The D-Day Landings

8/13/2019 The D-Day Landings

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Contents

Contents...1 Introduction..2 Chapter 1: Preparations and Planning..3

Chapter 2: The Invasion Begins...6 Chapter 3: After Securing Normandy..9 Conclusion...12 References.......13


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I ntroduction

The D-Day landings, codenamed `Operation Overlord`, was an operation that consisted

of Canadian, American, British, Polish, Free French, Norwegian and Australian troops.

There also were New Zealander troops. This operations main focus was to free Europe

from Hitlers Control. It was the biggest amphibious operation in the History of

Mankind.


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Chapter 1: Preparations and PlanningTo prepare, the USA, shipped a lot of supplies and troops to the UK. This was the first

part of the preparations. Its aim was to stock up right next to the battlefield. Here were

all the supplies shipped to the UK. At least one hundred and seventy five thousand

soldiers from different nations went to Britain and stayed there until everything came. A

lot of heavy artillery, guns, ammo, petrol, armour and other things were shipped to

Britain. They also brought new things. One such example is the landing craft used to

land the soldiers on to the beaches of Normandy.

The original plan was in two phases. Phase one was the airborne assault on the

beaches by twenty-thousand American, British, Canadian and free-French troops. Here

the troops should have parachuted off modified C-47 transport aircraft built by The

Douglas Aircraft Company. The soldiers jumped out of the plane just after midnight, sothey wouldnt be seen and shot at by the Germans. Decoy operations were also, planned

to be launched so the Germans would focus on those instead of the main operation that

was going on in Normandy. Phase two was the landing of thousands of landing crafts

filled with soldiers. These landing crafts were meant to land on the beaches. It was hard

for them to avoid all the minefields and the barbed wire the Germans had put there.

A C-47. These types of aircraft were used by the allies, in large numbers to parachute

troops and supplies into Normandy.


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According to the original plans, the 80 Kilometre stretch of beach, that the

soldiers were supposed to land on, was divided into five sectors. They were called:

Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword and Juno.

One hundred and ninety five thousand- seven hundred other personnel were also

involved. They did not do any of the fighting but they were the people that operated the

ships bringing troops and supplies to the soldiers fighting on the beaches of Normandy.

To Prepare for the D-day landings, the allies, had first sent out some airplanes to

see how well protected a nearby port was because they needed a working port to

transport all of the supplies and vehicles off the supply ships quickly. The result was

that the port was really well protected. The Royal Air Force lost 96 aircraft on that day.

Also before the actual assault, the Allies sent squadrons of bomber aircraft,

escorted by a dogfight airplane which was called the P-51 Mustang, to bomb most of

the rail and road lines leading to Normandy. The Mustangs also shot down a lot of thetrains running on the rails so that the beaches of Normandy would be isolated and when

the Germans realized that they are being attacked, it would take them a long time to

reach the attack zone.

After the failed attempt, to gain one of the German ports, the allies decided to

build their own. The Mulberry harbours consisted of concrete and steel blocks, called

Phoenix caissons and sunken ships to form break waters. Then they brought in pier

heads, the places where the ships would dock. They floated these from Britain. Then

they built the floating roads, on which the supplies would go, and connected the beaches

to the ships providing supplies. Both the Harbours were operational in the first twelve

days of landing.

This is one of the pier heads used by the harbours during Operation Overlord. After the

Pier head was in place, the four legs you can see are lowered onto the seabed to secure it

into place and so that it wont move very much when large ships dock next to it.


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In Operation Overlord, they planned to use landing crafts instead of boats or canoes

because in World War One, when the some British soldiers were attacking Turkey, they

had to get off their ship to reach land. But the ship could not go into shallow waters so

they sat in boats and went to land in those. But when they reached land, since it took

them a long time to get out of the boat, the Turkish soldiers just shot at them with

machine guns so, plainly, they were sitting ducks in their boat. The Allies, this time,

didnt want to make the same mistake again so they made landing crafts.

The Operation was actually planned for 5thJune 1944 but since the weather was

too bad on that day, the allies delayed it to 6 thJune 1944. The weather had to be perfect

on the day of the invasion or else the paratroopers and the landing craft could go off

course and make the whole operation fail. Only a few days from each month were

suitable because the allies needed a full moon for the troops to be able to see and there

needed to be spring tides and light winds for the ships and planes and gliders to be able

to land and navigate safely through the German defences. Since the operation wasplanned for the 5thof June, it couldve been cancelled because the weather wasnt good

enough for an invasion.

Part of the preparations for D-Day were that the Allies set up fake camps, they

leaked fake radio coded messages and they also leaked fake plans that were saying that

the attack zone would be somewhere else, not Normandy. All of this was done by the

allies to confuse the Nazis so that they could begin Operation Overlord.

To aid in the war, British people were working a lot in ammunition factories. People

who were unable to join the real army, volunteered to join the Local DefenceVolunteers (LDV),also nicknamed `Dads Army` because most of its members were

unable to join the real army because of old age. It mission was to protect Britain from

Germany in case it invaded Germany. The LDV was later officially renamed `The

Home Guard` by the prime minister, Winston Churchill. The Home guard had about 1.5

Million local members.

When the plans and the preparations were ready, the allied forces made final

checks and double checks and then they started the invasion that got rid of Hitler from

Germany.

Here is a squadron of P51 Mustangs.


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Chapter 2: The Invasion begins.

On Tuesday 6th of June 1944, Operation Overlord began. The allied troops

poured in from the skies and the seas. First fleets of C-47 transport aircraft parachuted

men and supplies to the ground. After landing, the troops began to get into their

positions and were calling in for air support and more supplies. This part of the invasion

happened just after midnight. These troops were lightly armed and did not have any

armour. They had to hold their position against the Germans until 6:30 in the morning.

This was when the huge fleet of more than 5000 ships came, carrying supplies and

soldiers to support them. This was when the actual invasion began. Landing craft came

and went and brought more supplies and troops to Normandy. Since there were fivesections of the beach, troops from different countries were assigned to these beaches

since men from the same country had a higher possibility of working together well. In

The Utah and Omaha beaches, the allied forces there were mostly Americans. In Gold

Beach, the allied forces there were mostly British. In Juno beach, the allied forces there

were mostly Canadians and British. Most of the troops on Sword beach were British and

free French.

The Canadians played an important role in the capture of Normandy. They were

fighting in Juno beach and were the soldiers that penetrated furthest into France. They

faced the second-most Heavy resistance. They faced: 2 heavy artillery batteries each

with a 155mm gun, 9 medium artillery batteries each with a 75 mm gun. There also

were machine gun nests, a seawall bigger than the one on Omaha beach and pillboxes

(concrete boxes in which guns are put in to defend something).

Here is a pillbox, one of the types used by the

Nazis to defend Normandy. The open windows in it are for heavy artillery guns and

machine gun nests.


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The Germans knew there was going to be an invasion, because their spy planes saw

some activities on the southern coast of England. The Germans knew that to sustain aninvasion, the allies would have to have a port, so the Germans put up heavy defences on

a port called Pas de Calais. This was a huge port and was the shortest distance away

from Britain.

The Allies didnt get a lot of resistance but they did get some. Even though the

Germans didnt have a lot of troops in Normandy, they werent completely stupid, they

rigged up a lot of defences like mine-fields on land and hidden mines at sea so that if a

ship touched it, the mine would explode and the ship would sink. They werent

expecting an invasion in Normandy because the weather there was bad and because

there wasnt a functional port. The allies needed a port to transport all the material fromtheir ships to land, where the troops were.

To successfully seize Sword beach, the invasion there began at 3:00 with an

aerial attack on the German coastline defences and artillery sites. A few hours later,

naval attacks began where ships shot artillery at German targets. At 7:30 am the first

troops came ashore. These were Sherman amphibious tanks (DD tanks), closely

followed by infantry. Later on, commandos landed on the beaches and went to destroy

two artillery batteries but found out, when they reached there, that the place where the

guns were supposed to be were empty and the guns were gone.

To claim Omaha beach, the US troops had to fight really hard. This beach was

the most heavily fortified and had mortars, machine gun nests and artillery. What the

allies did at first was to bombard the bunkers and mortars with bombs, dropped from

airplanes and to use ships to shoot artillery at them. This proved to be ineffective. The

troops landing there suffered heavy casualties in men and machines. Of the 16 tanks that

were sent to the beach, only 2 survived landing on the beach. The rest were shot down

at sea or as soon as they reached land. 5000 American soldiers died on Omaha beach on

D-day while Germany lost 1,200 soldiers on Omaha beach on D-day.

This is a DD Sherman tank. It is a tank that

is waterproof and can swim. These typed of tanks were used by the allies on D-day. DD

stands for Duplex Drive.


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Casualties on Utah beach were really less. Out of the 23,000 men, 197 men died.

To secure this beach was relatively easy. The troops here easily seized the exits from the

Germans and moved forward because there was really less resistance and there werent

much fortification or defences like on Omaha beach.

Losses on Gold beach were heavy because the Sherman DD tanks were delayed

and the Germans had heavily fortified a village on the beach so when the troops came

on the beach, the German heavy artillery would shoot at the troops. But the troops

didnt have any support because their armour was delayed. In the end, they managed to

make it to their objective, which was that they made it to the outskirts of a small French

town called Bayeux. These men were the only men (other than the Canadians) to reach

so close to their objectives.

During D-Day, only one ship to ship encounter happened. This was when 4

German torpedo boats shot torpedoes at a Norwegian destroyer and sank it. The

torpedo boats missed the 2 battle ships: HMS Warspite and HMS Ramillies. After this,

the torpedo boats fled. The allies, using ULTRA a machine to break codes, managed to

find out where mines were so they could avoid them. All of the other naval losses were

to mines.

The Mulberry harbours, that were the supply line of the allies, were severely

damaged during a storm from the 19thuntil the 22nd June. One of them was so badly

damaged that it was irreparable so the engineers used its parts to fix the other one. The

reason that the Harbours werent destroyed completely was because there was a

breakwater of phoenix caissons and sunken ships, which were sunk by the navy, toprotect the harbours from a storm.

After the beaches of Normandy were secured, the allies moved into France and

Freed Europe from Hitlers Control. The allies won the war because Germany had to

put most of its troops guarding the western front, against the allied British and

Americans but from the eastern front, the Soviet Union was also invading. So Germany

was stuck in a middle of an Invasion and because the allies overpowered the Nazis,

They won the war.

This is what a landing craft looks like.


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Chapter 3: After Securing NormandyThe 5 beaches were secured and linked together after one week since the

landings. After the beaches of Normandy were secured, the allies began to move in and

secure the rest of France. According to the original plans, after the landings were

complete and beachheads were made, the towns of Bayeux, Caen, Carentan, Cherbourg

and Saint Lo needed to be captured.

Once the beaches had been secured, the allies began making plans to attack

Cherbourg. They chose to attack Cherbourg first because it was a small town at the end

of the Cotentin Peninsula and it had a really large deep water port. This was also a

major port that was nearest to the original landing beaches. The deep-water port was

needed because supplies before they captured the port had to be shipped to Britain from

America. Then they had to be unloaded off the ships, unpacked, waterproofed, repackedand the on loaded onto the ships that would bring it to France. If they successfully

captured the port, then the supply ships that came from America would then directly

come to France and unload at the port, which was a whole lot easier and the supplies

would be brought quicker for the troops that needed them.

The second town that needed to be captured was Caen. The Allies wanted to

capture Caen for several reasons: The Orne River and the Caen Canal were inside this

town. So if the allies didnt cross these waterways, the Germans could hold a defensive

position easier because the water would be helping them. Secondly, Caen had a major

roads system so if it stayed in German hands, the Germans could quickly bring inreinforcements and supplies to strengthen its defensive position. And thirdly because

the area around Caen was open, unlike the area near the beaches of Normandy, the allies

could use it to make airfields.

The Capture of Caen began by the allied operation called Operation Neptune. In

Operation Neptune, The soldiers invaded France from the sea, as described in Chapters

1 and 2. The beach that mainly had the task of Capturing Caen was Sword beach. But

the troops here failed to reach Caen. In fact, they were 6 kilometres away from their

objective. The reason they failed was because, on the way to Caen, the Panzer division

of Germany, which was the division that controlled the German Tanks, launched

counter-attacks against the soldiers trying to capture Caen. They succeeded and the

allied soldiers that were going to capture Caen had to retreat. In what was called

Operation Perch the allies tried to recapture Caen but that attempt failed and Caen was

still firmly in German hands. Many more Operations were launched to capture Caen or

ground near Caen. These were called Operation: Neptune, Perch, Le-Mesnil Patry,

Martlet, Epsom, Windsor, Charnwood, Jupiter and Goodwood. Once all of these

operations were completed, Caen, after a lot of fighting was captured by the allies.


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This was the main battle

plan to attack Caen.

One of the main reasons that the war was won by the allies was because the

launched an operation called Operation Cobra. Operation Cobra happened 8 weeks

after the Normandy Landings. Due to bad weather, it was delayed until the 25 thof July,

when it started. It was started by the First US Army and its purpose was to open up a

corridor between the German lines so that the allies could pour in the troops through the

Germans and win the war from the inside. It happened in the small town of Saint-L.

The main reason that it was successful was because the British and Canadian troops

were fighting for the town of Caen, so the Americans took advantage of this situation to

punch through the enemys defences which were weakened because most of the

supplies and troops were sent to Caen. So the Battle of Caen was a distraction. In theend, the Allies were able to pour through the German defence and in the end, reach

Berlin.

Another battle was fought, which was called the Battle of Falaise. Here the

German troops, mainly Panzer divisions, were being encircled and trapped by the

advancing Western Allies. Even though, there was an invasion in Saint-L by American

allies and an invasion by British and Canadian allies in the town of Caen, the

commanding General was not allowed to retreat. Instead Hitler ordered him to engage a

counter-attack the allies around the town of Mortain.

The German General of Ground Troops, while the invasion was going on, was Gnther

von Kluge. All he could gather up were 4 Panzer Tank divisions and since Hitler forced

him to counter-attack, he counter-attacked the allies with his tanks and he failed

disastrously. Instead of trying to stop the Allies, all he did was to drive his troops more

deeply into the allied ground and put them in great danger.

2 days after The Battle of Falaise, The Allies had successfully liberated Paris. By

the 30thof August, all of the German troops had crossed the River Seine thus, ending

Operation Overlord.


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This is a Panzer II tank thatwas used by the Germans in their War-Winning Blitzkrieg tactics.

Once the Allies had made a major foothold in France, they then started to invade

Germany to end the War. The Last of the German Troops surrendered at Berlin when

the Allied troops cornered them there. Hitler had then committed suicide by shooting

himself when the Soviet army was just 2 or 3 blocks away from Hitlers Residence.

This is Adolph Hitler, because of him, World War 2

began.

This is General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was the leader of the

allies during The D-day Landings.


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Conclusion

In conclusion, The Allies had won a decisive victory though they did suffer a lot

of losses. In the whole of the D-Day Landings, the Allies had approximately 10,000

casualties out of 175,000 men that originally fought on D-Day while Germany had

approximately 4,000 to 9,000 casualties out of 10,000 men that fought on D-Day.

D-Day was also the biggest joint operation that was ever attempted in history.

The main reason the allies won was because they co-operated well with each other and

they also kept their morale high and valued life more than winning a battle unlike

Germany, which ordered its men to counter-attack even though they were clearly

surrounded and outnumbered. This also led to a few revolts. If Germany had valued the

life of its men more than the outcome of a battle, it mightve had a chance to win the

war.

The End.


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ReferencesHere is a list of websites I used:

www.wikipedia.org

www.youtube.com

www.answers.yahoo.com

www.answers.com

www.history.com
http://www.wikipedia.org/http://www.youtube.com/http://www.answers.yahoo.com/http://www.answers.com/http://www.answers.com/http://www.history.com/http://www.history.com/http://www.history.com/http://www.answers.com/http://www.answers.yahoo.com/http://www.youtube.com/http://www.wikipedia.org/


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The D-Day Landings

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