allocation and force structure on unknowable enemy strength . 24
When Morgan took charge in March , he made use of the work done on SKYSCRAPER , quickly agreeing with its conclusion that the assault would have to be in France , preferably in the Caen sector . 25 He also recognized that the logistical requirements for SKYSCRAP- ER had been enormous and , frankly , unrealistic . Concerning landing craft , subsequent studies based on projected availability indicated a likely shortfall of fifty percent for the assault divisions . Morgan ’ s approach to the size and structure of the force , however , was not based on guessed-at enemy strength , but upon the resources that could reasonably be expected to be available at the time the operation was to take place . 26
In March 1943 , influenced by the SKYSCRAPER estimates and Morgan , the British requested an increase in landing craft production . US planners immediately rejected the proposal citing the urgent need for escort vessels in the Atlantic and the continuing buildup in the Pacific . Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J . King and his staff believed that the proposed increase would siphon off resources and once again delay desperately needed construction in other areas .
King ’ s staff justified their stance by citing the 1942 crash program to produce craft for Operation TORCH in North Africa . Thanks to the use of emergency directives and the creation of special expediting machinery , the 1942 production run of landing craft ended with a record of 106,146 light displacement tons for February 1943 . 27 The Navy maintained that the dislocations caused by the building program of 1942 had reverberated across every other building effort in every shipyard in the nation , claiming that the shortfalls would not be made good until the fall of 1943 . Another such delay could not be justified in light of current threats , especially the record shipping losses of March 1943 to the German U-boat offensive . 28
Thus the Navy blocked the proposed increase and influenced the tentative plans for the invasion . The planners would have to make do with the current landing craft production schedules which held steady at about 60,000 tons per month for deliveries into the first half of 1944 . 29 The landing craft situation was poised to impact strategic priorities on a theater-wide and even global scale . March 1943 saw the prediction by Morgan that , although the exact number of landing craft required for the operation could not yet be forecast , the figure would be " large enough … to present a very serious problem , which has no precedent ." Even Churchill had gotten wind of the problem . He wrote in an April memorandum that “ the destinies of two great empires ... seemed to be tied up in some god-damned things called LSTs whose engines themselves had to be tickled on by ... LST engine experts of which there was a great shortage .” 30
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