Encyclopedia
The
Battle of Normandy was fought in 1944 between
Nazi Germany in
Western Europe and the invading
Allied forces as part of the larger conflict of
World War II. Over sixty years later, the
Normandy invasion, codenamed
Operation Overlord, still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving almost three million troops crossing the
English Channel from
England to
Normandy in then German-occupied
France.
The primary Allied formations that saw combat in Normandy came from the
United States of America,
United Kingdom and
Canada. Substantial
Free French and
Polish forces also participated in the battle after the assault phase, and there were also contingents from
Belgium,
Czechoslovakia,
Greece,
the Netherlands, and
Norway.
The Normandy invasion began with overnight
parachute and
glider landings, massive
air attacks and
naval bombardments, and an early morning
amphibious assault on June 6, “
D-Day.” The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to establish, expand, and eventually break out of the Allied beachheads, and concluded with the
liberation of Paris and the fall of the
Falaise pocket in late August 1944.
The importance of the battle of Normandy was best summed up by
Hitler himself; “In the East, the vastness of space will… permit a loss of territory… without suffering a mortal blow to Germany’s chance for survival. Not so in the West! If the enemy here succeeds… consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time.”
Prelude
Allied preparations
After the 1941 German invasion of the
Soviet Union , the
Soviets had done the bulk of the fighting against Germany on the European mainland. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister
Winston Churchill had committed the United States and the United Kingdom to opening up a “second front” in Europe to aid in the Soviet advance on Germany, initially in 1942, and again in spring 1943.
The British, under Churchill, wished to avoid the costly frontal assaults of
World War I. Churchill and the British staff favoured a course of allowing the insurgency work of the SOE to come to widespread fruition, while themselves making a main Allied thrust from the
Mediterranean to
Vienna and into Germany from the south. Such an approach was also believed to offer the advantage of creating a barrier to limit the Soviet advance into Europe. However, the U.S. believed from the onset that the optimum approach was the shortest route to Germany emanating from the strongest Allied power base. They were adamant in their view and made it clear that it was the only option they would support in the long term. Two preliminary proposals were drawn up: Operation Sledgehammer, for an invasion in 1942, and Operation Roundup, for a larger attack in 1943, which was adopted and became Operation Overlord, although it was delayed until 1944.
The planning process was started in earnest in March 1943 by British
Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Morgan, who was nominated Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander . His plan was later adopted and refined starting in January 1944 by
SHAEF , led by
General Dwight David Eisenhower.
The short operating range of Allied fighters, including the British
Spitfire and Typhoon, from UK airfields greatly limited the choices of amphibious landing sites. Geography reduced the choices further to two sites: the
Pas de Calais and the
Normandy coast. Because the
Pas de Calais offered the shortest distance to the European mainland from the UK, the best landing beaches, and the most direct overland route to Germany, it was the most heavily fortified and defended landing site. Consequently, the Allies chose Normandy for the invasion.
In part because of lessons learned by Allied troops in the
raid on Dieppe of 19 August 1942, the Allies decided not to assault a French
seaport directly in their first landings. Landings in force on a broad front in Normandy would permit simultaneous threats against the port of
Cherbourg, coastal ports further west in
Bretagne, and an overland attack towards
Paris and towards the border with Germany. Normandy was a less-defended coast and an unexpected but strategic jumping-off point, with the potential to confuse and scatter the German defending forces.
It was not until November 1943 that
General Dwight David Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, effectively giving him overall charge of the Allied forces in Western Europe. In January 1944,
General Sir Bernard Montgomery was named as commander of the 21st Army Group, to which all of the invasion ground forces belonged, and also in charge of developing the invasion plan.
At that stage the COSSAC plan proposed a landing from the sea by three divisions, with two brigades landed by air. Montgomery quickly increased the scale of the initial attack to five divisions by sea and three by air, reflected in the plans for an additional assault at
Utah Beach. In total, 47 divisions would be committed to the Battle of Normandy: 19 British, 5 Canadian and 1 Polish divisions under overall British command, and 21 American divisions with 1 Free French division, totaling 140,000 troops. On 7 April and 15 May Montgomery presented his strategy for the invasion at
St Paul’s School. He envisaged a ninety day battle, ending when all the forces reached the
Seine, pivoting on an Allied-held
Caen, with British and Canadian armies forming a shoulder and the U.S. armies wheeling to the right.
About 6,900 vessels would be involved in the invasion under the command of
Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay , including 4,100
landing craft. 12,000 aircraft under
Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory were to support the landings, including 1,000 transports to fly in the parachute troops. 10,000 tons of bombs would be dropped against the German defenses, and 14,000 attack sorties would be flown.
The objective for the first 40 days was to create a lodgement that would include the cities of
Caen and Cherbourg . Subsequently, there would be a break out from the lodgement to liberate Brittany and its Atlantic ports, and to advance to a line roughly 125 miles to the southwest of
Paris, from
Le Havre through
Le Mans to
Tours, so that after ninety days the allies would control a zone bounded by the rivers
Loire in the south and
Seine in the northeast.
Deception
In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a deception operation, Operation Bodyguard, designed to persuade the Germans that other points would be threatened as well as northern France . Then, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, 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. Operation Fortitude North would lead the Axis to expect an attack on Norway; the much more vital Operation Fortitude South was designed to lead the Germans to expect the main invasion at the Pas de Calais, and to hold back forces to guard against this threat rather than rushing them to Normandy. An entirely fictitious First U.S. Army Group , supposedly located in southeastern England under the command of
General Lesley J. McNair and
General George S. Patton, Jr., was created in German minds by the use of double agents and fake radio traffic. The Germans had an extensive network of agents operating in England. Unfortunately for them, every single one had been “turned” by the Allies as part of the Double Cross System, and appropriate agents were dutifully sending back messages “confirming” the existence and location of FUSAG and the
Pas de Calais as the likely main attack point. Dummy landing craft, constructed from scaffolding and canvas, were placed in ports on the eastern and southeastern coasts of Britain, and the
Luftwaffe was allowed to photograph them.
In aid of Operation Fortitude North,
Operation Skye was mounted from Scotland using radio traffic, designed to convince German traffic analysts that an invasion would be also mounted into
Norway. Against this phantom threat, German troops that otherwise could have been moved into France were instead kept in Norway.
Special equipment
Some of the more unusual Allied preparations included armoured vehicles specially adapted for the assault. Developed under the leadership of
Major-General Percy Hobart , these vehicles included “swimming”
Duplex Drive Sherman tanks, mine-clearing tanks, bridge-laying tanks and road-laying tanks and the
Armoured Vehicle, Royal Engineers - equipped with a large-caliber mortar for destroying concrete emplacements. Some prior testing of these vehicles had been undertaken at
Kirkham Priory in
Yorkshire, England. The majority would be operated by small teams of the
79th Armoured Division attached to the various formations.
The invasion plan also called for the construction of two artificial
Mulberry Harbours in order to get vital supplies to the invading forces in the first few weeks of the battle in the absence of deep-water ports, and
Operation PLUTO , a series of submarine pipes that would deliver fuel from Britain to the invading forces.
Rehearsals and security
Allied forces rehearsed their roles for D-Day months before the invasion. On April 28, 1944, in south
Devon on the English coast, 749 U.S. soldiers and sailors were killed when
German torpedo boats surprised one of these landing exercises,
Exercise Tiger.
The effectiveness of the deception operations was increased by a news blackout from Britain. Travel to and from the
Irish Free State was banned, and movements within several miles of the coasts restricted. The German embassies and consulates abroad were flooded with all sorts of misleading information, in the well-founded hope that any genuine information on the landings would be ignored with all the confusing chaff.
In the weeks before the invasion it was noticed that the crossword of the British
Daily Telegraph newspaper contained a surprisingly large number of words which were codewords relating to the invasion.
MI-5 first thought this was a coincidence, but when the word
Mulberry was one of the crossword answers, MI-5 then interviewed the compiler—a schoolmaster—and were convinced of his innocence. It was later revealed that the words were suggested by his pupils, and that they had heard nearby soldiers using them, without knowing what they meant.
There were several leaks on or before D-Day, of which one is of major interest. It involved
General de Gaulle’s radio message after D-Day. He, unlike all the other leaders, stated that this invasion was the real invasion. This had the potential to ruin the Allied deceptions Fortitude North and Fortitude South. For example, Eisenhower referred to the landings as the initial invasion. The Germans did not believe de Gaulle and waited too long to move in extra units against the Allies.
German preparations
Through most of 1942 and 1943, the Germans had rightly regarded the possibility of a successful Allied invasion in the West as remote. Preparations to counter an invasion were limited to the construction by the
Organisation Todt, of photographically impressive fortifications covering the major ports.
In late 1943, the obvious Allied buildup in Britain prompted the German Commander-in-Chief in the West, Field Marshal
Gerd von Rundstedt, to request reinforcements. Most of his units were static garrison formations only, lacking transport and supporting services, and composed of men in low-grade physical categories , or unwillingly conscripted Poles or other non-German nationalities.
In addition to fresh units, von Rundstedt also received a new subordinate, Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel. Rommel was originally intended only to make a tour of inspection of the
Atlantic Wall. After reporting to Hitler, Rommel requested command of the defenders of northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands. These were organised as Army Group B in February 1944. .
Rommel had recognised that for all their propaganda value, the Atlantic Wall fortifications covered only the ports themselves. The beaches between were barely defended, and the Allies could land there and capture the ports from inland. He revitalised the defenders, who laboured to improve the defences of the entire coastline. Steel obstacles were laid at the high-water mark on the beaches, concrete bunkers and pillboxes constructed, low-lying areas flooded and booby-trapped stakes known as
Rommelspargel set up on likely landing grounds to deter airborne landings.
These works were not fully completed, especially in the vital Normandy sector, partly because Allied bombing of the French railway system interfered with the movement of the necessary materials, and also because the Germans were convinced by the Allied deception measures and their own preconceptions that the landings would take place in the Pas de Calais, and concentrated their efforts there.
Rommel's defensive measures were also frustrated by a dispute over armoured doctrine. In addition to his two army groups, von Rundstedt also commanded a headquarters known as
Panzer Group West under General
Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg . This formation was nominally an administrative HQ for von Rundstedt's armoured and mobile formations, but it was to be renamed Fifth Panzer Army and brought into the line in Normandy. Von Geyr and Rommel disagreed over the deployment and use of the vital Panzer divisions.
Rommel recognised that the Allies would possess air superiority, and would be able to harass his movements from the air. He therefore proposed that the armoured formations be deployed close to the invasion beaches. In his words, it was better to have one Panzer division facing the invaders on the first day, than three Panzer divisions three days later when the allies would already have established a firm beachhead. Von Geyr argued for the standard doctrine that the Panzer formations should be concentrated in a central position around Paris and Rouen, and deployed
en masse against the main Allied beachhead when this had been identified.
The argument went all the way up to Hitler, who characteristically imposed an unworkable compromise solution. Three Panzer divisions were given to Rommel, too few to cover all the threatened sectors, and three to von Geyr, not enough for a decisive intervention. . Also, Hitler reserved to himself the authority to move most of these divisions, or commit them to action. On June 6, many Panzer division commanders were unable to move, as Hitler had not given the necessary authorization.
The Allied invasion plan
The order of battle was approximately as follows, east to west:
...
to protect the left flank.
...
estuary and destroy a battery. .
- British 50th Infantry Division and 8th Armoured Brigade on Gold Beach, from La Rivière to Arromanches.
- No.47 Commando on the West flank of Gold beach.
- U.S. V Corps
|-
| |}
The
V Corps—nicknamed the
Victory Corps—is a corps [i] of the United States Army [i]...
on
Omaha Beach, from Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to Vierville-sur-Mer.
- U.S. 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalion at Pointe du Hoc .
- U.S. VII Corps on Utah Beach, around Pouppeville and La Madeleine.
- U.S. 101st Airborne Division by parachute around Vierville to support Utah Beach landings.
- U.S. 82nd Airborne Division by parachute around Sainte-Mère-Église, protecting the right flank. They had originally been tasked with dropping further west, in the middle part of the Cotentin, allowing the sea-landing forces to their east easier access across the peninsula, and preventing the Germans from reinforcing the north part of the peninsula. The plans were later changed to move them much closer to the beachhead, as at the last minute the 91 Luftlande Division was found to be in the area.
- Activities by the French resistance forces, the Maquis, helped disrupt Axis lines of communications.
Naval participants
The Invasion Fleet was drawn from 8 different navies, comprising 6,939 vessels
.
The overall commander of the Allied Naval Expeditionary Force, providing close protection and bombardment at the beaches, was Admiral Sir
Bertram Ramsay. The Allied Naval Expeditionary Force was divided into two Naval Task Forces: Western and Eastern .
The warships provided cover for the transports against the enemy whether in the form of surface warships, submarines or as an aerial attack and give support to the landings through shore bombardment. These ships included the Allied Task Force "O".
- Full details of the naval participants in the landings are given at Operation Neptune.
Codenames
The Allies assigned codenames to the various operations involved in the invasion.
Overlord was the name assigned to the establishment of a large-scale lodgement on the Continent. The first phase, the establishment of a secure foothold, was codenamed
Neptune. According to the D-day museum :
- "The armed forces use codenames to refer to the planning and execution of specific military operations. Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe. The assault phase of Operation Overlord was known as Operation Neptune. Operation Neptune began on D-Day and ended on 30 June 1944. By this time, the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. Operation Overlord also began on D-Day, and continued until Allied forces crossed the River Seine on 19 August 1944."
German defenses
The Germans had extensively fortified the foreshore area as part of their
Atlantic Wall defences, with the thought that the forthcoming landings would be timed for high tide . It was guarded by four divisions, of which only one was of high quality . The 352nd had many troops who had seen action on the eastern front and on the 6th, had been carrying out anti-invasion exercises. The other defending troops included Germans who, usually for medical reasons, were not considered fit for active duty on the Eastern Front, and various other nationalities such as Soviet prisoners of war from the southern USSR who had agreed to fight for the Germans rather than endure the harsh conditions of German POW camps.
German defenses located in the Allies' planned landing areas consisted of four divisional areas or responsibility, with reserves also deployed in these areas.
Divisional Areas
- 716th Infantry Division defended the Eastern end of the landing zones, including most of the British and Canadian beaches.
- 352nd Infantry Division defended the area between approximately Bayeux and Carentan, including Omaha beach. Unlike the other divisions this one was well-trained and contained many combat veterans.
- 6th Parachute Regiment defended Carentan.
- 91st Air Landing Division , comprising the 1057th Infantry Regiment and 1058th Infantry Regiment. This was a regular infantry division, trained, and equipped to be transported by air located in the interior of the Cotentin Peninsula, including the landing zone of the American airdrops.
- 709th Infantry Division , comprising the 729th Infantry Regiment, 739th Infantry Regiment , and 919th Infantry Regiment. This coastal defense division protected the eastern, and northern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula, including the Utah beach landing zone.
Adjacent Divisional Areas
Other divisions occupied the areas around the landing zones, including:
- 243rd Infantry Division , comprising the 920th Infantry Regiment , 921st Infantry Regiment, and 922nd Infantry Regiment. This coastal defense division protected the western coast of the Cotentin Peninsula.
- 711th Infantry Division , comprising the 731th Infantry Regiment, and 744th Infantry Regiment. This division defended the western part of the Pays de Caux.
- 30th Mobile Brigade , comprising three bicycle battalions.
Mobile Reserves
The 21st Panzer Division was deployed near Caen as a mobile striking force, and the
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend was stationed to the southeast. Its officers and NCOs were long-serving veterans, but the junior soldiers had all been recruited directly from the
Hitler Youth movement at the age of sixteen in 1943, and it was to acquire a reputation for ferocity and war crimes in the coming battle.
The landings
Weather Forecast
The final factor in determining the date of the landing was the anticipated weather. By this stage of the war, the German U-Boats had largely been driven from the Atlantic and their weather stations in
Greenland had been closed down. The Allies possessed an advantage in knowledge of conditions in the Atlantic which was to prove decisive.
A full moon was required both for light for the aircraft pilots and for the
spring tide. Most of May had seen fine weather, but this deteriorated in early June. Eisenhower had tentatively selected June 5 as the date for the assault, but on June 4, conditions were clearly unsuitable for a landing; wind and high seas made it impossible to launch landing craft and low cloud would prevent aircraft finding their targets. The Allied troop convoys already at sea were forced to take shelter in bays and inlets on the south coast of Britain.
It seemed possible that everything would have to be cancelled and the troops returned to their camps . The next full moon period would be nearly a month away. At a vital meeting on June 5, Eisenhower's chief meteorologist forecast a brief improvement for June 6. Montgomery and Eisenhower's Chief of Staff were keen to proceed with the invasion. Leigh Mallory was doubtful, but Admiral Ramsay allowed that conditions would be marginally favourable. On the strength of the weather forecast, Eisenhower ordered the invasion to proceed.
The Germans meanwhile took comfort from the existing poor conditions, and believed no invasion would be possible for several days. Some troops stood down, and many senior officers were absent. .
The French Resistance
The various factions and circuits of the
French Resistance were included in the plan for
Overlord. Groups were tasked with attacking
railway lines, ambushing roads or destroying telephone exchanges or
electricity 
