h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: D-day - A951329
Author: Captain A.J. Rimmer, ACE, Scout and space adventurer - U189740

I worked on this for quite a while.
Pretty sure it's done for PR now.

Hi Rimmer

Well Oberon warned you....

First off - this is a great entry - a lot of good facts well broken up, and written entertainingly. (You know whats coming next) BUT.

On the 6th of June 1944, "Operation Overlord" took place. The Allied invasion fleet landed hundreds of thousands of men into German-occupied France, in the largest sea invasion in human history. At the same time thousands of paratroopers were dropped to harrass supply lines and capture key objectives. It was to be the turning point of World War 2.

- You'll notice I've changed the wording a bit here, this is because you've tried to link things a bit too tightly and spoilt your narrative effect. I think mine's better but please wait and see what the Scouts, and the other cannibals have to say about it.

Preparations

The Allies had been planning Operation Overlord since 1942, when it went by the name Operation Roundup. But because of the failed campaign in north Africa and the Dieppe raid that same year, it was decided that a full-scale invasion would require more planning if it was to penetrate the Western front, guarded by Hitler's Atlantic wall.

Here I've altered tenses a little

The landings in Sicily, Africa and Italy were part of Britain's "indirect strategy." This was to fight the weak parts of The Axis defence, and drain resources.

All I've done here is remove the repeat of the word strategy.

In the next sentence the word West needs capitalising, twice.

Now its up to you if you want to leave this type of work to the sub-ed, I prefer to make the work my own words, so that the way I felt about the subject is carried through.

Let me say again this is a GOOD entry, but there are several areas where the errors jar, and detract from the pleasure.

Then again maybe thats only for a boring old pedant like me

With regard to the content, I'm not sure that D-Day could be considered the turning point of WWII - Certainly the turning point of the war in Europe, but probably Tobruk was the turning point of WWII, or Hitler's decision to invade Russia ? Dunno. WWII is not my period, but overall the article hangs together well, and I like the way you've gone group by group, beach by beach.

The only thing lacking is some sort of explanation for the German responses. On several occasions the Allies only won through because the German forces withdrew from a seemingly strong position.

English is not my language I'm just a poor dumb Swede so grammar and narrative I'll need help with.
Had I written this in Swedish it would have sounded better.

In that case Rimmer - Bl00dy well done - and leave it to the sub-ed.

If I had to write an entry in Swedish it would consist of one word - Tak - and I don't even know if I've spelt that right.

Depends on what you mean, roof or thanks?

I meant thanks. I also learn how to say Please and Thank you in any country I'm going to, unfortunately the money ran out in Denmark, so I never got to Sweden, and only remember thank you because of a guy in a bar in Brugge (I think) he was Swedish but spoke virtually no English - we spoke in French and German, but he said -Tak - each time the drinks came round.

Tack.
Well we always say thanks when someone buys a drink/beer

You might mention something about the training that involved the evacuation of entire costal areas of Devon, some of the villages are still empty!
There was also an incident near Slapton (Devon) where an unescorted load of transports & DD Shermans ran into some EBoats & suffered heavy losses. There is a tank on the beach as a memorial.

Oh & also the distraction raids near Calais; more bombs were dropped in that area than in the actual landing zones.
Even on the day after the landings, some of the German commanders were of the opinion that the Normandy landings were the feint & the real attack was to be expected further to the east.

I think Hitler was the only one who REALLY thought there would be another landing at Calais after D-day.

I go to work in another country for a few weeks, come back and find someone's already put an entry in for the one I hae been working on.

Anyway, here is some of the stuff I have done on the preparations. More to follow after the weekend, once I have had a chance to write up my notes

On deciding where to land in Europe, the planners had several considerations:-

1) In must be within range of fighter cover from the UK
2) It must have beaches suitable for landing large number of troops
3) Ideally it should be close to a port which could be captured quickly.

There was an ideal choice in the shape of Calais. It met all the requirements, it was the shortest distance from the UK and was closer to Germany. It was also very obvious to the German as well and as a result was heavily fortified . The allies instead decide to land on the Normandy coast where the defences had not been as heavily built up.

The Commanders and the plan

In December 1943, Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Europe to over see the Allied Invasion of Europe which Stalin had insisted upon at the Tehran conference. Under him were appointed Air Marshal Leigh-Mallory as commander of Allied air force, Admiral Ramsey as Naval commander and Field Marshala Montgomery as Commander of land forces. Montgomery was a controversial choice from the begining and was pushed through by Brooke over Alexander.

The original plan was for an invasion of a 25 mile front by three divisions with brigades dropping inland to protect the flanks. The initial three divsions would be followed up by a further twelve. Montgomery saw the weakness in this plan in that it would enable the Germans to quickly mobilise superior forces against the Allies before they were able to put sufficient men and material ashore. Instead, he proposed landing five divisions on a 50 mile front followed up by 30 divisions. And three full divisions of Airborne infantry would be landed behind the beaches to protect the flanks. Because of the extra requirements, primarily assaut shipping, the planned date of May was postponed for a month. The date for the invasion was set for 5th June. In fairness to General Morgan, who had prepared the orginal plan, Eisenhower and Montgomery had the power to acquire the resources that were needed, which he had been unable to get.

Before the landings took place it was decided to isolate Normandy from the rest of France by destroying all the communication links (bridges, rail lines). This would enable the allied forces to put sufficient forces ashore to hold the beachheads before the German forces could muster enough troops to successfully counter attack.

Operation Fortitude
During the early months on 1944, through their network of spies, the German High Command learned that General Patton had been appointed commander of the First United States Army Group (FUSAG) based in South East England. FUSAG was a powerful formation containing several armoured as well as airborne divisions. It was also didn't exist. It was in fact part of a a massive deception undertaken by the Allied Forces.

One of the main concerns of the Allied High Command was that German armoured forces being held in the Pas de Calais region would quickly be moved to the Normandy area and their superior numbers would crush teh Allied bridgehead. To prevent this Operation Fortitude was concieved. The idea was to convince the Germans that the Normandy landings were just a feint and the real landings would be in the Pas de Calais region. The deception was planned and carried out under the control of the Twenty Committee (XX or double cross). At there disposal they had two immensly important tools. Firstly, they controlled every German spy in Britain. In effect they could tell the Germans what they wanted the Germans to hear.
Secondly, the code breakers at Bletchely Park had cracked the Germans cypher (Enigma), which enabled them to see what the German High Command was thinking and adjust their plans accordingly.

Double Agents reported back to German Intelligence about these fictious divisions. The deception was also supported by false radio traffic and huge parks of dummy tanks to fool any reconaisance aircraft that managed to get through British air defences (occasionally with the help of the 20 committee). The Germans were completely fooled, in May 1944, Germa intelligence showed the Allied Order of Battle consisting of up to 90 divisions puls 7 airborne divisions, against actual figures of 35 divisions plus 3 airborne.

I've put that last one already, maybe I'll give it a new subehead.
I saw you had begun on an entry on D-day but figured you abondoned it so I started my own.

Other things you might like to add...

Ruses:

A few comments on the thousands of inflatable tanks spread across the kentish countryside prior to the invasion, to make German reconnaisance planes believe the invasion was going to be Dover-Calais. Along with several vans, driving around the south east of england with enough radio equipment on board to let them mimic an entire army brigade

Also, there was Major Martin... The man who never was... British intelligence got hold of a corpse, dressed it in the uniform of a British Major, complete with personal effects, theatre ticket stubs for a london production, photos of an imaginary girlfriend, military identification documents, etc... handcuffed a briefcase to his wrist containing top secret documents on the upcoming invasion of Calais and dropped him overboard from a submarine off the coast of France, to be found by the Germans.

Getting Ashore.

Once the allies had decided on Normandy, they then had 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 Landing Craft Vehicle/Personnel (LCVP) or Higgins boat was a small vessel (36ft long) capable of carrying a platoon of troops or a single truck. Because of there small size, they were carried on board larger vessels. Several miles from the beaches, troops would dis-embark onto these boats, which would carry them onto the beach. On D-Day, this meant climbing down the side of a ship on a cargo net and then trying to time a jump onto the boat at the height of the swell. Not an easy process in heavy seas, and several men were injured in the attempt. Most of the initial waves of the assault were landed in these small boats
The Landing Craft Infantry (LCI), were larger (200ft) boats which could carry up to 200 men with a crew of over 20 sailors. They were also equipped with machines guns and cannons to support the infantry. The infantry deployed from two small ramps at the front of the boat. Although these boats were not designed to cross large distances of water, they often did. There were several variations used on D-Day in various support roles such as carrying rockets, which were used to bombard the beaches before the troops landed.
The Landing Craft Tank (LCT) was similar to the LCVP in that it had a single ramp at the bow, which could be lowered to enable vehicles to drive straight off onto the beach. It was 120ft long with a crew of twelve and could carry up to nine tanks. Some of the LCT’s used for the Normandy landings were modified so that tanks at the front of the vessel could fire their guns over the front of the ramp on the run in.

To minimise the risk to landing craft, the decision was made to land at low tide. Reconnaissance had shown there were few obstacles beyond the low tide, and they would be visible to the approaching landing craft. That left the problem of how to get the troops across in some cases several hundred meters of beach in the face of fierce German resistance. The obvious answer was tank support for the landing infantry, but one of the bitter lessons from Dieppe was that the large craft capable of landing tanks provide an attractive target for defending troops and could not be risked near a well-defended beach.

Major General Percy Hobart (of the 7th Armoured Division) was asked to develop solutions to the problems the Allies were going to face. He came up with a number of different innovative designs, which came to be known as Hobart’s funnies. The most famous of these was the DD (Duplex Drive) tank. It was based on the standard Sherman tank chassis but in addition to tracks, the tank was also fitted with two propellers. It took fifteen minutes to erect a 9ft high canvas screen around the tank, which then enabled it to float. In the water, only the outer screen showed, so it just looked like a small boat. Once the tank was ashore the screen could be lowered in seconds. The tank was only designed for fair weather conditions, with small waves. On the day of the invasion the swells were up to six feet.

Once the troops were ashore, Hobart came up with other designs to help them get across the beach. These were all based on the Churchill AVRE (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers). For mine clearance there was the Crab, which carried a number of chains attached to a rotating axle at the front of the tank powered by a separate engine. The chains would either smash or detonate any mines they passed over. The Crocodile was modified to carry a flamethrower, which could shoot a jet of flame up to 100 yards. Other variants included 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.

Tosh, would you mind if I qouted you by cutting and pasting and added you on the "written and researched by"-list?

Feel free, there is a lot more where this came from, if the scouts can hold off recommending it until I have put all my comments in

Great, I do need more techno info if you got it.

There, your part is in Tosh.

Brilliant entry! Any more for any more? Tosh? This is going in. It's just a matter of when.

Yes,

there's Operation Neptune (the Naval end)
Tactical deceptions on the night (rubber paratroops amongst others)
Effect of the weather (the original date was 5th June)
and I was hoping to expand on Rimmers information about each of the beaches and drop zone (Roosevelt's "We start the war from here", springs to mind)