D-Day

All of the people that were involved and lived through it, -it's impossible to give numbers.

Canada was fighting along side the Allied Forces with Britain, France, The U.S. and Poland. Very sad times for the whole world. The Canadians were assigned to take Juno Beach, an eight-kilometre stretch that included the fortified coastal towns of St. Aubin, Bernieres-sur Mer, Courselles-sur Mer and Graye-sur Mer (east to west). The Canadian 3rd Division, commanded by Major-General Rod Keller, would attack "two brigades up” with the 8th Brigade – comprised of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, the Regiment de la Chaudriere and the duplex-drive, or “swimming” tanks of the Fort Garry Horse (10th Canadian Armoured Regiment) – landing on the left from St. Aubin to Bernieres. The 7th Brigade – comprised of the Regina Rifles, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, the Canadian Scottish Regiment and DD tanks of the 1st Hussars (6th Canadian Armoured Regiment) - would land between Bernieres and Graye. The 9th Brigade – comprised of the Highland Light Infantry of Canada, The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and tanks of the Sherbrook Fusiliers (27th Canadian Armoured Regiment) - would be in Division reserve, and would ultimately follow the 8th Brigade ashore. In addition the self-propelled .105 mm artillery guns of the 12th, 13th, 14th and 19th Canadian Field Regiments would take part in the assault, providing off-shore fire support on the run into the beaches, and then setting up ashore as soon as the infantry units had established a beachhead. Along with the Canadians, elements of the British 76th Armoured Division, with tanks specially designed to tackle the beach defenses, would land in support. As well, combat teams from the British Royal Marine 48th and 46th Commandos would also land on the far eastern end of Juno to provide a link between the Canadians and the 3rd British Division landing further east on Sword Beach. Copied from Link: http://canada-at-war.suite101.com/article.cfm/canadian_3rd_division_on_dday Other Links:
http://www.junobeach.org/e/2/can-eve-rod-nor-e.htm Canada was where it always was----just north of US.

The 101st Airborne Division did wear a 48 star US Flag on the right sleeve of their Jump Jacket for the Normandy Invasion.

D-Day took place on the beaches and fields of northern Normandy in France. This area was chosen as it is about 200 km south of where the German generals expected the invasion.

After the Germans had successfully invaded and occupied France, they set about fortifying the coastline along the English channel, especially the area of the coast where they thought an Allied forces invasion might take place. That area is called Normandy.

The first projects involved basic beach defenses, with machine gun and mortar positions being dug in to the over looking hills and cliffs. Larger and much better protected concrete bunkers and heavy caliber gun sites were built later.

Each position was sited to give maximum inter-locking fire patterns, so that each position could support those around it. The positions were also laid out in staggered lines that were from 500 to 3000 yards deep. Anti tank ditches were dug that were so wide and deep that it was impossible for armored vehicles to cross them. Hundreds of thousands of buried explosive mines were set out in front of the main defense lines, to blow up either individual soldiers or vehicles.

Large caliber guns, capable of firing as much as 12 - 15 miles / 20 - 25 Km out to sea, were designed to attack and sink the ships that would be used in a invasion from the water. These were implaced in reinforced concrete bunkers with walls up to ten feet thick. Such gun sites could only be destroyed by direct gun fire from off shore naval vessels , firing at point blank range. Or by placing explosive charges directly in the gun ports, but daring, attacking soldiers who had come ashore from the landing craft.

The above fortifications were built by the Germans over a 4 year period, and they had the time and the expertise to design a really complicated set of defenses. The Allies also had the time to figure out how to defeat the defenses and how to get through them. It was through a combination of specialized armored vehicles, new tactics of combined arms fighting, and the use of mass parachute landings, behind the defensive lines, that turned the battle for the winning cause.

I notice that you asked about "Omaha" beach only. Please remember that on June 6th, 1944 the landing operations were carried out by three armies, only one of which was American. The USA was a part of a "team" of nations that worked together, to eventually defeat the Nazis. The other nations were the United Kingdom, and Canada. Each has it's own series of beaches to attack, all code named differently. Omaha was one of many beaches in the D-Day operation.

Well, some of the major events that occured on D-Day were The Paratroopers landing, The ships come in, Troops advance, Etc. I will give some of the hours on which some things Occured. 1. at 0530 hours the Allies bombed the Beaches and the First ground troops landed on Utah Beach. 2. at 0630 hours H-HOUR began on Utah and Omaha beaches. 3. 0730-0745 hours the Troops advanced. over 20,000 men were para-dropped. Many of the troops had to dodge bullets. This was a great and bloody day. Luckely, the Allies won. and from our point in History we can see how ,if anything went wrong, it would be like for us. I hope this Was Helpful.

The Native Americans Were Able To Keep The Japanese From Finding Information That We Were Calling In By Speaking In Their Native Tounge. The Women Worked The Factories To Supply Planes, Bullets, Also The Atomic Bomb. And We Were Able To Bomb Berlin Thanks To The Blacks That Flew Escort Aircraft For Our Bombers. READ TUSKEGEE AIRMEN !!!!!!!!

adding more information: Women, besided being placed in more skilled jobs than they were used to in non-war times (and even World War I where they participated as typists, secretaries and even overseas functions like nurses): as mechanics, engeneers, reseachers, eletricians. In 1942 the Women's Army Corps was created, and women were sent overseas to combatant fields (though they would not be involved in direct fighting, they served in functions like being pilots). The Navy and Costal Guard also had all-women troops, as did the British Army. In 1940 the Select Service Act was passed and African-americas could enlist in all branches of the armed forces, composing finally 11% of the manpower, regardless of the discrimination that still was directed to them. Thousands of Hispanics also fought on the war, Mexican and Puerto Ricans mainly. At least 33,000 Japanese-americans participated in the war, too. They had the most decorated unit in US history, when after 1943 they won the right to enlist (discrimination as a result of the Pearl Harbor offence kept them from being able to volunteer before).

http://www.britannica.com/dday

Omaha Beach was the Allied codename for one of the principal landing points during the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. The beach is about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) long, from Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to Vierville-sur-Mer. The untested 29th Infantry Division, joined by 8 companies of Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to land on the west side of the beach. The 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern approach. This was their third amphibious assault of the war, after Africa and Sicily. The principal objective of the Omaha Beach landing was to secure the line between Port-en-Bessin and the Vire River, before pushing south towards Saint-L�.

Omaha and Utah North Africa landings: Green Beach at Kabash, Blue & Yellow beach at Fedela(to attack Casablanca) Gela & Licata at Sicily Salerno beach Anzio Beach Southern France Then there are the Pacific islands. == ==

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.