D-day
Created | Updated Mar 13, 2003
Training for D-day
The people who had been planning the attack called it a valuable lesson, they learned the futility in attacking a fortified harbour and used this knowledge in the invasion of Normandy.
Training camp
In the weeks before D-day, now codenamed "Operation Overlord", the southern parts of England was turned into one big military camp. The ports were filled with military crafts, battleships and destroyers of all the sorts, the land was filled with soldiers, marching up and down the roads, practicing landing and shooting. All key personnel including General Patton, Field-Marshal Montgomery, General Eisenhower, had all been transferred from the Italian front months before.The sheer numbers were incredible. In England at that time, the forces for Operation Overlord measured to 150 000 men, 1 500 tanks, 5 300 ships, and 12 000 airplanes.
In order to keep the element of surprise alive, a false "army group 1 was created at Dover which at first glance seemed as a lot of activity was going on, while radios continually transmitted fake orders, along with thousands of inflatable tanks on display in the Kentish countryside. Several vans was driving around the south east of England with enough radio equipment on board to let them mimic the radio traffic of several divisons . This whole operation was codenamed Operation Fortitude. This scheme certainly did its job well enough, it tied 19 Nazi-divisions to Pas-de-Calais for 6 weeks after D-day.
(I wouldn’t use the word surprise here. The Germans knew the allies were coming, they just did not know where and when. The point of Operation Fortitude South was to convince the Germans that the allies that the Allies had more troops then they really had and that the invasion in Normandy was a feint to draw the Germans out before the real invasion in Pas de Calais region.
One of my comments from peer review included more detail about operation fortitude, you might want to include it here, but it’s your article and I always have suffered from typing diaorhea)
Equipment
Once the allies had decided on Normandy, they then had to overcome the problem of how to get men and equipment onto the beach, and then inland. Although the beaches at Normandy were not as heavily defended as those in the Calais region, the defences were still formidable. The beaches were littered with mines and obstacles to impede landing craft. The Germans had also prepared concrete bunkers with interlocking fields of fire from which troops could fire down on to allied troops.
To get ashore the allies used a variety of specialised craft. To be able to land troops and equipment directly onto the shore, all the boats had to be flat bottomed, so they didn’t get stuck on the beach.
The Crocodile was modified to carry a flamethrower, which could shoot a jet of flame up to 100 yards. Other variants included the Petard which had a turret fitted with a 290mm mortar, which could fire a bunker busting shell, the Fascine (basically a large bundle of logs tied together which could be used to fill in ditches) fitted to the front of the turret, and finally the bridging tanks.
There were two main variants used on D-Day, the Armoured Ramp Carrier, which carried ramps at the front and rear which could be extended to cover a gap up to fifty feet wide, and the Small Box Girder Assault Bridge, which was carried on the nose of the tank and was then lowered to cover gaps up to 30 feet wide. The advantage of the SBG was it could be deployed while the crew remained in the tank so they were not exposed to enemy fire.
The Invasion fleet was divided up into a western task force, under the command of Rear Admiral AG Kirk, who would transport the US forces to Utah and Omaha, and the eastern task force under Rear Admiral Sir Philip Vian who was responsible for the British and Canadian force landing at Gold, Juno, and Sword. The western task force assembled in various ports of the southern coast of England stretching from Falmouth to Poole, while the eastern task force assembled from Portsmouth up to Newhaven. Surprisingly, ports of the South East of England were not used because they were full of dummy landing craft designed to fool German reconnaissance aircraft.
Rommel's "Hauptkampflinie"
In January 1944, field marshal Erwin Rommel became in charge of the German coastal defences of the English channel, he decided to make the famous "Atlantic wall" a real obstacle for the Allies. Rommel was fully aware of the Allies complete advantage in the air, and he knew, that when the invasion came, the first 24 hours would be crucial. The beaches would be his maindefense line, his "Hauptkampflinie".
The German propaganda machine had painted an image of an impregnable line of large coastal artillery guns running along the whole coast. People were never informed that the Atlantic wall only had these kinds of emplacements in a few very strategically important harbours and u-boat bases. The rest was just barbed wire and bunker fortifications with several miles running between them
Rommel’s idea was making the whole French coast one big wall of tank and landing craft obstacles, coupled with the already existing fortresses. Rommel travelled from shore to shore, fortress to fortress, designing new strategies and defences, he came up with the new "hedgehogs" tank obstacles, which consisted of large steel beams bent into straight angles and welded together, some with mines attached to them. Others were simply tree poles leaning towards the sea with mines. Rommel had wished to have 4 lines of these obstacles ready so that at least one line always was invisible in the tide, but in time for D-Day only 2 lines were complete. His defensive strategy was based upon mines, a lesson he learned in North Africa, he wanted to create a defensive line behind the beaches as well on the beaches by mines and fortificatified infantry and buried tanks, backed up by a mobile armour as well as artillery. For this task he asked for round about 300 million mines. He got 4.1 million in time for D-day, many his men prouduced themselves.
The Grand Plan
The plan of D-Day, was to establish a holding point in Normandy, France, by building and holding a beachhead, from were it would be possible to secure other parts of France, and eventually, Germany.
The 101st and 82nd American airborne divisions as well as the British 6th airborne division would land behind enemy lines in an area stretching as far as 80 km, to isolate the German coastal defences as well as cutting off supply lines by destroying bridges and roads leading to the beaches.
Then, two American, two British and one Canadian division were going to land on a 96 km coastline between Merville on the eastern flank and St. Mere Eglise to the west ( I would suggest this is more precise) Caen and Cherbourg. Altogether 107 000 soldiers would be placed in Normandy during the invasions first 48 hours.
The coastal line had been divided in 5 beaches, Omaha was assigned to the 1st and 29th divisions and Utah beach was assigned 4th divisions of the American 5th and 7th army corps., Gold and Sword beach were , assigned to the British 3rd division, 50th infantry division and 1st army corps, and Juno beach assigned to the Canadian 3rd division.
After that, the towns behind the established beach-head would be captured by the airborne divisions after being relieved by the 7th army corps in order to maintain a firm grip on the coast.
This was, put simply, the plan.
Day of days
After have been delayed several times due to heavy weather and the tide, D-Day finally took place on the 6th of June 1944. The airborne units took off from airfields across Southern (Upottery was one, there were many used for staging the allied paratroopers), England late on June 5th, the British landing fleet charged the beaches at 07:30, the American landings began an hour earlier.
The British 6th. Airborne
The 6th Airborne had been ordered to secure the eastern flank of the British landing areas, the river Orne and the Caen canal. The 6th Airborne would also destroy the German coastal battery at Merville and secure the two bridges at Benouville, one bridge spanned the river Orne and the other the Caen canal. These two bridges were vital to ensure the advance inland.
Pegasus
Division command decided to send in 6 gliders especially for this mission, three for the river bridge and one for the canal one (numbers don’t add) . Each glider carried 30 men, from 'D' Company, 2nd. Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghampshire Light Infantry along with, Royal Engineers of 'B' company and pilots of the Glider Pilots Regiment.
At 00:16 hours, the first men to set foot on D-day landed just by the bridge, rather bumpy though, the whole crew were knocked unconsciousness for a moment. One minute later the second glider landed feet from the first and at 00:18 the last glider landed at the canal bridge. The men from the first glider soon re-gained consciousness, exited the Horsa glider and attacked the bridge guarded by almost 50 German soldiers who were taken completely by surprise!
The next landing did not go so smoothly, only 2 glider landed within 300 and 700 metres and one missed completely. This was not a problem though, since the Germans had abandoned the defence of the bridge.
Never the less, the bridges had to hold until the rest of the 6th Airborne relieved them. The Germans tried to take it back twice, once they used a tank but it was soon disabled by Sgt. Thornton using a PIAT anti-tank gun at close range. The 6th Airborne arrived at 03:00 am to relieve them.
In recognition of the 6th Airborne’s tremendous victory at the canal bridge, the bridge to this day has the name "Pegasus bridge" in honour of the division.1
The red devils
The rest of the 6th Airborne were going after the following objectives: five bridges spanning the river Dive were as going to be destroyed and the coastal battery at Merville had to be captured and destroyed to prevent it from firing on Sword beach, upon which it had a perfect firing position.
The pathfinders went in first. As the name indicates they were meant to guide the main landing troops to their proper drop zones. This was very difficult on June 6th due to the heavy weather conditions. The pahthfinders were scattered all over the place, and as a result only half of the 6th Airborne landed on the correct drop zone.
4225 men were dropped at 00:50 am, the wind carried them far away from their DZ’s. The 3rd. Parachute Brigade landed on two locations, one by the river Dive and one by the Merville battery, a mayor gun emplacement of 4 heavy calibre guns, surrounded by minefields, tank ditches and manned by tough German defence troops. The attack had been planned in detail and even rehearsed at Inkpen in Berkshire, but it didn't go one bit as planned. The troops were scattered all over the place, only 150 men was found and gathered by Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway. So, extremely under strength, they moved to their objective, 200 metres away, upon arrival the element of surprise was lost due to a glider passing over moments earlier, but Lieutenant-Colonel Otway charged the battery anyway and 15 minutes later, the emplacement was captured at the loss of 75 men
The British 6th Airborne succeedeed with all three of their D-Day objectives, despite being scattered all over their DZ.
101st. Airborne
The airborne landings were almost a complete failure for many companies. Their main goal was to take the exits from Utah beach, and secure the bridges over the Vire and the Douve river intact. Firstly, the pahthfinders were dropped under heavy AA-fire, and the pilots very disoriented, only 38 of 120 were dropped on target
The 502nd.
The 502nd. parachute infantry landed at 01:30 am. None of the planes dropped their crew on the correct drop zone near the two northern exits leading from Utah. One of the three battalions landed so far from their DZ that they did not play a part in the fighting on D-Dday. Two sticks landed in the town St-Mere-Eglise and were slaughtered by the Germans. After a while, a few men gathered under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Michaelis and secured the two exits from Utah after heavy fire fights.
The 506th.
The 506th. parachute Parachute Infantry had been ordered to secure the two southern exits leading from Utah, only nine planes put them down on the correct DZ. But they were coming in too low and too fast, many men drowned in the areas flooded by the Germans, others broke their limbs when coming down too fast. Major-General Maxwell Taylor managed to find 85 men and because of the importance of their mission, they moved out alone but did manage to secure the exit points leading from Utah beach.
The 501st.
The 501st. parachute infantry did not do too well either. The drop furthest to the south was accurate enough, but the Germans were ready and when they landed they took heavy casualties. The last of the three battalions landed completely intact and toghether with what was left from the other two battalions they secured the lock at La Barquette over the River Douve. Throughout the day gliders started dropping troops over Normandy, only 6 out of 52 101st gliders landed out the correct drop zone.
82nd. Airborne
The 82nd. Airborne had been ordered to capture the town of St-Mére-Eglise. They would drop to the west of the 101st. on each sides of the river Meredet. The 82nd. consisted of 3 regiments, two airborne and one glider regiment. At 01:30 am the pathfinders came in, many of them were nowhere near the correct area. Half an hour later the rest of the 82nd. landed, only half of 508th. PIR came up to within 2 miles of their DZ.
505th.
The 505th. landed pretty much on target or within 2 miles from it. Their CO broke his foot on landing but he still lead his unit to St-Mére-Eglise, pushed on a cart! Unfortunately, the 3/505th landed inside the town itself and were cut to pieces by the German before they even landed. St-Mére-Eglise was captured at 05:00. Throughout the day artillery and anti-tank support was landed in gliders. At the end of D-Day, 4000 men out of 6209 men were missing. Later on men was coming in and the final figure were 156 known dead, 347 wounded and 756 missing presumed dead.
The navy
The British and US airforces then added their contribution. Heavy bombers (B-17’s, B-25s, Lancaster’s) attacked the British beaches and Omaha. Unfortunately, due to the bad weather most of the pilots dropped blind and most of the bombs fell harmlessly inland. They then returned to base to re-arm and return to attack targets further inland. At Utah, the air support consisted of medium bombers (B-26’s), which were able to fly at low level under the clouds. As a result the bombing was much more effective and went some way to suppressing the defending German troops.
Juno- the fight towards Caen
On Juno beach, the 3rd Canadian division, consisting of volunteers from Ireland, Scotland, French Canadian and Poles, had been given the assignment that from Juno beach secure Vaux, Coucelles sur Mer, Bernieres sur Mer and St.Aubin sur Mer. Along with the Canadian 3rd division, No 48 Royal Marine Commando, who were going to link up with the No 41 Royal Marine Commando who were coming up from Sword beach.
The winds were so strong, that the landing crafts were driven out of place, and had to gather and reposition before actually heading for the beach!
This caused a delay of ten minutes, which meant that the tide would have already come in and drowned the tank obstacles when the fleet arrived. So, with little or no cover the 7th brigade group stormed to the beach. Many men died the moment the landing doors opened, half of the DD-tanks meant to aid them were sunk before firing a single shot. The German defences had hardly been compromised at all by the sea and air bombardment.
Grab a bike and GO!
No 48 Royal Marine Commando landed at St. Aubin and fought their way through hard German resistance together with 4th Special Service brigade. The last company to land on Juno beach was the 9th brigade, at 11:40 am, by then the beach was captured, the securing of Juno beach enabled the landings of 22 000 men on D-dayDay, but at the cost of 340 men and 574 wounded.
Gold
At 07:25 am, the 50th. Northumberland Division stormed the area named Gold beach with the objective to take the beach and then move to Bayeux and rendezvous with the American troops at Omaha. The landing craft were deployed 7 miles off the beach, compared to the American ones that were deployed 12 miles off the beaches, this meant a shorter run in.
It was decided that the DD-tanks would go all the way up to shore instead of floating ashore and thus, the men had cover. The defence would be tough, coming from the 716th Static division and the 352nd infantry division, but the successful launch of almost every DD-tank onto the beach in fighting condition helped secure victory. Also, the 716th was so far stretched that they could not be very effective on all theirdefensive locations, coupled with the fact that the troops from 716th/441 east battalion consisting of old Russian prisoners of war gave up and fled quite soon.
The second group to storm the beach was the Commandos of the 4th. Special Service Brigade, they took heavy casualties and only one of their landing craft actually managed to reach the beach! But thanks to the DD-tanks they eventually found cover. Montgomery had made sure that the tank crews were veterans, and therefore assigned the famous Desert Rats to give the main invasion tank support with DD-tanks.
Sword- The key to Normandy
At 07:25, the 3rd infantry division, 8th brigade group, stormed the beach and the DD-tanks were successfully launched into the water and out of the 40 tanks intended to land, 28 made it to the beach.
French troops landed alongside with the British, with the intention of capturing Ouistreham, a strategically important town to the west of Sword beach. Sword beach was the key to let troops into the heart of Normandy and thereby probably the most important of all the landings.
Traffic jam
The British invasion force soon became a victim of their own success. All the equipment they had landed, in conjunction with the rising tide the British were being pushed up and up the beach, because they were running out of space!
On the road to Caen, they ran into the 21st Panzer division, completely by surprise, because they had expected it far from Caen, further to the west. The attack was stopped thanks to the loss of 16 tanks caused by the 185th Brigade. The British and Canadians didn't bother to check old grounds to be absolutely safe, and there by they were attacked from the rear by the Germans so often that they had to go back to secure old territories and didn't reach Caen in time.
The 3rd infantry division soon joined up with the Canadian forces coming off Juno and continued towards Caen. The 21st Panzer division struck again at 7 pm but was stopped by the allied anti-tank support before reaching the beach, altogether they lost 54 tanks that day, half of their group.
The British failed in their objective to capture Caen on that day but managed to put ashore 29 000 soldiers and many tanks.
Pointe du Hoc
Located at 4 miles west of Omaha beach was a German battery of six, concrete encased 155mm Howitzers. This position was to be taken out of action in order to stop them firing on the shipping off Omaha and Utah beaches (The guns pointed out to sea, not along the beaches)
Three companies from the famous 2nd Rangers were chosen for this mission altogether numbering 225 men. They were to land at the same time as the troops at Omaha, climb the 100 ft cliff in order to reach the battery, defeat the well-fortified Germans and disable the Howitzers. The 2nd and 5th Rangers landing at Omaha and Pointe du Hoc would be under the command of Lieutenant Colonel J E Rudder.
The currents near the beach carried "Rudder’s men" off their target and delayed them 40 minutes. Once on the beach they began climbing the cliffs using sectional ladders and grappling hooks, when they reached the top, they began a fierce fire fight with the Germans, until the position was secure.
Utah beach
Utah beach was by far the most successful landing on D-day. Altogether 43 soldiers were lost taking the beach. The success of the landing was caused by a twist of fate.
The first wave of landing crafts lost their guide ship to an artillery shell, causing the first wave to land 2 km to the south of their, heavily defended landing position. In this position, there were no German defences since they had not expected an invasion there because they had flooded the ground behind the beach. .
The DD-tanks were landed very successfully and the special engineers soon cleared the obstacles for more tank support. The rest of the attack waves landed on the same spot as the first. The German defences were soon knocked out, and in the end the German defense had been reducsed to one 88mm cannon, one old French tank tower buried in the sand which jammed after one shot, and a couple of machine guns in one of the intact bunkers. Needless to say they did not last long. By mid-day the 4th infantry division met up with 101st airborne, but the rest of the divisions did not manage to reach their D-Day objectives.
Still, 23 000 men were put ashore along with 1,742 tanks and 1,695 tons of supplies.
The Slaughter at Omaha
At 06:25, the first wave of landing crafts approached the beach. It was expected that oOpposition would be light, the bombers would have destroyed most of the enemy MG-42- machine gun-emplacements and destroyed the artillery covering the beach. But the bombers had been given new orders; they were to drop their bombs seconds later to avoid hitting their own invasion force. They did avoid hitting the invasion force, in fact they hit nothing but fields of wheat, several km behind the beach. The sea bombardment failed as well, and the Higgins boats came closer and closer...
The landing doors opened 50 metres off the shore and the men from the 1st American Infantry division stormed out but were quickly pushed back by heavy machine gun fire. Most of them never reached the beach and the ones who did couldn't make much of it, being hit by both heavy MG-42 fire and being hit by the artillery not far away. They survived only by hiding behind the tank obstacles also known as "hedgehogs" covering the whole beach. The DD-tanks sunk like stones, only six made it to the beach, but they were soon knocked out.
Even though the first soldiers to land were almost all killed or injured, more and more men were being landed, some of their landing crafts were destroyed before coming close to the beach, both by artillery but also ripped up by Rommels subwater tank deathtraps.
General Bradley observing the battle from the U.S.S. Augusta was making preparations to abandon the assault when the two famous battalions known as the 2nd and 5th Rangers, along with the 116th infantry approached the beach. These were the men to change the tide, remember that most of the men to land on D-Day had never seen active service before. The Rangers had.
(NO, 50 rangers had taken part in the Dieppe raid, but that vast majority of Rangers had not seen combat before. However, troops from 1st Division on Omaha had been in action in the Torch landings in North Africa and the invasion of Sciliy. However the Rangers were an elite unit that had undergone much more arduous training.)
By mid-day, the bluff overlooking the beach was in allied hands. 3000 men had been killed or maimed. Their D-Day objective had not been reached, but then again no one had expected such heavy resistance.
