The Normandy Landings: June 6, 1944 | D-Day Documentary

June 6,

1944

a date that has been forever etched in the minds of the Western world as the day that freedom began the long march towards the defeat of tyranny between 1939 and 1941 the forces of adolf hitler's nazi germany opened a path of destruction, oppression and murder across the map of europe and beyond and it seemed that hitler's ambition could never be satisfied the world was his goal death his tool only a badly beaten great britain clinging desperately to great Britain managed to stop the wound long enough to ensure that all of Europe would not be covered in the swastika, and yet in just three years Britain, Canada, the United States, and many other Allied nations would merge into a single force and with One swift move would stab a dagger into the side of Hitler's dreams of total European supremacy; that dagger was stuck on the beaches of

normandy

june

1944

and then twisted into a lethal wound that would never close this is the story of operation overlord the story of d-day welcome to the wars of the world december 7, 1941 the ally from Germany, Japan, attacked the United States in the Pacific in With the support of this Asian ally and defying his generals, Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11 of that year.

The vast industrial and agricultural base of the United States, not to mention the immense manpower that could now confront Hitler, gave the country's Allied powers a wide new range of possibilities for defeating Nazi tyranny in Europe. The only question It was how both Stalin in Moscow and many American military leaders pushed for a second front to be opened as soon as possible, probably in the summer of 1942, but Churchill and Roosevelt were much more cautious. British Commonwealth forces were still engaged in a bitter battle. combat with German and Italian forces in North Africa - a campaign that might have to be abandoned or reduced to support a direct invasion of Western Europe - there was also concern that little preparatory work would have been taken before such an invasion, such as strengthening the supply chain, gathering intelligence on German defenses, training an invasion force for the task at hand, weakening German defenses in the run-up to the invasion, and disrupting the greater German war machine through A sustained air campaign as such, to Stalin's dismay, was told that the invasion of Western Europe was to be postponed until 1943.

However, Churchill had a promise to honor an agreement with Stalin that troops would be landed in Europe in 1942, So Churchill authorized a full-scale raid on the French city of Dieppe in August 1942, although it was not on the scale of a full-fledged invasion. The raid was intended to remind the Germans that the Western Front was not over and would hopefully draw German troops away from the Soviet front, where at the time they were still advancing towards Moscow, carried out mainly by Canadian troops. The move would result in a disaster, called Operation Jubilee. The 10,500-strong force was landed with instructions to capture the nearby area. port to demolish the German defenses and acquire as much intelligence on the German operations as possible before withdrawing, but despite the landing of tanks and with strong air and naval support, in just six hours after the start of the operation, the survivors were in full retreat, almost fifteen hundred Allied soldiers were killed and many more captured suffered at the hands of a skilled German air force, while the Royal Navy lost a destroyer supporting the

landings

and several landing craft, to those with the enthusiastic "let's go" attitude, it was a sobering moment. and a deeply painful lesson in what it could cost to storm Europe's fortress from the sea if everything went wrong.

However, ruling out the idea of ​​an invasion of Europe was, of course, totally unthinkable, meanwhile in North Africa the British Commonwealth forces under the command of the charismatic Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had managed to stop Marshal's forces. With Rommel's German field at El Alamein and with American forces landing in Tunisia in Operation Torch, the Germans and Italians were slowly being crushed on all sides with a direct assault on France considered impractical until 1944, attention turned to change to invade Italy. And advancing north toward Nazi Germany through what Churchill described as Europe's underbelly, having driven Rommel out of Africa on June 9, 1943, Allied forces invaded Sicily and then Italy proper. in September, at which time many Italians were seeking to overthrow fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and defect to the On the Allied side, this initially accelerated the Allied advance through southern Italy, but was stalled again thanks to well-entrenched German troops and pro-fascist Italians with German resources now engaged on two intensive fronts and having to occupy their captured lands with allied forces now.

Better prepared attention began to turn toward preparation for an invasion of Western Europe. Two questions were immediately asked at the highest levels of power: first, who should be in overall command of the operation and, second, where the invasion should take place, both in Britain and the rest of the world. united states the war had produced military leaders who had become household names and as such were revered by their respective peoples in britain the favorite to lead an assault on fortress europe was, of course, field marshal montgomery , fresh from its success in North Africa and Italy, however, with the majority of the troops now American, it was considered more appropriate for an American to lead the campaign and, in late 1943, that job was assigned to a general dwight david eisenhower.

Eisenhower's selection was not without controversy with other generals such as Montgomery and the United States. The boisterous General Patton had seen extensive combat in World War I, while Eisenhower served throughout the war in the United States while successfully overseeing the torch and Italian

landings

. His lack of combat experience would cast a dark shadow over many of his decisions in war. preparation until June 1944. However, Eisenhower had a crucial skill in the planning and execution of the soon-to-be-named Operation Overlord that no other general seemed to possess: He was a master at bringing the various nationalities and personalities of his leaders to bear.

They will unify. in one force it was thanks to eisenhower that d-day was not three separate operations carried out by the united states, united kingdom and canada, but rather an all-encompassing invasion force attempting to liberate europe from hitler's tyranny in As to where this invasion would take place, it was universally agreed that the ideal place to invade the European stronghold would be Pad Calais, this was where the English Channel was narrowest, allowing for a shorter crossing and decreasing the time in which the invading force was more vulnerable. It also provided them with maximum air cover. from bases in the south-east of England, but the problem, of course, was that the Germans also knew this, as they had deployed some of their best troops, the German 15th Army under General von Sammath, who were provided with some of the best German equipment and the strongest fortifications to keep them at bay. an invasion force attacking Calais, even successfully, would result in a bloodbath that would slow any advance towards continental Europe until replacements could be secured as chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander, a role abbreviated to a much less palatable Cossack. which corresponded to a lieutenant in the British Army.

General Frederick e Morgan to recommend an alternative at a meeting with Allied leaders in Quebec, Canada, in May 1943, gave his recommendation after tirelessly examining all available options based on the enemy's disposition and the units and equipment that would be available to the Allies for the invasion rendezvous I have concluded that, in view of the resource limitations imposed by my directives, we can be assured of a reasonable chance of success on May 1, 1944 if we concentrate our efforts on a assault across the norman beaches as it was therefore it was decided when the allies were ready and a date was set, a day that would become known as d-day, the allied forces would invade

normandy

.

Germany's extraordinary success in 1940, which led to the fall of Western Europe under the German boot, was now a source of great concern to Hitler because on the defensive it presented him with an enormous coastline stretching from northern Spain to Scandinavia, from which his forces now had to defend themselves against an Allied invasion, perhaps aware of the fact that his own forces had been successful against France. By simply encircling the seemingly impenetrable Maginot Line in 1940, he outlined a strategy of building powerful fortifications supported by military and aircraft as far as possible along this coast to prevent the Allies from breaching the European stronghold, which also allowed him to retain the largest number of troops. as he could on the Eastern Front and in Italy, where in both cases he was in retreat, in mid-1944, known as the Atlantic War, the Germans built a large number of concrete bunkers along 4,000 miles of coastline divided by natural, artificial and numerous minefields, the attack on Dieppe and numerous minor operations carried out by British commandos only increased Hitler's fears of being exposed to an invasion from the west and he ordered that the war be given high priority, But compared to other fronts, the troops based on the wall had a relatively calm situation.

Between 1941 and 1944, however, even with troops from the occupied countries filling their ranks, the Germans did not have enough men to defend the entire wall equally. In August 1943, a new commander arrived at the Atlantic Wall, giving the Allies cause for concern, Field Marshal Rommel. The desert fox himself arrived to supervise the construction of defenses and formulate a plan of action with which to repel an Allied invasion. Even though his Afrika core had been repelled from North Africa, he was still highly respected as a competent military leader in Allied circles. The Atlantic Wall had been reduced before Rommel's arrival to apathetic effort on the part of German officers.

However, the Field Marshal's influence was immediately felt by his subordinates, who suddenly found themselves with much greater workloads, but in addition to having to deal with the resistance beneath him, Rommel was also contending. With his growing unpopularity among the German high command, his son saw him as a failure after the defeat in North Africa, while others saw him as a rival for Hitler's influence, while others simply did not like him. outline his plan to rebel against an allied invasion. Rommel requested that German tank forces led by infantry be kept close to the coast to respond quickly to any Allied landings.

Such powerful tank forces could devastate infantry attempting to reach the coast and prevent the establishment of an Allied beachhead from which fresh troops and tanks could be dispatched. deployed, however, both Hitler and the German commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Guard von Runstead, opposed Rommel's request, instead adopting the policy of massing their tank forces far from the coast, so that Once the main Allied assault arrived, of which they were still convinced, ultimately being from Calais the panzers could be launched against it and drive the Allies back into the sea, however, Rommel remained committed to his duty to defend the french prize from germany to the best of his ability, as well as the bunker construction effort.

He also instigated an immense mining operation on and around the French coast and stressed to his subordinates the importance of their work. Less than two months before D-Day, in April 1944, he was surveying one of the countless French beaches he was tasked with defend when he described to his adjutant captain helmuth lang his view of the general situation that Germany found itself in at that time I quote the war will be won or lost on the beaches we will only have one chance to stop the enemy and that is while he is in the water, believe me that the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive for both the allies and Germany.

It will be the longest day as Rommel inspected his defenses. The Allied commanders decided to test their equipment and readiness for a major maritime invasion. Operation Tiger began. 23,000 American troops met with his team beforeboarding troop ships in British ports which then surrounded southern England to launch a mock invasion of the beaches along the Devonshire coast that had been decorated to resemble the fortifications of the Atlantic wall to add realism to the beaches that were heavily bombed by American and British warships to understand how their equipment, such as tanks, would function on crater-riddled beaches and to help American troops feel comfortable traveling by landing craft to a beach with live shells over their heads, witnessed by Eisenhower himself as the invasion of Devon began on April 27 and was plagued with problems due to a lack of communication.

A group of American landing craft arrived on Slapton Sands beach while the Royal Navy was still bombarding the area, resulting in several American casualties and the bombardment was stopped for the remainder of the initial time. The force made its landings with a second invasion planned for the next day; However, during the night of 27 and 28 April, the remainder of the mock invasion force still at sea were sailing in Lima Bay when they were discovered by a group of marauding German e-boats. British warships protecting the exercise had already detected the e-boats and were moving to intercept them, but were unable to warn the American troop ships because they did not have American radio frequencies.

At around 130 hours on April 28, the e-boats attacked with torpedoes and 40 millimeter guns in the chaos and carnage that followed, 749 Americans were killed, two troop ships were sunk and a third was severely damaged, tragically many of those who drowned did so only because they had not received proper training in the use of life jackets as Operation Dieppe Tiger was a sobering reminder that any invasion of the European fortress was going to be difficult and costly if not properly prepared. for the fact that such a disaster could occur off the English coast without the German electric boats. Having support from ground gunners or aircraft only highlighted the dangers of transporting such large numbers of men by sea;

In fact, Tiger almost scuttled D-Day in 1944, this was because several officers now listed as missing in the weeks following the tragedy had learned of the upcoming invasion of Normandy and the fear was that they had been picked up by the electronic boats and then broken down under german interrogation these concerns were eventually dismissed d day would continue as the planned final planning of the invasion of normandy depended heavily on To determine exactly what the germans had placed around the landing zones, this had to be done in such a way as not to alert the Germans to what was happening, so beginning in April 1944, the RAF and USAAF began an intense photographic reconnaissance effort.

Aimed at building a complete tactical picture of the situation in Normandy and surrounding regions using high-speed fighter aircraft such as the Spitfire, P-38 Lightning and P-51 Mustang, reconnaissance pilots flew daring ultra-low-level missions on German positions. Along the European coast, Normandy received no more or less attention than any other location, so it was not flagged to German intelligence as a point of special interest flying at such low levels where trees and power lines were as great a threat as the enemy gunners posed to Allied commanders. The extremely detailed images of Allied reconnaissance pilots' missions of German defenses were made even more dangerous by the fact that many of their aircraft lacked weapons to defend themselves and instead had more fuel and greater speed once they the fuel had run out.

More than 3,200 missions were carried out. Direct support to Operation Overlord and in conjunction with the French resistance which highlighted targets of interest for future flights, the resistance also monitored German movements and made estimates on the number of troops deployed in the landing zones, perhaps even more dangerous if The operations were carried out by specialized personnel. Ship crews who had previously been involved in assisting in commando raids, their job was to sneak up to the French coast to locate fixed German defenses designed to breach landing craft and also take depth measurements as they approached the beaches, which would give Allied commanders maximum information about the landing zones which allowed them to fine-tune their plans An interesting and less obvious but ultimately very important part of the Allied intelligence efforts involved a call made by the BBC to anyone in Great Britain who had taken photographs while on holiday in France before the outbreak of the war, a staggering 10 million images and descriptions of the French coast were handed over to the War Office, but just as important as the effort to collect intelligence on enemy positions and defenses was the need to feed Germany's own intelligence network with false information.

D-Day would provide the impetus for probably the most successful counterintelligence program in history, appropriately named, as the Allied intelligence officers of Operation Bodyguard devised a series of elaborate plans designed to deceive their German counterparts regarding almost all the aspects of the D-Day landings that this would prevent. prevent the germans from maximizing their defensive posture around normandy and delay the arrival of reinforcements, which could cause the landings to stall on the beaches or even fail completely. One of the greatest, albeit unintentional, assets in achieving this goal was the Germans themselves, while they had militarily dominated the European continent since 1940 their intelligence agencies were quite poor compared to British and American efforts while encryption devices such as the The famous enigma machine initially allowed Germany to communicate with its forces without fear of being intercepted.

Their overreliance on such devices led them to underestimate the Allies' ability to decipher their communications, which of course they eventually did, even using primitive computers to do so. In addition to learning the disposition of German forces along the Atlantic Wall, breaking German codes gave the Allies a glimpse into the German mentality. The high command around the defense of occupied France also allowed them to measure the effectiveness of their disinformation efforts to better tailor future ones and make them more effective in making the Germans think that the invasion of Europe was coming from anywhere else but outside Normandy.

Aided by the fact that Hitler himself was convinced that any cross-Channel invasion would reach Calais under the umbrella of Operation Fortress Bodyguard, he sought to feed Hitler's belief by creating a false image of Allied armies amassing in England and Scotland. That German intelligence made it appear as if the Allies intended to land in Calais and Norway. Planned by British Army Colonel Noel Wilde, the operation required the creation of dummy trucks, tank planes, and even units that could be photographed by reconnaissance planes. high-flying Germans in photographs taken from such high altitudes, it would be impossible to distinguish between the real equipment for Normandy and the fake ones for Fortaleza.

In fact, some of the equipment looked so real that even people on the ground mistook it for genuine, but Fortaleza went beyond building replica tanks. These were fake radio transmissions intended for the Germans to intercept, which would correspond to the false image the Allies were trying to build with their fictitious army. Various secret agents were also employed to drip feed the Germans with information, but perhaps the most direct method employed was the decision that for every two radar stations the Allied air forces attacked around Normandy before D-Day, two more in The surrounding areas should be attacked even if they had little impact on the actual landings, this would only further confuse the German image and help keep them convinced that Normandy was a decoy operation for Calais at the time of D-Day German intelligence was still Convinced that up to 10 divisions were waiting to assault Calais even as the number of allies in Normandy numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but the fortress work did not stop on D-Day, instead continuing its efforts to deceive the Germans by telling them that Normandy It was a decoy, if only to delay the redeployment of German forces as long as possible under Operation Bodyguard.

Similar deception campaigns were carried out that the invasion was actually intended for more southern regions of France, the Balkans or even neutral Sweden, the ultimate success of D-Day can be largely attributed to this elaborate and highly effective operation of deception. Planning for the D-Day invasion never stopped as the intelligence landscape was constantly changing. but the general objectives remained the same: an airborne element would go first to capture strategic locations such as bridges and destroy artillery positions that would threaten the beaches. The main force would then assault five beaches, each with its own codewords. The American beaches were Omaha and Utah, British. the beaches were sword and gold, the only canadian beach was juno, however, this does not mean that these beaches were raided exclusively by the designated nations, far from it, there were a number of specialized personnel ready and waiting to be transferred from the beach from one nation to another if they were additionally needed on land, in the air and at sea, there were those who had escaped from their own countries before falling to the Nazi onslaught and were now eager to begin reclaiming their lands and probably taking revenge as well. when June arrived.

The historical date of the Normandy invasion was June 5, 1944. In 20 ports in the United Kingdom, men and equipment were piling aboard troop ships ready to head to their designated rendezvous point Piccadilly Circus, southeast of the island. of Wight, with special attention given to protection after the disaster of Operation Tiger, the maritime element of D-Day was called Operation Neptune, but despite the secrecy that surrounded the whole affair, it was impossible to hide the great movement from the Germans. of ships from British ports leading to the Germans. Conducting an attack using cannons and torpedo boats, this attack was repelled by powerful Allied warships, but the threat of further attacks remained with the Allies, who now had extensive experience in amphibious assault operations.

Much of the equipment seemed tailor-made for storming the beaches of Normandy, United States. Dukw, for example, was essentially an amphibious truck that could not only carry supplies to the beach, but also take them directly to where they would be needed. It could also be equipped with various heavy weapons, although being unarmored they were not ideal combat vehicles. A vehicle that was However, the British Churchill Avre meant armored vehicle, Royal Engineer, was a basic Churchill tank pursuit, but with its main gun replaced by a pitard spike mortar that fired a devastating 40-pound bomb known as a flying garbage can, Churchill Avre was an expert in destroying the Strong fortifications were expected on the beaches of Normandy.

The basic Churchill also had excellent obstacle climbing performance. The Avre was one of the so-called Funnies tanks modified for specific purposes in support of landings. Other Funnies included the Sherman Swimmer, also known as the DD or Donald Duck Tank, this was a Sherman tank with a canvas flotation screen and propellers to propel it through the water, unlike tanks designed from the beginning to be amphibians that often had to sacrifice armor or firepower for buoyancy once the swimming sherman was on the beach. You could ditch the float screen and it was just another Sherman M4. The swimming sherman was so successful that it was used on all five Normandy beaches, not forgetting Rommel's insistence on mining the beaches.

Both Churchill and Sherman also had mine-clearing variants such as trash. The Crab was a Sherman tank equipped with a roller that spun heavy chains on the ground to place mines away from the tank, for fear that the armored vehicles could get stuck on wet sandy beaches. Variants of the Churchill were equipped with a positioning roller. a reinforced mat, thus creating a surface on which they could drive onto harder terrain. and speed up the download process so thatAllied troops would be supplied as they advanced through France after finally leaving Normandy, the ports of Mulberry would be towed to Normandy and assembled like a large puzzle at Omaha and Gold Beach as more and more men embarked on their ships.

By the meeting point the nerves among the Allies were understandably beginning to fray. A growing cause for concern was the apparent worsening of the weather. The only factor that neither the Allies nor the Germans had any control over was clear skies. The full moon was needed to help. with navigation during air operations, while the need for calm waters in the maritime phase was obvious, since so much depended on weather conditions being suitable for an air and sea invasion of Normandy, Eisenhower called a meeting of some of his highest officers at Southwick. home at 4.15 a.m. on the morning of June 4 to discuss the situation and whether it may be necessary to delay the invasion, ultimately the decision whether or not to launch the invasion on June 5 rested solely on his shoulders, but he would be the one who would make that decision.

Based on the predictions of a lanky RAF officer named Group Captain, James Stack Stagg, was the main meteorological officer of Operation Overlord and his role was to interpret the information that came from the observation posts of the meteorological stations and even from fighter planes flying weather patrols across the British Isles and it wasn't good news: being a non-combatant officer and holding a rank equivalent to colonel in the army I had the unenviable task of telling a room full of some of the most important leaders of the Allied war efforts. that in his opinion the invasion should be delayed 24 hours to allow the weather to improve.

Many in attendance, like Field Marshal Montgomery, scoffed at the suggestion and insisted that they go as planned on the fifth, knowing they only had three days. window for the moon to be in the correct phase and delays could cause the operation to be forcibly postponed for weeks, even worse in the case of the deer. American meteorologists, using a different prediction system, believed that a high pressure front was going to push bad weather away from the moon. landing zones that left them with clear skies on June 5, but Stag stood by his recommendation to wait 24 hours after hearing Stag's case.

Eisenhower reluctantly agreed and gave the order to postpone the invasion until June 6. Stag would be tried. correct when on the night of June 4 and the morning of June 5 the landing zones were hit by terrible weather finally when the weather began to improve on June 5, 1944 what had been the original date for d-day began The preparation phase The minesweepers crept up to the Normandy coast to begin their work clearing the way for troop ships while a massive force of over 1,200 fighter aircraft began to soften the defenses overnight and then, in the D-Day itself, the weakened Luftwaffe would be outnumbered in the air by almost ten to one allowing the Allies to effectively control the skies allowing them to carry out close air support missions rocket launching aircraft such as the British Typhoon would be heavily involved in the clean up. of fortifications and the destruction of tanks as the Allied troops realized that this was what they remembered themselves. quote from Eisenhower's words your task will not be easy your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened he will fight savagely I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to Judy and skill in battle we will accept nothing less than total victory , good luck. and all implore the blessing of almighty god for this great and noble enterprise, meanwhile, far from the commotion on countless airfields of the united kingdom and aboard the vast fleets of ships in the English channel, in his residence high in the bavarian alps, führer adolf hitler settled in for a relatively quiet evening in In the so-called wolf's den, he and his entourage of aides watched newsreels in his private cinema before retiring to the living room where Hitler lectured them on his thoughts for the day, as whether they were about war policy or his views on the great men of history looking back.

That night, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said before his death that the night of June 5, 1944 was like what he called the good old days, when the Nazi regime was rising to its greatest power. Goebbels retired to bed before Hitler, who had been having trouble sleeping and did not go until 3 a.m. m. that the führer finally went to bed, thanks to the medications he received. German intelligence was already detecting signs that something big was happening across the channel, but fearful of Hitler's temper, his aides decided not to report. him until they had more information and so, as Hitler fell asleep with medical help, he did not realize that a vast armada of planes carrying paratroopers were already sailing towards Normandy, unaware that dreams of a thousand-dollar reich years were about to shatter, unaware that history was tying a noose around his neck as the final minutes of June 5 passed at bases across England, an air armada unlike anything history had ever seen before. seen before it began to mobilize and take off at night the vast majority of the planes transporting paratroopers to normandy were the douglas c-force air trains more commonly known by its british designation dakota the c-47 is one of the truly great planes of the history a military variant of the dc-3 airliner an aircraft credited with making air travel practical american and british c-47s would eventually send some 50,000 paratroopers to normandy.

They would also provide a vital logistical lifeline to get supplies to the troops until airfields could be captured and secured for them to land. Their robust design makes them ideal for entering and exiting former Luftwaffe bases, however that may be. It was a dangerous task, even with the weakening of their defenses, the planes were relatively slow and when it came time to deploy the paratroopers they had to descend about 600 feet where they were exposed to all types of anti-aircraft fire as they jumped from the plane. The static line automatically deployed the soldier's parachutes, but if the parachute failed or became tangled, the parachutist would have only seconds to release his emergency parachutes, but with less time to slow his descents, this would almost certainly result in a slower landing. hard that could cause breakage. leg or ankle if all went well, however, the paratroopers typically took 35 seconds to descend from their plane, during which time they felt extraordinarily exposed to the sharp German snipers who made out their silhouettes against the night sky behind them to help them. attracting enemy fire to hundreds of people.

Paradummies known as Ruperts and Oscars to the British and Americans respectively were dropped in the dark. These were indistinguishable from the actual paratroopers who parachuted into Normandy that night. They were elements of the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions who were They assigned several targets on the western Katantan Peninsula of the US beach designated Utah, however, not everything went as planned, as the plane came under heavy fire during its approach to the drop zones and many they were lost before and after his troops landed. First Lieutenant Robert P. Mathias of the 508th Parachute Inventory Regiment. of '82 would obtain the tragic accolade of being the first American killed on D-Day when the C-47 in which he was traveling was hit by anti-aircraft fire, mortally wounding him before he had the opportunity to jump with his men into the Chaos, many paratroopers were lost their drop zones were often for miles and the units that landed were often in disarray.

Despite these setbacks, the paratroopers fought fiercely against the German forces behind the Normandy beaches, destroying artillery guns, disrupting supply routes, and diverting German attention from the landings. Not all members of the airborne units deployed that night entered under the parachute canopies, many entered via gliders that would be towed to release points close to their targets and then piloted down in what was effectively a controlled crash. Gliders had the advantage of being able to carry larger equipment for airborne troops, but they also carried a host of dangers of their own, were just as vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire as their motorized counterparts, and landing them safely was often a complicated task that if you were wrong.

He could see so many soldiers dead or injured before they had a chance to fight. The British airspeed horse was capable of carrying up to 30 fully equipped troops or several light vehicles and field guns, but despite its size and lack of a power plant, it was a surprisingly agile aircraft in flight given that it was very It was unlikely that any significant number survived their first flight into battle. the horse was made from wood, which helped ease strain on the strategic metals supply chain. The Hammer Claw was another large glider designed primarily to carry light tanks, 17-pounder field guns, or large quantities of supplies in a single flight, while it was an American design that was deployed solely by the British and was designed to specifications described by Winston Churchill himself in 1941.

However, it was the Wacko CG4 that was the numerically most significant glider of the war, the CG4 known as the Hadrian in British service, was smaller than the Horser and could only carry 13 troops combat-ready equipment, a single jeep or a single 75-millimeter howitzer, but its smaller size gave it the advantage of being able to land in narrower areas, thus greatly expanding the number of possible landing sites, with a Welded tubular fuselage with a canvas covering the wings covered in thin plywood, the CG4 also had other advantages, for example the payload area was made more easily accessible thanks to the often violent nature of glider landings, A safety cable designed to attach to any vehicle being transported within the cargo area was also installed in the event that the vehicle is mounted on the nose and cabs on a hinge that allows it to rotate upward, exposing the entire loading area. burden. releasing when the glider touched the ground and sliding into the cockpit the cable would raise the hinged cockpit into the unloading position thus preventing the pilots from being run over by their own cargo the British 6th Airborne Division made extensive use of gliders to capture the bridges over the river and canal khan took the bridges relatively quickly, then had to dig and fight tooth and nail to hold them until reinforcements could arrive from all the beaches on d-day, the 10 mile stretch designated as omaha was by far, the beach most heavily defended and therefore the beach was hit by a force of heavy bombers before the landing occurred;

However, the bombers had to deal with thick clouds covering the area and therefore had to effectively bomb blind for fear that their weapons might drift. Out to sea and hit the Allied navy, the crews proved too cautious in aiming and many of the bombs missed their targets, falling inland into the French countryside. A particularly concerning obstacle to both U.S. beaches was a gun battery located at Point Duok, 100 feet above the ground. cliff that provided a wide arc of fire over the surrounding areas, including the beaches where thousands of Americans would land in the early hours, so before the main force arrived, 225 men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James tidder received the unenviable Task of scaling the cliffs with ropes and ladders in an effort to destroy the gun battery, the rangers approached in 12 landing craft and two Dukw amphibious trucks, but came under heavy fire as they approached the beach.

A landing craft was lost with all but one of its occupants. They then began placing the 100 foot long ladders borrowed from the London Fire Brigade against the cliffs and began scaling them while continuing to receive heavy fire from enemy machine guns and mortars with Allied warships providing fire support. The rangers reached the top of the cliff. where they discovered that their intended targets, the field guns had been moved, the rangers finallyThey located the weapons that had been left unattended in an orchard more than half a kilometer to the south and proceeded to destroy them. Their mission was accomplished, but now the rangers had to face intense combat. with the Germans for the next 24 hours until they were relieved by additional reinforcements, by which time they had suffered 77 men killed and 152 wounded.

If the well-protected banks of German gunners were not enough, the beach was also protected by a large number of obstacles both natural and artificial that the landing craft would have to negotiate, a difficult job made worse by incredibly powerful winds that blew away more than a landing craft, of course, at 6:30 a.m. the first wave composed of men from the 1st and 29th Infantry The divisions made their landings in the middle of what must have seemed an impenetrable wall of bullets in the spaces between the landing craft and the positions of some cover against the Germans.

The bodies of fallen American troops soon began littering the sands with barbed wire and fixed obstacles slowing progress. The American advance allowed them to be sprayed with German machine guns. There was so much death on Omaha Beach in the early rounds of the invasion that when landing craft were seen leaving the beach again, the Germans mistakenly told their commander General Dietrich Crease that American troops had been driven from Grace. and then ordered many of the troops guarding Omaha to redeploy to fight British forces at Gold Beach. This was a big mistake because the landing craft simply returned to the ships to pick up more American troops to throw at the Germans.

However, despite this, even with the help of combat engineers firing at fixed defenses, warships providing fire support, and tanks landed to support assaults against the defenders, the American troops failed to secure their head. However, on the same day they managed to secure two strong points on the beach from where over the next few days they were able to unload men and supplies and finally clear the German defenders securing the beach and They joined allied units from other beaches. Several journalists accompanied the troops ashore to report on what they saw, among them was a determined and determined young woman named Martha Gelhorn, wife of author Ernest Hemingway Gelhorn, who was not actually authorized to report on the landings and, therefore, So, in a rather daring move, he hid on board. a hospital ship and then posed as a stretcher bearer to join the medical teams disembarking to rescue the wounded, in the chaos of the dramatic events unfolding around her, she was able to pull off this deception and become the only woman on disembark in normandy. on d-day, allowing him to give a first-hand account of the scene, his article published in Collier's magazine says that everyone was then violently busy on that busy and dangerous shore, the pebbles were the size of apples and with feet deep and we stumbled upon a path that a huge shovel was digging.

We walked very carefully between the narrow lines of white tape that marked the path cleared of mines and headed towards a tent marked with a red cross. Everyone agreed that that the beach was stinky and that it will be a great pleasure to get out of here at some point during the planning for D-Day. Utah Beach was the last to be selected and stretched along 11 miles of coastline, making it became the largest beach visited on June 6 as the westernmost beach, the main objective. The idea of ​​establishing a beachhead in Utah was to give the Allies a suitable location to prepare for an assault on the strategic port city of Cherbourg, about 35 miles away, the assault on the beach was by the US Corps.

US 7, which faced relatively light resistance compared to the horrors of Omaha, the main German defensive position comprised of a single powerful 88-millimeter artillery piece that was soon destroyed and the German defenders manning it surrendered for three hours. after the start of the assault. The three main entrances to the beach had been secured, allowing 20,000 soldiers and 1,700 vehicles to cross Utah Beach on D-Day. Among those fighting on Utah Beach was Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the son major of former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. Brigadier General Roosevelt was serving in the 4th Infantry Division when he stormed Utah Beach landing with his men despite his rank and age, 56, he was the oldest Allied soldier. age on the front.

Roosevelt took command of nearly every aspect of the division's operations from him that day, allowing him to directly address the many problems that arose. It was even reported that in some cases he directed trucks and tanks like a traffic policeman while personally taking enemy fire while sharing poetry and funny anecdotes with frightened soldiers under his command for his bravery he was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross tragically, however, little More than a month later, on July 12, he died. Due to a subsequent heart attack, the commendation was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest award in the United States for valor, which was awarded to him posthumously.

His citation reads although the enemy had the beach under constant direct fire, the Brigadier General Roosevelt moved from one locality to another, the men around him led them and personally led them against the enemy, under his experience, precise calm and unwavering leadership, the assault troops reduced the strong points of the beach and They moved quickly inland with minimal casualties. In this way he contributed substantially to the successful establishment of the beachhead in France sandwiched between Omaha Beach to the west and Juno Beach to the east. Gold Beach was a 10 mile stretch of coast intended for attack primarily by the British 50th Northumberland Infantry Division and 47th Royal Marine Commando and its primary objective was to capture the port town of our march, which had been selected as an ideal site for the construction of a Mulberry port awaiting the British at Gold Beach, were elements of the 716th Vermont Infantry Division, which included a large proportion of Ostrupan Poles and Russians who They had been recruited to serve in the German army.

Additionally, the beach was protected by a battery of four 155-millimeter guns placed approximately half a mile inland. The British reached the coast within the hour. After the Americans attacked Utah and Omaha due to the tide at Gold Beach, unfortunately for the British, an unexpected northwesterly wind meant that many of the submarine obstacles and mines laid by the Germans remained submerged while the British landing craft began to assault the beach without being able to identify. In total, the British force would suffer the loss of some 20 landing craft before it could get its troops and equipment to shore.

Due to the weather, the Sherman Swimmers had to be brought closer to shore before they could be put into the water, followed later by Churchill Avres, but by noon they were fully occupied driving Vermont troops from their positions; However, they continued to receive heavy artillery fire at the Lehemel strongpoint until mid-afternoon, when the Avres destroyed the fortification protecting them. By the end of the day, the British force had advanced inland securing the beachhead and allowing it to begin. the construction of Mulberry Dock, but this came at the cost of 400 British casualties in just two miles of length.

Juno Beach was the smallest of the D-Day beaches and fell between gold and a sword. to the west and east respectively and was the target of the 3rd Canadian Inventory Division, the 2nd Canadian Armored Brigade and the British 48th Commando. The small size of the beach only served to exacerbate the fears of Allied planners about a reef in the waters leading to the beach that would require landings to begin at 7.45 a.m., when the tide was at its highest, which reduced the risk to landing craft; However, it turned out that it would not be the obstacles of nature that would savagely attack the Canadians, but the German mines that litter the coast in a horrible third of all landings.

The ships hit mines as they moved toward the beach, where the 736th Regiment of the German 716th Infantry Division plus the 430th Eastern Austrian Battalion, again composed of Russians and Poles, awaited them. The defenders fought a bloody and brutal battle to drive the Canadians off the beach, but the Canadians stubbornly refused to allow the beach to become another pit and kept up the pressure, eventually forcing the Germans to retreat in the end. of the day. Some 21,400 troops had landed at Juno and the Canadians had advanced further inland than any since the d- The daytime landings captured an airfield at k, however, it had cost the Canadians 946 casualties, of whom 340 died when their landing craft struck mines in the first hour of the invasion.

One of those serving at Juno Beach that day was a young Canadian officer named James Duann. Who would later achieve worldwide fame playing the iconic character Scotty in the Star Trek television series and films, Duane was a commissioned lieutenant in the 14th Field Artillery Regiment of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and was assigned on D-Day Tasked with leading his men through a field filled with anti-tank mines to capture a German position and Duane killing two German cypress trees in the process, at around 1120 hours, during a lull in the fighting, he stopped to smoke a cigarette. before returning to his men.

When a terrified Canadian machine gunner opened fire on him believing he was German, he was shot six times, four in the leg, one in the chest and another that took off his right middle finger in a classic tale of wartime luck, his life was He was saved by the metal cigarette can he carried in his chest pockets that absorbed the shot aimed at his chest that would almost certainly have killed him later in life while filming Star Trek. Efforts had to be made to disguise the finger he lost on D-Day with a double hand used for close-ups requiring a sword.

It was the easternmost beach on D-Day and before the war it was a popular tourist destination with numerous summer houses dotting the coast, many of these houses had been destroyed by the German defenders to improve their firing range while others had been reinforced and converted into makeshift bunkers with an anti-tank ditch dug behind the sea wall. The beach was also defended by two field artillery positions with 75-millimeter guns based at Merville and more powerful 155-millimeter guns. at Le Avra ​​and these received special attention from Allied aircraft and paratroopers to prevent them from interfering with the landings that began at 7.25 a.m., when the tide was suitable, Espada was assaulted by the 3rd Division of the British Army supported by the 27th Brigade armored and contingents of British and Free French Commandos The main objective of the forces that landed on Sword Beach was to capture a series of important bridges three and a half miles inland on the River Orn and Khan Channel.

These bridges were held by British airborne forces while the commandos had to fight. they headed west to link up with Canadian forces from Juno Beach; However, after landing on the beaches, progress was slow thanks in part to the heavy congestion of Allied forces packed into the narrow streets and back roads of the French coastal cities and to fierce German resistance. From the town of Wystrohammer during the day it became clear that any hope of linking up with the Canadians before nightfall had been dashed when, to the horror of the British, they found themselves attacked by the 21st Panzer Division.

These skilled German panzer teams made powerful attacks against the British. including the men who held the bridge over the river and helped prevent them from connecting with the Canadians in June, but their effectiveness was hampered by disruptions in their chain of command and the overwhelming air power pitted against them when the Allied gliders landed near their positions in late At night, the tank crews feared they would be overrun and withdrew, not realizing that the gliders had missed their designated landing zones and had landed there by sheer mistake at sea. Three German electronic boats of the 5th Torpedo Squadron broke free from their moorings and launched the attack.

The numerous Allied ships that supported the landing perhaps hoped to repeat thecarnage they inflicted during operation tiger. The e-boats arrived at Sword Beach to find the scene largely obscured by a smoke screen forcing them to approach emerging from the smoke which they faced in amazement. -Inspiring view of hundreds of Allied ships, from small landing craft to huge battleships. They sent 18 torpedoes at the Allied force, but only managed to sink one Free Norwegian destroyer, the Svena, before being forced to withdraw. This was the end of German naval interference in AD. -day, since Allied air power was so overwhelming that launching any warship or submarine into the sea in daylight was practically suicidal;

However, German sailors continued the fight manning coastal guns alongside their Vermont conrads, while a handful of raids were flown for the German air force. ordered against the ships supporting the landings and the beaches, the most notable encounter perhaps was when two Wolf FW 190 fighters swooped down and strafed British troops on Sword Beach. Two stuka-powered dive bombers also made desperate daylight attacks, but were savagely attacked by Allied fighters at almost every step of the way during the day, 28,500 men crossed Sword Beach, but in the tough campaign to capture it They suffered 683 casualties. British and French forces eventually joined Juno's Canadians the next day, but despite the horrors the troops suffered.

Seeing many of them just young men just beginning their adult lives, it seems that the old spirit of continuation had not been a victim that day, as Master David, a member of the Raf 71 beach unit, said later, Slowly, slowly, we got over all the nightmares, there was no lack of humor. A soldier coming ashore asked if this was a private beach. They promised me a private beach, if not I won't stay and we heard my mother told me not to travel by plane. She thought it was much safer by sea. The initial German response to D-Day was a day of confusion over what to do.

Germany's rigid command structure depended heavily on the Führer's orders, but of course he was still asleep when the Allies landed on the beaches. The picture was still somewhat confusing for the German high command and after having worked. For so long, believing that any landing away from Calais was a decoy, they argued over whether or not to wake Hitler until they knew more about what was really happening, which would not be until approximately 10 in the morning with the arrival of Albert Speer. the german minister of armaments said that hitler finally woke up according to author and historian stephen ambrose, who wrote the epic book band of brothers hitler's response was quite unexpected as he uttered the words the news couldn't be better goebbels 2 noted that the news of The invasion seemed to be a relief to him, as if they could finally continue the war in the west, Hitler was extremely confident that his men in Normandy would keep the allies at bay and stuck to his belief that Calais was where would produce the real invasion on the In the following days, now that the German high command was awake, Hitler began to organize his response.

One of his first acts was to reluctantly release two reserve panzer divisions near Paris to be sent to Normandy. However, he was told that Allied air power over Normandy and its surroundings. It was so intense that they would have to wait until nightfall to move to avoid being destroyed on the roads by Allied fighter-bombers. This crucial delay worked in favor of the allies who by nightfall were already advancing beyond the beaches incredibly despite the enormity of what was happening. In Normandy, Hitler still took time in the afternoon to attend a reception for Austria's new Foreign Minister in Salzburg, perhaps hinting that he failed to fully grasp the reality of what was happening in France as darkness fell on the last hours of June 6. -The ships eventually ventured out to sea in an effort to disrupt the landing operations, even in the darkness, the fear of an air attack was still there, as Allied fighter planes were now using radars to detect them on the surface, However, they did not arrive until daylight. hours of 7 June, allowing Allied air and sea power to swoop in to attack them as they recharged their batteries on the surface, two submarines were sunk and four more severely damaged, forcing the German navy to abandon any attack with submarines that were not yet equipped with snorkels that would allow them to run their diesel engines while submerged.

The only submarines with snorkels were based to the south in the Bay of Biscay and in northern Norway to allow them to better attack the US convoys and would take until mid-June to break through the dense Allied anti-submarine forces arrayed against them, by which time the invasion force was entrenched and broke into France. German resistance remained strong around the beachheads of Normandy during the following days and even as Allied troops Pockets of German resistance began to emerge even as they were surrounded by the Allied invasion force. A German unit occupying a bunker located between Sword and Juno beaches that housed a radar installation held out for a staggering 12 days after D-Day despite having found they were far behind Allied lines at the time, after Establishing their beachhead over the summer, the Allied force would grow and become more powerful, eventually exploding and charging across Europe driving back Hitler's army as Nazi Germany was suffocated to death by the Allied attack for eleven months.

And one day after D-Day, Germany surrendered and the war in Europe ended. Looking back on June 6 and the days that followed, we tend to take for granted the success of the D-Day landings, which are remembered in the West, particularly in the United States. united states, united kingdom and canada as one of the most glorious days when the greatest generation rose to the challenge, sadly, like many battles throughout history, d-day has been romanticized in such a way as to overlook the horrific reality of what happened, it is easy to cite casualty figures as a way of measuring the cost of what really happened, but the battle for Normandy undoubtedly damaged the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who, while they survived, had to live with the memories of the horror they saw and perhaps it is really for them that When we celebrate their victory every year on June 6, we recognize the price they paid for freedom in Europe, it is because now in the 21st century we enjoy those freedoms that They give us those incredible soldiers probably more than any other military operation in history. -The day has left us reflecting on many questions that begin with the words What if the German naval forces had repeated their success during Operation Tiger in the landing ships?

What if Eisenhower had ignored Stag's recommendation to delay and the D-Day landings had gone ahead in the bad weather of June 5. What if Hitler had listened to Rommel and placed tanks closer to the beaches before the day? d? What if for any of a million reasons D-Day failed? then the atomic bombs were dropped on Europe maybe or maybe a Europe that would end the war completely under the control of the Soviet empire, fortunately these what ifs and many more will always be simple questions for debate thanks to the success of Operation Overlord of the 6th June 1944, D-Day, you.