D-Day

The Invasion of Normandy was to attack Germany from all sides and to push Germany back to the Fatherland The Invasion of Normandy also known as D-Day was the mass landings of Allied forces on France. Once the foothold on the French coast was established a drive toward the German homeland and Berlin started. It also established a third front for the German army to fight upon. The 1st was Russia, 2nd was in Italy, and the 3rd was in France.

RAIN FELL FROM overcast skies and gale force winds drove large waves on to the beaches of Normandy as dawn broke on Monday June 5, 1944. To the Germans watching their defences, there was nothing to show that this was the moment the Allied Armies had planned to invade Europe. In fact, the operation had been put on hold because the bad weather had been forecast 24 hours before. Had it gone ahead in these conditions, the invasion would have been a catastrophic disaster. Nevertheless, the invasion had to occur on either the 5th, 6th or 7th of June to take advantage of the right conditions of moon and tide. Darkness was needed when the airborne troops went in, but moonlight once they were on the ground. Spring low tide was necessary to ensure extreme low sea level so that the landing craft could spot and avoid the thousands of mined obstacles that had been deployed on the beaches. If this narrow time slot was missed, the invasion would have to be delayed for two weeks. The decision to postpone the invasion for 24 hours had been taken by Eisenhower and the Supreme Command at 0430 on Sunday June 4. It was not taken lightly, because so many ships were already converging on Normandy that the risk of detection was grave. Nor had the forecast which prompted the postponement been easily arrived at. Eisenhower's weather advice was provide by Group Captain Stagg, a forecaster seconded from the British Meteorological Office who was coordinating the advice of three forecasting teams: one from the Meteorological Office, one from the Admiralty and one from the United States Army Air Forces. The advice of these groups was often diametrically opposed. The American team used an analog method, comparing the current map with maps from the past, and were often over-optimistic. The Meteorological Office, aided by the brilliant Norwegian theoretician Sverre Petterssen, had a more dynamic approach, using wind and temperature observations from high altitude provide by the air force, and were closer to the mark. The decision to invade on Tuesday June 6, taken late on Sunday night and finally confirmed early Monday morning, was based on a forecast of a short period of improved weather caused by a strengthening ridge following the front that brought Monday's rain and strong winds. In the event, Monday's bad weather had already given the Allies a crucial advantage: it had put the Germans off guard. The Germans were uncertain when and where the invasion would come, but had been led to believe the most likely place was Calais and the most likely time was July. Hitler, however, had long understood that the key to anticipating the timing of the invasion would be good weather forecasting. But by the summer of 1944, German weather forecasters in France were hampered by a lack of weather observations over the Atlantic, because their submarine fleet was now much depleted and the Luftwaffe had largely yielded the skies to the RAF. Consequently, their forecasters could not detect the subtle changes that would lead to a temporary improvement starting on Monday evening. Rommel, the general commanding the defence of the invasion beaches, had identified the period of June 5, 6 and 7 as high risk because of the state of the moon and tide. However, he also believed the Allies would not attempt an invasion without a guarantee of six days' fine weather. Reassured by the Luftwaffe weather forecaster's prediction that the bad weather starting on Monday the 5th would last at least three days, Rommel left France for Berlin. There he hoped to persuade Hitler to relinquish his personal control of the Panzer reserves in Holland and France to either himself or Von Rundstedt, who had overall command in the west. (As it transpired, Hitler held most of the reserves in the north, near Calais, for almost two months after the Normandy invasion, because he was persuaded Normandy was only a diversion). Consequently, Rommel was in Germany when the invasion began, and only made it back to the front at the end of the first day. The German Navy also dropped their guard when the bad weather commenced, and did not patrol the Channel. Only five weeks before, some of their torpedo boats had crossed the Channel and attacked a night-time dress rehearsal for the landings. In ten minutes they sank two landing craft, crippled a third, and killed over 600 sailors and soldiers. But on the Monday night when the invasion fleet of over 6000 ships crossed the Channel, the torpedo boats did not venture out until 4am - after the fleet had been detected from the French shore. By this time the fleet had been anchored about 15km off the beaches along a front of 100km for more than an hour. The weather on June 6 was tolerable but not ideal. Strong winds scattered the paratroops, some of whom overshot the Cherbourg Peninsula and landed in the sea and were drowned. However, the Germans were also obliged to scatter their defences. Large waves swamped 27 out of 32 amphibious tanks, and all the artillery was lost on the run into Omaha beach, where the Allies suffered their greatest losses of the day and briefly considered withdrawing. At the end of the first day, Allied casualties were 12,000 killed, wounded and missing, as against an estimated 75,000 if surprise had not been achieved. The weather that northern summer was among the worst on record. Several days after the landing, a storm wrecked one of the artificial harbours that had been built and caused four times the losses in ships and equipment that occurred during the landing. Two weeks later, in the second time slot suitable for the invasion, another major storm occurred prompting Eisenhower to send Stagg a letter saying, "I thank the Gods of war we went when we did." Correctly forecasting the weather for D-Day was crucial to the success of the invasion, which, if it had failed, could not have been repeated for another year. For the rest of his life, in moments of stress, Group Captain Stagg would remember some words spoken to him in the tension-filled days leading up to the postponement by General Morgan, Eisenhower's Chief of Staff: "Good luck Stagg: may all your depressions be nice little ones: but remember, we'll string you up from the nearest lamp post if you don't read the omens aright."

Anti tank and aircraft guns. (anti tank guns could be easily converted to anti aircraft) It would been relatively pointless. Omaha beach along with all the beaches on DDAY were meant to be bombed prior to the landings but with the large amount of smoke (caused my grass fires) from the naval bombardment allied pilots could not properly identify their targets. To avoid the risk of dropping bombs short on the landing craft nearing the beaches the loads were dropped behind the beach head causing little to no damage. Utah beach was effectively bombed prior to the landings providing decent cover to troops which in turn lead to lighter casualties. This was one of the major failures on DDAY considering the size of the air strike and the planning that went into it.

It opened a second front against Hitlers Germany, taking some pressure off of the Red army, allowing them to make faster inroads into Germany. It allowed the full force (not just air power) of the US and Britain to engage the enemy, bringing them to total destruction. Answer It isn't by all, and it should also be remembered that D-Day is primarily important just for the European Theater of Operations, though certainly it did have ramifications for the war in the Pacific. Previous attempts at creating a second front in Italy and North Africa, though successful in driving out the Germans (albeit very slowly and costly in Italy) had failed to divert a significant amount of Wehrmacht forces from the Eastern Front where the most brutal and vast majority of the fighting in the European Theater was going on (actually, most people would probably say the turning point of the war was the Battle of Stalingrad). The invasion of Northern, and subsequent invasion of Southern France forced the Wehrmacht to take the American/British/French threat seriously and divert large forces to guarding their Western frontiers, which of course made defending themselves against the oncoming Soviet hoards basically impossible.

yes, there is.

The D-Day landings were designed to open up a second or Western Front against Germany that would ease the pressure on the USSR in the East.
6 June 1944
One event in a big war. needed the beaches so the ALlied forces could ship in more stuff and troops everyday.. Helped win the war, u could say!

At Midnight on June 6th 1944, June 7th was D-Day+1

Dieppe was considered to be an invasion rehersal for the Allies, It applied none of the lessons learned in the Pacific Theatre. It was botched. They did learn some things from it that aided at Normandy. They improved their communications equipment and skills, they integrated staffing, they worked out some of the kinks in air and Naval Gunfire support and they learned not to land tanks in places where they couldn't advance off the beach head. For the Canadians it came at a terrible price. Of course at Normandy their communications and coordination were still terrible. The British Funny Tanks performed well and the Canadians were the only unit to reach their D-Day objectives. Dieppe had helped.

24 hours, like any other day

The Final spark that started the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28th 1914, by Serbian activists. This mean that on July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Now, here's the confusing bit; Russia, Serbia's Ally, orders full mobilisation of troops. This causes Germany, Serbia's Ally, to declare war on Russia on August 1st. Russia's Ally FRANCE now mobilise their troops. Germany declares war on France, too. Britain, allied to France, intervein and declare war on Germany.

Yes. You will need to provide a detailed description of all the markings.

they did, the paratroopers landed the night before the landings took place on June 6th 1944

Answer That wasn't their purpose nor was it something they really could have done. The airborn landings were made miles behind the beaches. Their purpose was to take and hold various strategic points inland of the beaches and prevent reinfrocements from reaching the beaches. Airborn troops were really too lightly armed to attack and destroy such heavily fortifcations as existed on the beaches. Also if you had tried to drop them right behind the beaches like that, half of them would have wound up in the sea. Really, the only way to take heavy fortifications like that is with an assault by well supported heavy infantry.Michael Montagne

AnswerThe allies did expect the naval artillery and air bombardment to destroy the fortifications and they were generally right. At Utah beach most of the few bunkers were knocked out, before the troops landed.

AnswerThe Paratroopers goal was to drop behind enemy lines take out chaotic reinforcement troops, clear the artillery fixed on the beaches, and take control of small towns in Normandy to make it harder for the Germans to counter attack.

Besides I say Rommel did his part in fortifying Normandy. The only reason why it was a success was because the Allies fed the Germans info saying that they were going to invade Belgium.

AnswerCertain coastal defenses were considered to be of such importance that they must be removed to protect the beach landings.One worthy of note was the battery at Merville.Lt.Col Otway was given this job with his 9th Batt.of the 6th Airborne Div.He had a model of the target built with all its approach roads etc and practiced the attack,this all took place in a 2 month period before D-Day.secrecy was paramount and a number of pretty girls were introduced to the area with orders to extract all the info. they could from the parachute troops.In this they failed utterly,tho' every officer and man knew the whole plan,but not the location or date.Due to being widely scattered,as were all the airborne that night, his batt. of 635 which was planned as necessary, was reduced to 150,no mine detectors, 6 medics,no Bangalore's no 6 pounder,no engineers,one machine gun,no jeeps or glider stores,no mortars some signals.The C.O decided to attack. After destroying the battery,he had 80 men on their feet,30 casualties,20 of them stretcher cases.this is typical of paratroop warfare on D-Day.

D-Day lasted one day, Tuesday, June 6, 1944. It was the first day of the Normandy Campaign that lasted through July 24, 1944.

Richard V. Horrell

I think it was a good and bad idea because...a) It won the WWII Battle. b) Because they lost so many people. c) it was a hard defence to penetrate and the Allied Forces barely broke through the defences.

Of course it turned out to be a terrible battle, with many loses. In "hind-sight" we should have used more bombardment of that region from major ships, bombers and rockets. BUT a landing HAD to be made there because we could not allow a gap between the British and American landings. One reason the battle was so fierce was the German effort to split the two Allied Armies. So, bad as it was, it was necessary.

There were five beaches in the Normandy invasion. Their military code names were Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword, and Gold. Two of these invasions were consider US beaches because landings there were done primarily with US troops. These were Omaha and Utah. The remaining three were considered British and Canadian beaches although there may have also been some US troops there as well. (unsure) The most interesting thing to note is that Omaha beach was the site of far, far more casualties than any other beach. German gun positions remained largely in place at Omaha while gun positions at other beaches were significantly thinned out by pre-invasion bombing done in the hours before the landings. German gunners at Omaha kept US troops pinned down most of the day and inflicted very heavy casulaties. Late in the day German positions were finally outflanked and the narrow beachheads that troops clung to all day were finally expanded.

US casualties were 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured. Of the total US figure, 2499 casualties were from the US airborne troops (238 of them being deaths). The casualties at Utah Beach were relatively light: 197, including 60 missing. However, the US 1st and 29th Divisions together suffered around 2000 casualties at Omaha Beach.

Definitely a failure.

But only a failure if you define things based on that day alone.

I take the wider view, that without the "lessons learned " on that day in August 1942, the D-Day landings in 1944 would have been a failure ,too.

In point form........By landing in full daylight, with out a massive sea power barrage, and without sufficient air power, the raid was doomed, BUT, by looking at better ways to do it, the future chances were enhanced greatly.

The need to replace or greatly improve radios was shown. The swimming tanks were unable to get off the beach, which promted the development of "The Funnies" that could go over walls and ditches, or even lay their own bridges.

Co-ordination of fire power, from both the sea and the air, to concentrate on points of resistance, and dedicated "on call' aircraft to attack reinfocements coming up to the beaches.

Improved demolition charges and equipment to cut wire obstacles, along with specialised vehicles to take out concrete bunkers and gun pits.

All of the above came out of "lessons learned" after Dieppe.

And finally, remember this fact..............Dieppe was NEVER intended to be an invasion of Europe, it was a ONE DAY RAID. To keep the Germans focused on the western wall, and keep many German Army Divisons tied up defending it, instead of in the east, fighting the Red Army.

The name of the obstructions escape me (Rommel's Asparagus?) but the one's you see in the old pictures are taken at low-tide. They are meant to rip open the bottoms or blow up (some had mines on them) landing craft before they could unload the soldiers. Allied frogmen (future SEALS) went in before the invasion and cleared lanes through these obstacles for the landing craft. The Beach Obstacles you mention are called Tetraheda, designed to be used as described by the previous responder. Rommel's asparegus were poles placed in the ground as a defence against glider troop landings.

D-Day did not end the war. The invasion of Normandy put British and American troops into Northern Europe. They attacked the Germans from the west while the Russians were attacking from the east. Fighting on two fronts, against two overwhelming enemies, the Germans could not possible win and their defeat became virtually inevitable then, if it wasn't already. But there was still a lot of fighting to go. D-day was June 6, 1944. Germany surrendered exactly eleven months later, May 6, 1945.

The German surface fleet was no longer a significant force by then. Most of their heavy ships had been sunk and the remainder were confined to ports on Germany's North Sea coast. Allied air supremacy and sea power made it impossible for Germay's few remining ships to sally forth. Allied air power also denied Germany use of the French ports. Thus, even if their ships had wanted to leave port, they were much too far away to do anything about it.

The stripes were to identify Allied Aircraft to Allied Anti-Aircraft Units so that the aircraft carrying the Allied Airborne Forces would not be shot down by their own anti-aircraft units as they were at Sicily. The only Airborne operations between Sicily & Normandy was at Salerno. There the entire Fifth Army was simply ordered not to fire their weapons on a particular night. Richard V. Horrell WW 2 Connections

"Effect" is a relative term which is subject to opinion. Canada, with one decision, did have the third largest contingent of troops participating in the assaults. The Canadians under the command of Maj.-Gen. R.F.L.Keller were responsible for Juno beach in the center of the British front, tasked to establish a beachhead on a 5 miles front. they pushed further inland than the British or Americans against very fierce resistance to reach Carpiquet airfield 11 miles in by nightfall.The 1st Canadian Para Battalion dropped with the British 6th Airborne on the left flank and destroyed all their assigned targets and wreaked havoc behind the German lines.Approx. 14,000 Canadians landed and sustained 1,074 casualties,of which 359 were fatal. But that was only day #1, they went on to liberate Holland and capture the Sheldt ,no mean feat. the invasion went ashore along lanes swept clear of mines by the Canadian navy, and the Canadian airforce had bombers hitting German batteries while its fighters were hammering targets inland.Yes ! Canadian forces were very "effective".