D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe

In May 1944, the Western Allies were finally prepared to evangelize their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord.

Soldiers coming ashore at Normandy on D-Day

Primary Image: Soldiers coming ashore at Normandy on D-Twenty-four hour period. (Prototype: National Athenaeum and Records Assistants, 111-SC-320902.)

In May 1944, the Western Allies were finally prepared to deliver their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cantankerous-aqueduct invasion of northern French republic, code-named Overlord. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was supreme commander of the operation that ultimately involved the coordinated efforts of 12 nations.

After much deliberation, it was decided that the landings would take place on the long, sloping beaches of Normandy. There, the Allies would have the element of surprise. The High german high command expected the assail to come in the Pas de Calais region, n of the river Seine where the English Channel is narrowest. It was here that Adolf Hitler had put the bulk of his panzer divisions later on being tipped off by Allied hole-and-corner agents posing as German sympathizers that the invasion would take identify in the Pas de Calais.

The challenges of mounting a successful landing were daunting.

Surprise was an essential element of the Allied invasion programme. If the Germans had known where and when the Allies were coming they would have hurled them back into the ocean with the 55 divisions they had in French republic. The invaders would have been on the offensive with a 10-to-1 manpower ratio confronting them.

The challenges of mounting a successful landing were daunting. The English Channel was notorious for its rough seas and unpredictable weather, and the enemy had spent months constructing the Atlantic Wall, a two,400-mile line of obstacles. This defensive wall comprised half dozen.five million mines, thousands of concrete bunkers and pillboxes containing heavy and fast-firing artillery, tens of thousands of tank ditches, and other formidable beach obstacles. And the German army would be dug in on the cliffs overlooking the American landing beaches.

d-day

Full general Dwight Eisenhower's Social club of the Day, delivered to Allied personnel on June 6, 1944. (Image: Eisenhower Presidential Library.)

At the Tehran Conference in August 1943, Allied leaders scheduled Overlord to take place on or about May 1, 1944. In the meantime, they prepared ceaselessly for the assault. Trucks, tanks, and tens of thousands of troops poured into England. "Nosotros were getting ready for one of the biggest adventures of our lives," an American sergeant said. "We couldn't look." Meanwhile, the American and British air forces in England conducted a tremendous bombing entrada that targeted railroad bridges and roadways in northern France to prevent the Germans from bringing in reserves to cease the invasion.

Allied leaders gear up June five, 1944, as the invasion's D-Day. Simply on the morning time of June 4, foul weather over the English Channel forced Eisenhower to postpone the attack for 24 hours. The delay was unnerving for soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but when meteorologists forecast a cursory window of clearer weather over the channel on June 6, Eisenhower made the conclusion to go. Information technology was one of the gutsiest decisions of the war.

Just later on midnight on June half-dozen, Allied airborne troops began dropping behind enemy lines. Their job was to blow up bridges, demolition railroad lines, and take other measures to prevent the enemy from rushing reinforcements to the invasion beaches. Hours later, the largest amphibious landing force ever assembled began moving through the storm-tossed waters toward the beaches. Well-nigh of the Americans were packed into apartment-bottomed Higgins boats launched from troop transports 10 miles from the French coastline. Vomit filled the bottom of the boats, and as water kept rushing in over the gunwales, the dark-green-faced men had to bond this vile stew with their helmets. Though it was common cold, the men were sweating.

Personnel and equipment arriving at Normandy

Personnel and equipment arriving at Normandy past air and sea following the D-24-hour interval invasion in 1944. (National Archives and Records Administration, 26-G-2517.)

Planners had divided the landing zone into five separate beaches. The British and Canadians landed at Juno, Gilt, and Sword beaches. The Americans landed at Omaha and Utah beaches.

The fiercest fighting was on Omaha Embankment where the enemy was positioned on steep cliffs that commanded the long, flat shoreline. Troops leapt from their landing boats and were pinned down for hours past murderous machine-gun fire that turned the beach into a vast killing field. "If you (stayed) there you were going to die," Lieutenant Colonel Bill Friedman said. "We just had to . . . try to get to the bottom of the cliffs on which the Germans had mounted their defenses." By midday, the Americans had surmounted the cliffs and taken Omaha Beach at a heavy cost: over 4,700 killed, wounded, or missing out of the full of approximately 35,000 who came ashore that day, a loss rate of more than 13 percent.

"If y'all (stayed) at that place you were going to die"

Lieutenant Colonel Pecker Friedman

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Past nightfall, about 175,000 Allied troops and fifty,000 vehicles were ashore with most a million more men on the way that summer.

The Normandy invasion was 1 of keen turning points of 20th-century history. An immense army was placed in Nazi-occupied Europe, never to exist dislodged. Deutschland was threatened that same month past a tremendous Soviet invasion from the due east that would attain the gates of Berlin past the following Apr. The way to appreciate D-Day's importance is to contemplate what would take happened if it had failed. Another landing would not have been possible for at least a yr. This would take given Hitler time to strengthen the Atlantic Wall, harass England with the newly adult V-1 flying bombs and 5-two rockets, continue to develop jet aircraft and other so-called "miracle weapons," and end off his killing campaign against ethnic and sexual undesirables.

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