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by officers of all services (army, air force, navy) working jointly in a staff where the nationalities were mixed: US officers could thus be put under the command of British officers and vice versa (that's the integrated aspect)
Both during and after the war, the optimal timing for the invasion has been hotly debated. While no serious persons defends the idea that the invasion should have taken place in 1942, a reasonable case can be made that it should have taken place in 1943. /
For instance, it was only in the summer of 1943 that the Germans seriously started the fortifications of the coast outside the main harbours. In the spring of 1944, they had made so much progress that some allied commanders though they had missed the window /
of opportunity. We also know that, despite the bombings, German war production kept on increasing and that the Wehrmacht was better equipped in 1944 than it was in 1943. Some German generals have argued that, after the twin defeats of Stalingrad and Tunis, the German /
army could not have coped with an invasion in the summer of 1943. Maybe. My educated guess is that the timing of the invasion was optimal.
