D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy

The Allies had been beaten back at almost each battle by Hitler's prominent army.
Now, they needed an important victory. At dawn of June 6, 1944, the Allies planned
to launch the greatest amphibious assault of all time against German occupied France.
This paper will include the preparations to D-Day, Omaha Beach, and the outcome to
the invasion.

D-Day was the code name for the day in which the Allies would invade and liberate
Normandy (France). This plan was code named Operation Overlord. It was made in
April 1942, when the Allies were suffering heavy losses in the war. The landing and
assault site were divided into five beaches. They were, Utah, Omaha, Juno, Gold, and
Sword. In December 1943, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed as
Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. It was he and a group of
men that included Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey,
Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Lieutenant General Bedell Smith, Air
Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, and General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery that
made Operation Overlord such a success.

Such planning by the Allies could not go unnoticed by the Germans. The Germans
knew that an invasion was imminent, but they did not know where it was going to be.
Hitler's generals were quite certain that an attack would come on the coast of the
English Channel. Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Runstedt was appointed as the
Commander in Chief of the West. His duty was to fortify the most vulnerable sections
of the coast, mainly Pas-de-Calais. This was because it was the closest to Great
Britain, making it a short distance away to attack. He and a few generals devised a
great wall of defense they called the "Atlantic Wall." Presumably, the wall was
impregnable.

The Allies took advantage of this, and they devised a cover-up plan code named,
Operation Fortitude. This was to deceive the Germans as to where the actual invasion
was to be. Whenever the Allies would bomb a target in the actual assault area, two
more were dropped elsewhere, especially in the Pas-de-Calais area. Also, another goal
was to convince the Germans, after D-Day, that the Normandy landing was only a
diversionary attack to draw German troops away from Pas-de-Calais so that the Allies
could deliver a victory there later. Dummy airplanes and gliders were discretely
revealed to the Germans. Radio traffic and training exercises and so on built up the
desired image. Now the German armies were pinned down in Pas-de-Calais. A few
months passed by, still reinforcements came in, but none went to Normandy. This
just reflected how well this plan went through.

Now, they needed to decide on the exact time to invade. Daylight was decided upon
because it would make it easier to navigate the assault vessels and spot shore targets
for naval and air bombardment. The first troops and the demolition squads would hit
the beach three hours before high tide. This would give them enough time to clear
away the German underwater obstacles. Since the conditions on each beach were
different, an H-Hour was set for each beach. Another consideration was the moon;
D-Day should fall on a day when there was a late-rising moon. This would enable the
airborne forces to approach France in the dark, yet, have enough light to identify drop
zones. Only three dates were left after these considerations, June 5, 6, or 7.
Eisenhower set June 5, as the date of invasion, contemplating good weather.

On June 3, almost every Allied vessel was in its assembly port and was filling up with
troops and/or supplies. Each one waited for the command to form convoys.
Everything was in full gear. Still, nothing is perfect; the weather was considerably
growing worse. By the fourth, there were low clouds, high winds, and treacherous
waves. Many of the thousands of men were seasick; some have been on board for a
day or two, others, around three or four days. Seeing the adverse weather,
Eisenhower postponed the date to the sixth. There was news that rain in the assault
area was going to clear up for 48 hours. The winds would drop, though the sea would
still be rough and tumultuous. Another postponement would mean at least two weeks.
That was not possible; the troops were hyped-up, and detailed on the attack plans.
There would most definitely be a security leak. Eisenhower could not take these
chances, so it was set. The attack was to proceed on June 6.

On June 6, the invasion first began at 1:30 A.M. with the airborne divisions. This was
five hours before the seaborne attack. They were the paratroopers of the American
82nd and 101st Airborne divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division. Their job
was to take certain strategic points and to disrupt German communications on the
beaches. The specific task of the British division was to hold the eastern flank of the
beachhead, behind Juno Beach. This meant capturing the bridges over the River
Orne, the Caen Canal. Also, it was to capture the Merville battery, a dangerous threat
to the left flank of the seaborne landings, and to blow up the bridges over the Dives
River so that no German reinforcements could come in. As the forecast reported,
there would be high winds; landing gliders on a windy night is a hazardous business.
Most of the 101st division was all scattered around and as few as 1,100 of the 6,600
men would reach the rendezvous. The 82nd was also very scattered, radio
communications broke down, a little over a third of the men managed to join any of
the dozens of small fighting units. There were heavy casualties; every fifth man was
either killed, wounded, or captured by the end of D-Day.

By the time the assault from the sea had begun, the paratroopers had achieved many
of their objectives. Sections of the 101st succeeded in capturing the German battery
near St. Martin de Varreville; it guarded an exit from Utah Beach. Men from the 82nd
captured the village of Sainte Mère Église. Telephone lines were being cut, to cut off
German communication. The bridges were secured. The Merville battery was
knocked out, and the roads exiting from Utah, Gold, Sword and Juno were also safe.
After all this, the German generals still felt that this was just a diversion to cover up
the forth coming invasion at Pas de Calais.

At 3:15 A.M., the bombing took place. The Royal Airforce bombers (British) dropped
about 6,000 tons of bombs. For Omaha Beach, 360 heavy bombers and 296 medium
bombers from the United States Air Force dropped their bombs. It would be hard to
imagine any Germans surviving that bombing. To the Allies' astonishment, most of
the German defenses were still in place. Sixty-seven of the heavy bombers never even
dropped their bombs. Others overshot or undershot due to miscalculations.
Meanwhile, the troops were being transferred from the large transports onto LCVP's.
LCVP's stands for Landing Craft, Vehicle, and Personnel. This took around three
hours.

There were also many problems in the invasion of Omaha Beach. For one thing, it
was overlooked by 100 foot cliffs on all sides inland. There were pebble banks and
many dunes. Beyond that, there was a 200 yard salt marsh with ravines all
throughout. The seas were very rough, tossing about the ships; some landed far from
their target areas. Besides all these natural obstacles, the Germans set in place many
man-made ones. These included: iron frames, wooden stakes set at an angle, dunes
topped with barbed wire and concrete walls. Anti-tank ditches were strategically dug
and were well mined. German defenses guarded the four roads leading inland from
the beach. They were well armed with a total of: 8 big guns, 35 pillboxes, 18 anti-tank
guns, 85 machine guns, and several 75mm and 88mm guns set behind 3 feet thick
concrete walls. The Allies thought that the German 352nd Division was 25 miles
inland stationed at the village of St. Lô. Instead they were practicing anti-invasion
maneuvers on Omaha. This presented a problem; they were a more experienced and
numerous army. If the invasion got past these defenses, there were well fortified
villages at the end of each road. Vierville su Mer guarded the end of the western road,
St. Laurent guarded the end of the two center roads, and Colleville guarded the end of
the eastern road. These needed to be taken in order to insure safe transport of troops
inland.

At 6:30 A.M., 8 infantry companies which totaled 1,536 men made up the first wave
of the assault. Together, Omaha Beach had 7 assault areas, covering a 6 thousand
yard stretch. To illustrate how rough the sea was, one battalion of 32 tanks were
launched from a landing craft. Twenty-seven of them floundered in the sea, and only
5 made it to the beach. Because of this, the first wave of infantry did not receive
some of its supplies, nor the cover-fire they needed from the tanks. Forty percent of
the engineers who were supposed to blow gaps in the anti-landing obstacles were
casualties themselves. Soon, the rising tide rendered their work impossible. As a
result, only nine holes were blown, three of which were only partial. None of the
flame-throwers or demolition squads had attacked the pillboxes. The weather was too
much for the DUKW's (amphibious trucks). The infantry had to struggle ashore under
a hail of bullets and mortars. They sought cover behind German beach obstacles.
Some even laid in the water and crept in with the tide. Of the 16 bulldozers from the
116th Infantry, only 3 got ashore. One of these was hampered in its movements by
exhausted infantry taking refuge behind it. The 1st Division's 16th Regiment moved
on the eastern shore. Company E lost 105 of its 192 men who were trying to wade
ashore. Company F landed near Colleville. They did not do much better. In one boat,
7 of the 32 men got ashore. Two company officers survived. They were practically
getting slaughtered. The men who were alive at this point only thought to keep alive.
They would have to wait 25 minutes for the second wave to hit the beach.

Some 28,500 eagerly men made up the second assault wave. They weren't landing on
target like the first wave. When the men rushed out of the transports, they were
stunned to see that not much had been accomplished. It was said that the troops
achieved less in the first hour than expected of them in the first five minutes. As the
second wave of weaponry arrived, antiaircraft guns were soon used to knock out a
few of the German Strongholds. By 7:30, small groups of determined men inched
forward. Company G of the 116th Regiment landed between Les Moulins and
Colleville. Five of the six landed together in the right place. Fifty of the 190 men were
killed trying to get to the beach. This time, demolition teams blew a number of gaps
through the barbed wire. Once they were past the wire, they found that there were
minefields between the road and the base of the bluffs they had to scale. Moving
carefully up the bluffs, Germans started a continuous sweep of fire at them. Later, the
gun was put out by a hand grenade. By 8:30, Company G had scaled the bluffs, and
the route they opened became a funnel for movement off the beach for the reach of
the morning. It was groups of men like Company G who were determined enough to
push forward, that made the Omaha effort a success. By 9:00, hundreds of infantry
were making their way up the bluffs inland. By 11:00 A.M., the troops had covered a
distance of 1 mile inland.

When 1:30 P.M. came around, the assault commanders were able to radio General
Bradley that the troops had now started the advancement inland. If it had not been for
the small groups of determined men, Omaha Beach could not have been taken.
Without Omaha, there would be a huge gap in between Utah Beach, and the British
beaches to the west. Now, that Omaha had been taken, safe movement on and off the
beach was quite easy. Utah Beach was taken with little resistance from the stunned
Germans there. The eastern end of Gold Beach was taken without much opposition,
but the other side was a different story. The German 352nd Division caused 200
casualties among the British soldiers. Juno Beaches were somewhat similar to that of
Omaha's; they were mostly intact. Therefore the Canadians assigned to that beach
had a troublesome time driving out the Germans. Sword Beach was the easiest of the
British landings, and was just a little harder than Utah Beach. Also, the Allies did not
have to worry about the Germans counter-attacking, at least not from the beach. Still,
with all its successes, Omaha was later dubbed Bloody Omaha. The soldiers had to
come face to face with the full gamut of the German's ingenious anti-invasion
obstacles. By securing Omaha, the Allies showed that Hitler's impregnable "Atlantic
Wall" was not so great after all. With all five beaches secure, the Allies now had a
small, but significant foothold in Europe.

The months of preparation for D-Day had indeed been worth the effort. The Allies
had shown that they could defeat Hitler's great "Atlantic Wall." The foothold in
Europe was secured. Operation Fortitude had deemed a great success; some German
generals still felt that D-Day was just a diversionary attack. Although the subduing of
Omaha had been rough, the beach was finally taken. Regardless of the fact that the
bombing had not done as expected of them, the infantry were more than gallant. The
Germans were now driven back and on the retreat. From the beginning volleys to the
ending blasts of explosives, D-Day was really a momentous day for the Allies. It truly
was the greatest amphibious assault the world had ever seen.