Operation Overlord - June 6, 1944

The Allied assault known as D-Day was code named Operation Overlord and was planned for June 5, 1944. Eisenhower’s meteorological team forecast poor weather and heavy seas in the English Channel on June 5, so the landing was delayed until June 6. The weather would still not be ideal but had cleared enough for planes to provide air cover. (The “D” in D-Day, in military terms, stands simply for “Day” as in “the day the invasion begins.” ) In the late afternoon of June 5, 133,000 Allied troops primarily from the US, Britain and Canada began to load the 5,000 troop carriers and their escort of 1,213 warships, 4,000 bombers and 3,700 fighter-bombers, 13,100 paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions and 3,937 glider infantry to begin the short trip across the English Channel to Normandy. The troopships began their journey at 10pm, and the gliders and paratroopers took off at midnight. The average age of the soldiers was 26, and the oldest soldier to actually take part in the landings was General Theodore Roosevelt, son of former President Teddy Roosevelt. He was 56 and landed on the beach with a pistol and a cane.

While the actual planning began in 1943, soldiers began arriving in Great Britain months before the actual invasion to begin training. It was difficult to hide the number of troops being trained in marksmanship, hand to hand combat, loading amphibious craft from destroyers and troopships with full packs and equipment, attacking beaches from amphibious craft, climbing cliffs, swimming, physical conditioning and all the thousands of other things the invaders would not just need to know but be proficient in their use. Operation Bodyguard had been in effect even longer and consisted of a variety of efforts to confuse the German High Command as to the location, dates and preparation for the invasion of Europe that everyone in the world knew was coming. Inflatable plastic tanks, jeeps and vehicles were tied down in assembly areas, empty tents were arranged to look like army encampments, and all were moved frequently to keep German photographic reconnaissance guessing. General Patton was given command of the imaginary army and sent and received thousands of radio messages detailing imaginary troop movements and training events, and kept up the deception until July to help convince the Germans the Allies were planning a second landing at the Pas de Calais. By the end of May 1944 there were 2,876,000 Allied soldiers in England.

The Germans also believed they had established an extensive spy network in England, but in fact every one of their spies had been arrested, and several were working as double agents for the Allies. Juan Pujol Garcia was a Spanish national double agent working secretly for the Allies, and for the two years leading up to D Day operated a fake network the Nazis believed was sending intelligence on their behalf. Garcia’s code name was Garbo, and his messages were prepared by British intelligence to convince the Germans the invasion would occur in July at Calais.

Months before the invasion, scuba divers traveled across the English Channel in submarines and torpedo boats under the cover of night to check the regularity and level of tides, the viscosity of sand on the beaches, the composition and depth of the sea floor just off the beaches and the depth of the water at high and low tides at different distances from the beaches. Aerial photographic mission results from British Mosquito bombers were studied again and again for indications of underground bunkers, gun positions, troop dispositions and nearby German airfields. The Mosquitos were among the fastest planes the Allies had, primarily because they were constructed mostly of plywood.

One of the primary goals of pre-planning was designed to reduce or eliminate as much of the effectiveness as possible of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) before the invasion actually began. Operation Pointblank targeted German aircraft production, fuel supply depots and airfields. The simultaneous implementation of Operation Transport Plan sent Allied bombers to attack communications infrastructure, road and rail links, radar stations and train yards to limit the German advance warnings and the number of reinforcements the Germans could bring to oppose the initial landings. Targets in both operations were spread across France to avoid revealing the exact location of the invasion.

Another hidden advantage the Allied leaders used effectively was codebreaking. A team of code breakers stationed at Bletchley Park worked to break German radio codes and were extremely successful in doing so. They were able to provide advance information on German plans and troop movements. Germans used a complicated encoding machine called Enigma to send and receive coded messages, and the codes were changed frequently. The information provided by the Allied codebreakers was called Ultra and was only provided to senior Allied commanders. One of the Enigma codes broken was the one used exclusively by Field Marshal von Rundstedt, Supreme Commander of the German Wehrmacht on the Western Front. The existence of both the codebreakers and their effectiveness was a closely guarded secret.

The invasion planners quickly decided their attack would not occur at any of the heavily fortified French ports, and designed two artificial ports known as Mulberry harbors that were to be towed across the Channel and placed offshore after the beaches were secured. These consisted of a floating outer breakwater, inner concrete caissons and several floating piers, and were to be used after the success of the initial invasion to help land more troops and equipment as quickly as possible. The planners also expected fuel for tanks and trucks would be almost impossible to obtain in France and developed a “pipeline under the ocean” (PLUTO) to deliver fuel in 3-inch pipes on the seafloor from the Isle of Wight to the French port of Cherbourg. This pipeline became operational in September after the invasion in June.

Before WWII, amphibious operations were limited, primarily because soldiers traveling in ships had to get from the ships anchored offshore to the invasion beaches. Longboats and lifeboats could only carry a few men at a time, and horses and cannon were notoriously difficult to move the short distances to shore and allowed the opposing forces time to bring in artillery and additional troops. The solution was created by Andrew Higgins. He had designed a shallow draft wooden boat 36 feet long and 11 feet wide made primarily of wood for river travel that was quickly adapted for landing troops. The boats could carry 36 combat troops or 6,000 pounds of equipment or vehicles from the ships to the shore. It had a 225-horsepower diesel engine and a crew of 4, and could travel up to 14 mph. His company built over 23,000 of these boats for use in the Pacific and European theaters, and General Eisenhower stated after the war that “Andrew Higgins is the man who won the war for us.”

The night before the invasion, British bombers dropped strips of metal foil known as “window” that looked on German radar like a naval convoy approaching the coast 80 km from the actual landing sites, and a small group of Special Air Services operators dropped dummy paratroopers over Le Havre to make the Germans think an airborne assault was occurring. At 1am a large group of Allied ships also sailed toward the Pas de Calais to convince the Germans the real assault was occurring there.

The actual paratroopers and glider infantry began arriving in Normandy before 1am, and the air drops continued until 4am. Despite many of them being dropped miles from their assigned drop zones, they assembled into small groups and immediately began taking bridges and roads well behind the landing beaches to prevent German reinforcements from arriving. Allied bombers followed the paratroopers in to bomb German strongpoints overlooking the beaches. The 5,000 troop ships were divided into 5 separate groups, each heading toward its assigned beach. From the German vantage point looking out at the armada when dawn arrived, the five landing points between the cities of Cherbourg and Le Havre were, from left to right, Utah and Omaha beaches assigned to US troops, Gold beach to the British, Juno to the Canadians and Sword beach to the British. The warships escorting the invasion fleet began bombarding the coastline at 5am and continued until the first wave of troops climbed down the netting on the sides of the troop ships and loaded onto the Higgens boats. The landing craft circled until the first wave was loaded and began their approaches to their assigned beaches. At 6:30am the first wave reached the beaches and began unloading troops.

At Utah beach, things started badly and then got worse. Three of the 4 landing craft designated as “control” craft to guide the first wave of US soldiers to the beaches were destroyed by mines, and wind and strong waves blew the remaining landing craft almost 2,000 yards away from their landing zone. The awful confusion resulted in a spectacular success. Instead of landing at the original site and facing an area heavily defended by the Germans, the soldiers ended up in a less defended area and unloaded 20,000 troops and 1,700 motorized vehicles with casualties of less than 300 men. Additionally, the success of the paratroopers of the 101st Division behind the German lines kept the defending forces in confusion and prevented a counterattack while the first wave of infantry was moving inland and off the beaches.

The 6 mile stretch of beach known as Omaha was a different story. Many of the landing craft got stuck on sandbars far from the beach and attempted to unload their troops anyway. The heavily laden soldiers sank quickly to the bottom and many drowned before they reached shallow water. Those that landed in water shallow enough to walk were targeted by German artillery and machine guns as they slowly made their way through the water toward the beaches. The strong winds and waves pushed many of the shallow bottomed landing craft well off course and it took a while for them to figure out just where they actually were in relation to where they were supposed to be. 34,000 US troops from the 1st and 29th Divisions landed at Omaha beach, where German defenses are strongest. Casualties were heavy at Omaha beach, and US soldiers suffered 2,500 KIA in the first few minutes of the assault. The landing craft fought against currents and the tide, and some units were mixed in with others and many were hit or blown up by artillery and mines. The soldiers that made it to the beach desperately tried to find cover from the German machine gun and rifle fire. The second wave at Omaha didn’t fare much better than the first, and the officers watching from onboard the ships seriously considered evacuating the troops, admitting defeat and sailing back to England. Once on the beach, the men found what cover they could behind a small sea wall from the intense German fire coming down at them. Combat engineers landed as part of the first wave managed to clear barbed wire and mines from a couple of paths up the cliffs, and a little after 7am amphibious tanks landed on the beaches and began sweeping for mines and obstacles.

Eisenhower and his headquarters sent out news announcements at 9am about the invasion that read “under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.” In Eisenhower’s coat pocket was a “just in case” note if he had to recall the ships and troops if the invasion were repulsed. “If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.” The last two words were underlined. The US troops on Omaha were still trapped on the beach and unable to move forward and escape the heavy mortar, machine gun and artillery fire raining on them from the German defenses on the cliffs above the beach. With help from the warships nearby, the US troops began to advance up the slope toward the German emplacements and made significant progress by 11am. Several groups of US soldiers make it to the top of the bluffs and begin attacking the Germans from the rear.

The British landing craft at Gold and Sword were also blown off course and most landed nowhere near their assigned spots but faced less German resistance than the troops at Omaha beach. The Canadiens at Juno were also blown off course but recovered quickly and soon had their portion of the beach under control. A little after 12 noon, Hitler finally awakened and informed his generals he was still convinced the Normandy landings were a feint, and the real attack would happen at the Pas de Calais. He refused to authorize support for the German defenses at Normandy or for a counterattack until the Allied forces had moved inland and established perimeters for several miles beyond the beaches.

By 6pm, the Allies had captured all 5 beaches and moved inland. Additional troops were landed; tanks began clearing minefields further inland and the evacuation of Allied wounded began. A short time later Hitler finally releases troops and tanks to reinforce his Normandy defenses, but it turns out to be too little too late. Still, Allied losses are over 4,000 soldiers killed in the initial landings, but the German forces opposing the beach landings have been killed, captured or withdrawn further inland. By the end of June, the Allies had landed more than 850,000 additional soldiers, 148,000 vehicles and over 570,000 tons of supplies in France. The end of the German occupation of France has begun.

On the high bluff overlooking the landing beaches at Omaha and the English Channel is a cemetery of 172.5 acres containing the remains of 9,388 American military dead. Not every US service member that perished in a foreign country is buried there, and families and next of kin are given the option of bringing them home for burial or letting them remain in the country where they fell. Most of the soldiers, sailors and airmen in this cemetery were killed during the invasion of Normandy and the ensuing military operations for the liberation of France. The site of the cemetery is only a short distance away from the original cemetery site established by the 607th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company of the US First Army established on June 6, 1944. The cemetery is divided into 10 plots and forms the shape of a cross with the Chapel in the middle and the Memorial and the Wall of the Missing at its base. The Wall of the Missing is a semicircular garden with the engraved names of the 1,557 soldiers and sailors declared as missing in action during D-Day. Nineteen of the names have a bronze rosette beside their names that means the body was recovered and identified after the cemetery’s dedication in 1956. Carved into the stone at the top of the Wall is this inscription:

“COMRADES IN ARMS WHOSE RESTING PLACE IS KNOWN ONLY TO GOD”

“HERE ARE RECORDED THE NAMES OF AMERICANS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY AND WHO SLEEP IN UNKNOWN GRAVES.

“THIS IS THEIR MEMORIAL”

Whatever you happen to be doing this Friday morning on the 80th anniversary of the D -Day landings, stop and say a prayer for the men and their families who thought saving the world for you was more important than saving themselves. “Greater love hath no man than this: than to lay down his life for his friends.”

When you wake up in your home with your family in one of the few places in the world where you might pray to the God you serve, travel almost anywhere you would like, vote for the representatives you think support the beliefs you hold closest, speak for or against the representatives of your government without fear of retaliation and breathe the air of freedom the circulates across our great country, take a few moments to make sure your kids know about the sacrifice of the men, women and families that gave their lives or the lives of their loved ones for the liberty we enjoy. Make sure your children know of the words engraved in the stone in the center of the cemetery:

“TO THESE WE OWE THE HIGH RESOLVE THAT THE CAUSE FOR WHICH THEY DIED SHALL LIVE”

We owe a debt that can only be repaid through eternal vigilance.

Amen.