D-Day

WWII Notes 11World Wars – Hamer

May 5, 2010

Planning and Training

SHAEF• The Invasion of

Normandy was put under the command of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) which was led by General Dwight. D. Eisenhower Ike speaking to the 101st

Airborne on June 5, 1944

Location Selection PART 1

• England originally wanted to just enter the European Front through Italy

• America believed that a cross channel invasion from England to France would be the shortest route to Germany was the only way to go in the long run.

• Soviet Union pressed for a Western Front even after the Allied invasion of Italy

Location Selection PART 2

• The best choices of landing sites on the continent were: the Pas de Calais and Normandy.

• Because the Pas de Calais is the shortest distance from England, closer to Germany, and has the most accessible beaches, it was the most heavily fortified by Germany.

• Therefore, the Allies chose Normandy for their invasion. Normandy

Pas de Calais

Research• The Allies had to ensure that the beaches at

Normandy would support the weight of troops and tanks.

• Beginning on New Years’ Eve 1943, 5 British soldiers set off in a midget submarine to collect samples from what would become Sword Beach.

• These samples along with others collected from the rest of the beaches convinced the Allies that the beaches would be supportive enough.

Training PART 1

• Exercise Tiger April and May 1944:

• American Forces practiced landing for the invasion of Utah beach over 8 days in Southern England.

Training PART 2• Over 700 American servicemen died when the

Landing Crafts were surprisingly attacked by German torpedo boats during Operation Tiger. The Americans were practicing on this beach because it was made of the same material as Utah beach (gravel)

– When Hitler found out that the Allies were practicing an amphibious landing at this particular beach in England, he realized that it had the same makeup as Normandy.

Plans for the Final Attack• The final plan had five divisions by sea and three by

air (more air divisions were requested, but there were only enough carrier planes for three)

• In total, 47 divisions would be committed to the Battle of Normandy: 19 British, five Canadian and one Polish divisions under overall British command, and 21 American divisions with one Free French division, totaling 140,000 troops landing on the beaches.

• About 6900 ships would be involved.• A total of 12,000 aircraft would support the

landings including 1000 transport planes to carry the parachute divisions

Plans for the Final Attack

Espionage

Double Cross• During the war, the British operated

a system known as Double Cross. • Through Double Cross, the British

turned German spies and used them as double agents.

• Initially Double Cross was used to determine what the Germans were looking for, but later it was used to pass along misinformation, such as before the landing at Normandy.

XXDouble Cross was run by the

Twenty Committee

Operation Fortitude

• In order to persuade the Germans that the main invasion would really be coming to the Pas de Calais, as well as to lead them to expect an invasion of Norway, the Allies prepared a massive deception plan, called Operation Fortitude.

• The point of this was to convince Germany that the Allies has many more troops than they actually did

FUSAG PART 1

• An entirely fictitious First U.S. Army Group (“FUSAG”), supposedly located in southeastern England, was created in German minds by the use of double agents and fake radio traffic “confirming” the existence and location of FUSAG and the Pas de Calais as the likely main attack point.

FUSAG PART 2

• General Patton was placed in command of FUSAG.

• This placement of such a famous general strengthened Germany’s belief in the existence of FUSAG.

General George Patton

“Old Blood and Guts”

Inflatable tank

Dummy landing craft

German aerial view

FUSAG PART 3•Dummy tanks, trucks, and landing craft, as well as troop camp facades (constructed from scaffolding and canvas) were placed in ports on the southeastern coasts of Britain to look like the army.

Operation Skye (North Scotland)

• Operation Skye was mounted from Scotland using radio traffic designed to convince Germany that an invasion would also be mounted into Norway.

• Two dozen aging British officers were sent to Northern Scotland where they carried on constant radio conversations for their fake armies.

Dummy Paratroopers on the Night of June 5, 1944

• The last part of the deception occurred on the night before the invasion: a small group of SAS operators deployed dummy paratroopers (scarecrows with parachutes) over Le Havre and Isigny.

• These dummies led the Germans to believe that an additional airborne assault had occurred; this tied up reinforcing troops and kept the true situation unclear.

Benefits of Spreading Misinformation

• The main benefit of all of these deceptive measures was that they convinced the Germans that the Allies had 3 times as many troops and landing gear than they actually did.

• Therefore the Germans believed that a fake attack (a feint) would come before the real attack– When the D-Day attack came Germany thought the

Normandy invasion was just a diversion to pull their divisions away from Calais.

• This worked so well that the Germans kept 18 reserve divisions near Calais even after the invasion of Normandy began as well as keeping some in Norway.

Germans Anticipated Germans Anticipated attack in 1944attack in 1944

Technology

Mulberry Harbors PART 1 • A complete Mulberry

harbor was constructed out of 600,000 tons of concrete between 33 jetties, and had 10 miles (15 km) of floating roadways to land men and vehicles on the beach.

• By June 9, just 3 days after D-Day, two harbors that were built in England and floated across the Channel, codenamed Mulberry 'A' and 'B', were constructed at Omaha Beach and Arromanches, respectively.

Mulberry Harbors PART 2

• A large storm on June 19 destroyed the American harbor at Omaha, leaving only the British harbor which came to be known as Port Winston.

• In the 100 days after D-Day, it was used to land over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tons of supplies providing much needed reinforcements in France.

Omaha Harbor after the storm of June 19, 1944

Operation Pluto

• Operation Pluto built oil pipelines from England to the French coast to transport much needed fuel in a faster and safer way to the continent.

• By VE Day, over 781 million liters of oil had been pumped to the continent.

Higgins Boats (LCVP’s)

• Higgins Boat – LCVP: Boat with a wide ramp on the front and a shallow draw allowed the Allies to land their troops at Normandy.

• Troops climbed down rope nets from their ships onto the Higgins Boats to go to shore. They could also carry small vehicles.

LCVP at Omaha Beach

Higgins Boats (LCVP’s)• "Andrew Higgins ...

is the man who won the war for us. ... If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different." — General Dwight Eisenhower

LST’s• Many other landing

craft were also used to land people and equipment

• The LST - Landing Ship Tank – could carry tanks for an amphibious landing – used at Sicily and Normandy

Canadian LST at Sicily, 1943

Hobart’s Funnies PART 1

• Hobart’s Funnies were specially designed British tanks used to accomplish specific tasks:

• Churchill AVRE with bobbin – had a 10 foot wide canvas cloth that was reinforced with steel poles to roll in front of it and make roads so itself and following vehicles would not sink into the soft sand on the beaches

Hobart’s Funnies PART 2

• ARK – armored ramp carrier – Would lay down ramps for other tanks to climb over obstacles

• Armored bulldozer – used to clear obstacles on the D-Day beaches

Hobart’s Funnies PART 3

• Crab- Modified Sherman Tank with a mine flail (rotating chains) in front to clear land mines

• AVRE with fascine – carried a large bundle of sticks and pipes to throw into a ditch to use as steps for following tanks.

Hobart’s Funnies PART 4

• The DD had a flotation device that went around them and could be deflated at shore. This allowed tanks to land at Normandy without using landing crafts for them, they were deployed 2 miles from the beach and swam to shore.

• Worked fairly well except at Omaha where 27 of the 29 were lost in high swells

• DD Tanks – Duplex Drive medium tanks (Shermans) that used propellers in the water and treads on land.

Invasion of Normandy

The Atlantic Wall• In preparation for the

anticipated Allied re-invasion of Europe, Hitler ordered the construction of fortifications around Germany’s occupied areas in March 1942.– These fortifications were

known as the Atlantic Wall

• Rommel was put in charge of improving the Atlantic Wall in early 1944

GermaGerman n

DefenDefense se

SysteSystemm

D-Day• The original landing

was planned for June 5th – Both a spring tide

and full moon were needed to make the landings successful

– Bad weather on the 4th required the troops to wait a day in their ships until the new D-day of June 6, 1944

Convoy of large LCI in the English Channel

Paratroopers PART 1• The first phase of D-

Day was an air assault landing of 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French airborne troops shortly after midnight on D-Day

• British 6th airborne division was supposed to take control of bridges east of the landing to prevent German reinforcements – they were successful

Paratroopers PART 2

• The 13,000 troops of the American 82nd and 101st airborne divisions were dropped in a widely scattered pattern so 45% of units were unable to gather

• Even with this chaos, the Germans were unable to successfully break through to the beaches from the West.

• The main goal of this attack was to capture Cherbourg – it was not taken until June 30, 1944

H-Hour6:30 am June 6, 1944

• Bombers and Destroyers were supposed to bomb and shell the German seawall in preparation for the landing

• Sadly many of these overshot their targets, especially at the American beaches

Higgins Landing Higgins Landing CraftsCrafts

German German PrisonersPrisoners

Normandy Landing (June 6, 1944)

Landing at Normandy PART 1

• One of the American beaches, Omaha, turned out to be some of the most deadly landing sites– Ineffective pre-landing shelling– STEEP cliffs– Sinking tanks

• Juno – The Canadian beach suffered the second highest casualty rate, but they were off the beach within a few hours

““Welcome to Hell”Welcome to Hell”

Landing at Normandy PART 2

• Utah – the second American beach had the lightest casualties and had landed at the wrong place

• Pointe du Hoc – 2nd Army Ranger Battalion: goal was to take out large artillery positioned there – successful but with a 50% casualty rate

• 175,000 Total Allied troops would land on D-Day

Allied Invasion Routes: D-Day (June 6, 1944)

• German counter-attack to initial invasion were delayed because of internal arguments among the German high-command.

• The Fuhrer system required that all major decisions had to go through Hitler

• Fortitude South had been so successful in deceiving the German’s that they were convinced the main invasion of France was still to come from the Pas-De-Calais.

Deception Works AgainDeception Works Again

10,000 Allied 10,000 Allied casualtiescasualties with with 4,500 Allied and 4,500 Allied and American troops American troops deaddead

FatalitiesFatalities

4,000-9,000 4,000-9,000 German German

casualtiescasualties

• Invasion of Normandy was the decisive Allied victory that turned the tide of World War II.

• Success of the invasion was necessary for the Allies to launch an attack to liberate France.

• Allies moved permanently to the offensive as the armies marched through Europe to liberate the other conquered nations.

D-Day: Turning the Tide of D-Day: Turning the Tide of WarWar

De Gaulle in De Gaulle in Triumph!Triumph!

TThe Liberation of Paris:August 25, 1944

U. S. Troops in Paris, 1944