Normandy landings
Part of Operation Overlord and the Western Front of the Second World War
Taxis to Hell – and Back – Into the Jaws of Death, an iconic image of men of the 16th Infantry Regiment, US 1st Infantry Division wading ashore from their landing craft on Omaha Beach on the morning of 6 June 1944
Date 6 June 1944; 80 years ago (6 June 1944) Location Normandy, France 49°20′N 0°36′W / 49.34°N 0.60°W / 49.34; -0.60 Result Allied victory[8] Territorial changes Five Allied beachheads established in Normandy
Belligerents
Allies:  United Kingdom  United States  Canada  France[1]  Australia[2]  Czechoslovakia[3] Poland[1]  Netherlands[4] Norway[1]  New Zealand[5]  Greece[6]  South Africa[7]  Southern Rhodesia[7]	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Dwight D. Eisenhower Arthur Tedder Miles Dempsey Bernard Montgomery Trafford Leigh-Mallory Bertram Ramsay Omar Bradley	Gerd von Rundstedt Erwin Rommel Hugo Sperrle Theodor Krancke L. Geyr von Schweppenburg Friedrich Dollmann Hans von Salmuth
Units involved
First Army Omaha Beach: V Corps 1st Infantry Division 29th Infantry Division Utah Beach: VII Corps 4th Infantry Division 82nd Airborne Division 90th Infantry Division 101st Airborne Division Second Army Gold Beach: XXX Corps 50th Infantry Division Juno Beach: I Corps 3rd Canadian Infantry Division Sword Beach: I Corps 3rd Infantry Division 6th Airborne Division	5th Panzer Army South of Caen: 21st Panzer Division 7th Army Omaha Beach: 352nd Infantry Division Utah Beach: 709th Static Division Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches: 716th Static Division
Strength
156,000 soldiers[a] 195,700 naval personnel[10]	50,350+[11] 170 coastal artillery guns[b]
Casualties and losses
10,000+ casualties; 4,414 confirmed dead[c] 185 M4 Sherman tanks[14]	4,000–9,000 killed, wounded, missing, or captured[15]

The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.

Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on the day selected for D-Day was not ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and time of day, that meant only a few days each month were deemed suitable. Adolf Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces and developing fortifications along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an invasion. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt placed Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command of Allied forces.

The invasion began shortly after midnight on the morning of 6 June with extensive aerial and naval bombardment as well as an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops. The early morning aerial assault was soon followed by Allied amphibious landings on the coast of France c. 06:30. The target 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Strong winds blew the landing craft east of their intended positions, particularly at Utah and Omaha.

The men landed under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. Casualties were heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs. At Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled using specialised tanks.

The Allies failed to achieve any of their major goals beyond the establishment of the beachheads on the first day. Carentan, Saint-Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands, and Caen, a major objective, was not captured until 21 July. Only two of the beaches (Juno and Gold) were linked on the first day, and all five beachheads were not connected until 12 June; however, the operation gained a foothold that the Allies gradually expanded over the coming months. German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were documented for at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.

Background

After the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin began pressing his new allies for the creation of a second front in western Europe.^[16] In late May 1942, the Soviet Union and the United States made a joint announcement that a "... full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942."^[17] However, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill persuaded US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to postpone the promised invasion as, even with US help, the Allies did not have adequate forces for such an activity.^[18]

Instead of an immediate return to France, the western Allies staged offensives in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, where British troops were already stationed. By mid-1943, the campaign in North Africa had been won. The Allies then launched the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and subsequently invaded the Italian mainland in September the same year. By then, Soviet forces were on the offensive and had won a major victory at the Battle of Stalingrad. The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion within the next year was taken at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943.^[19] Initial planning was constrained by the number of available landing craft, most of which were already committed in the Mediterranean and Pacific.^[20] At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill promised Stalin that they would open the long-delayed second front in May 1944.^[21]

The Allies considered four sites for the landings: Brittany, the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy, and the Pas-de-Calais. As Brittany and Cotentin are peninsulas, it would have been possible for the Germans to cut off the Allied advance at a relatively narrow isthmus, so these sites were rejected.^[22] With the Pas-de-Calais being the closest point in continental Europe to Britain, the Germans considered it to be the most likely initial landing zone, so it was the most heavily fortified region.^[23] But it offered few opportunities for expansion, as the area is bounded by numerous rivers and canals,^[24] whereas, landings on a broad front in Normandy would permit simultaneous threats against the port of Cherbourg, coastal ports further west in Brittany, and an overland attack towards Paris and eventually into Germany. Normandy was hence chosen as the landing site.^[25] The most serious drawback of the Normandy coast—the lack of port facilities—would be overcome through the development of artificial Mulberry harbours.^[26] A series of modified tanks, nicknamed Hobart's Funnies, dealt with specific requirements expected for the Normandy Campaign such as mine clearing, demolishing bunkers, and mobile bridging.^[27]

The Allies planned to launch the invasion on 1 May 1944.^[24] The initial draft of the plan was accepted at the Quebec Conference in August 1943. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.^[28] General Bernard Montgomery was named commander of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all land forces involved in the invasion.^[29] On 31 December 1943, Eisenhower and Montgomery first saw the plan, which proposed amphibious landings by three divisions with two more divisions in support. The two generals insisted that the scale of the initial invasion be expanded to five divisions, with airborne descents by three additional divisions, to allow operations on a wider front and to hasten the capture of Cherbourg.^[30] The need to acquire or produce extra landing craft for the expanded operation meant that the invasion had to be delayed to June.^[30] Eventually, thirty-nine Allied divisions would be committed to the Battle of Normandy: twenty-two American, twelve British, three Canadian, one Polish, and one French, totalling over a million troops.^[31]

Operations

Operation Overlord was the name assigned to the establishment of a large-scale lodgement on the continent. The first phase, the amphibious invasion and establishment of a secure foothold, was codenamed Operation Neptune.^[26] To gain the air superiority needed to ensure a successful invasion, the Allies undertook a bombing campaign (codenamed Operation Pointblank) that targeted German aircraft production, fuel supplies, and airfields.^[26] Elaborate deceptions, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, were undertaken in the months leading up to the invasion to prevent the Germans from learning the timing and location of the invasion.^[32]

The landings were to be preceded by airborne operations near Caen on the eastern flank to secure the Orne River bridges and north of Carentan on the western flank. The Americans, assigned to land at Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, were to attempt to capture Carentan and Saint-Lô the first day, then cut off the Cotentin Peninsula and eventually capture the port facilities at Cherbourg. The British at Sword and Gold Beaches and the Canadians at Juno Beach would protect the US flank and attempt to establish airfields near Caen on the first day.^[33][34] (A sixth beach, code-named "Band", was considered to the east of the Orne).^[35] A secure lodgement would be established with all invading forces linked together, with an attempt to hold all territory north of the Avranches-Falaise line within the first three weeks.^[33][34] Montgomery envisaged a ninety-day battle, lasting until all Allied forces reached the River Seine.^[36]

Deception plans

Under the overall umbrella of Operation Bodyguard, the Allies conducted several subsidiary operations designed to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the Allied landings.^[37] Operation Fortitude included Fortitude North, a misinformation campaign using fake radio traffic to lead the Germans into expecting an attack on Norway,^[38] and Fortitude South, a major deception involving the creation of a fictitious First United States Army Group under Lieutenant General George S. Patton, supposedly located in Kent and Sussex. Fortitude South was intended to deceive the Germans into believing that the main attack would take place at Calais.^[32][39] Genuine radio messages from 21st Army Group were first routed to Kent via landline and then broadcast, to give the Germans the impression that most of the Allied troops were stationed there.^[40] Patton was stationed in England until 6 July, thus continuing to deceive the Germans into believing a second attack would take place at Calais.^[41]

Many of the German radar stations on the French coast were destroyed in preparation for the landings.^[42] In addition, on the night before the invasion, a small group of Special Air Service operators deployed dummy paratroopers over Le Havre and Isigny. These dummies led the Germans to believe that an additional airborne landing had occurred. On that same night, in Operation Taxable, No. 617 Squadron RAF dropped strips of "window", metal foil that caused a radar return which was mistakenly interpreted by German radar operators as a naval convoy near Le Havre. The illusion was bolstered by a group of small vessels towing barrage balloons. A similar deception was undertaken near Boulogne-sur-Mer in the Pas de Calais area by No. 218 Squadron RAF in Operation Glimmer.^[43][2]

Weather

The invasion planners determined a set of conditions involving the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that would be satisfactory on only a few days in each month. A full moon was desirable, as it would provide illumination for aircraft pilots and have the highest tides. The Allies wanted to schedule the landings for shortly before dawn, midway between low and high tide, with the tide coming in. This would improve the visibility of obstacles on the beach while minimising the amount of time the men would be exposed in the open.^[44] Eisenhower had tentatively selected 5 June as the date for the assault. However, on 4 June, conditions were unsuitable for a landing: high winds and heavy seas made it impossible to launch landing craft, and low clouds would prevent aircraft from finding their targets.^[45] The weather forecast that reported the storms was sent from a weather station on the western coast of Ireland.^[46]

Group Captain James Stagg of the Royal Air Force (RAF) met Eisenhower on the evening of 4 June. He and his meteorological team predicted that the weather would improve enough for the invasion to proceed on 6 June.^[47] The next available dates with the required tidal conditions (but without the desirable full moon) would be two weeks later, from 18 to 20 June. Postponement of the invasion would have required recalling men and ships already in position to cross the English Channel and would have increased the chance that the invasion plans would be detected.^[48] After much discussion with the other senior commanders, Eisenhower decided that the invasion should go ahead on 6 June.^[49] A major storm battered the Normandy coast from 19 to 22 June, which would have made the beach landings impossible.^[45]

Allied control of the Atlantic meant German meteorologists had less information than the Allies on incoming weather patterns.^[42] As the Luftwaffe meteorological centre in Paris was predicting two weeks of stormy weather, many Wehrmacht commanders left their posts to attend war games in Rennes, and men in many units were given leave.^[50] Field Marshal Erwin Rommel returned to Germany for his wife's birthday and to petition Hitler for additional Panzer divisions.^[51]

German order of battle

Germany had at its disposal fifty divisions in France and the Low Countries, with another eighteen stationed in Denmark and Norway. Fifteen divisions were in the process of formation in Germany.^[52] Combat losses throughout the war, particularly on the Eastern Front, meant that the Germans no longer had a pool of able young men from which to draw. German soldiers were now on average six years older than their Allied counterparts. Many in the Normandy area were Ostlegionen (eastern legions)—conscripts and volunteers from Russia, Mongolia, and other areas of the Soviet Union. They were provided mainly with unreliable captured equipment and lacked motorised transport.^[53][54] Many German units were under strength.^[55]

In early 1944, the German Western Front (OB West) was significantly weakened by personnel and materiel transfers to the Eastern Front. During the Soviet Dnieper–Carpathian offensive (24 December 1943 – 17 April 1944), the German High Command was forced to transfer the entire II SS Panzer Corps from France, consisting of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, as well as the 349th Infantry Division, 507th Heavy Panzer Battalion and the 311th and 322nd StuG Assault Gun Brigades. All told, the German forces stationed in France were deprived of 45,827 troops and 363 tanks, assault guns, and self-propelled anti-tank guns.^[56]

The 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler", 9th, 11th, 19th and 116th Panzer divisions, alongside the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich", had only arrived in France in March–May 1944 for extensive refit after being badly damaged during the Dnieper-Carpathian operation. Seven of the eleven panzer or panzergrenadier divisions stationed in France were not fully operational or only partially mobile in early June 1944.^[57]

German Supreme commander: Adolf Hitler

• Oberbefehlshaber West (Supreme Commander West; OB West): Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt

• (Panzer Group West: General Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg)

• Army Group B: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
  • 7th Army: Generaloberst Friedrich Dollmann
    • LXXXIV Corps under General der Artillerie Erich Marcks

Cotentin Peninsula

Allied forces attacking Utah Beach faced the following German units stationed on the Cotentin Peninsula:

• 709th Static Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben numbered 12,320 men, many of them Ostlegionen (non-German conscripts recruited from Soviet prisoners of war).^[58]
  • 729th Grenadier Regiment^[59]
  • 739th Grenadier Regiment^[59]
  • 919th Grenadier Regiment^[59]

Grandcamps Sector

Americans assaulting Omaha Beach faced the following troops:

• 352nd Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Dietrich Kraiss, a full-strength unit of around 12,000 brought in by Rommel on 15 March and reinforced by two additional regiments.^[60]
  • 914th Grenadier Regiment^[61]
  • 915th Grenadier Regiment (as reserves)^[61]
  • 916th Grenadier Regiment^[61]
  • 726th Infantry Regiment (from 716th Infantry Division)^[61]
  • 352nd Artillery Regiment^[61]

Allied forces at Gold and Juno faced the following elements of the 352nd Infantry Division:

• 914th Grenadier Regiment^[62]
• 915th Grenadier Regiment^[62]
• 916th Grenadier Regiment^[62]
• 352nd Artillery Regiment^[62]

Forces around Caen

Allied forces attacking Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches faced the following German units:

• 716th Static Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter. At 7,000 troops, the division was significantly understrength.^[63]
  • 736th Infantry Regiment^[64]
  • 1716th Artillery Regiment^[64]
• 21st Panzer Division, (south of Caen) under Generalmajor Edgar Feuchtinger included 146 tanks and 50 assault guns, plus supporting infantry and artillery.^[65]
  • 100th Panzer Regiment^[62] (at Falaise under Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski; renamed 22nd Panzer Regiment in May 1944 to avoid confusion with 100th Panzer Battalion) ^[66]
  • 125th Panzergrenadier Regiment^[62](under Hans von Luck from April 1944)^[67]
  • 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment^[62]
  • 155th Panzer Artillery Regiment^[62]

Atlantic Wall

Alarmed by the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe in 1942, Hitler had ordered the construction of fortifications all along the Atlantic coast, from Spain to Norway, to protect against an expected Allied invasion. He envisioned 15,000 emplacements manned by 300,000 troops, but shortages, particularly of concrete and manpower, meant that most of the strongpoints were never built.^[68] As it was expected to be the site of the invasion, the Pas de Calais was heavily defended.^[68] In the Normandy area, the best fortifications were concentrated at the port facilities at Cherbourg and Saint-Malo.^[30] Rommel was assigned to oversee the construction of further fortifications along the expected invasion front, which stretched from the Netherlands to Cherbourg,^[68][69] and was given command of the newly re-formed Army Group B, which included the 7th Army, the 15th Army, and the forces guarding the Netherlands. Reserves for this group included the 2nd, 21st, and 116th Panzer divisions.^[70][71]

Rommel believed that the Normandy coast could be a possible landing point for the invasion, so he ordered the construction of extensive defensive works along that shore. In addition to concrete gun emplacements at strategic points along the coast, he ordered wooden stakes, metal tripods, mines, and large anti-tank obstacles to be placed on the beaches to delay the approach of landing craft and impede the movement of tanks.^[72] Expecting the Allies to land at high tide so that the infantry would spend less time exposed on the beach, he ordered many of these obstacles to be placed at the high water mark.^[44] Tangles of barbed wire, booby traps, and the removal of ground cover made the approach hazardous for infantry.^[72] On Rommel's order, the number of mines along the coast was tripled.^[30] The Allied air offensive over Germany had crippled the Luftwaffe and established air supremacy over western Europe, so Rommel knew he could not expect effective air support.^[73] The Luftwaffe could muster only 815 aircraft^[74] over Normandy in comparison to the Allies' 9,543.^[75] Rommel arranged for booby-trapped stakes known as Rommelspargel (Rommel's asparagus) to be installed in meadows and fields to deter airborne landings.^[30]

German armaments minister Albert Speer notes in his 1969 autobiography that the German high command, concerned about the susceptibility of the airports and port facilities along the North Sea coast, held a conference on 6–8 June 1944 to discuss reinforcing defences in that area.^[76] Speer wrote:

In Germany itself we scarcely had any troop units at our disposal. If the airports at Hamburg and Bremen could be taken by parachute units and the ports of these cities seized by small forces, invasion armies debarking from ships would, I feared, meet no resistance and would be occupying Berlin and all of Germany within a few days.^[77]

Armoured reserves

Rommel believed that Germany's best chance was to stop the invasion at the shore. He requested that the mobile reserves, especially tanks, be stationed as close to the coast as possible. Rundstedt, Geyr, and other senior commanders objected. They believed that the invasion could not be stopped on the beaches. Geyr argued for a conventional doctrine: keeping the Panzer formations concentrated in a central position around Paris and Rouen and deploying them only when the main Allied beachhead had been identified. He also noted that in the Italian Campaign, the armoured units stationed near the coast had been damaged by naval bombardment. Rommel's opinion was that because of Allied air supremacy, the large-scale movement of tanks would not be possible once the invasion was under way. Hitler made the final decision, which was to leave three Panzer divisions under Geyr's command and give Rommel operational control of three more as reserves. Hitler took personal control of four divisions as strategic reserves, not to be used without his direct orders.^[78][79][80]

Allied order of battle

Commander, SHAEF: General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Commander, 21st Army Group: General Bernard Montgomery^[81]

US zones

Commander, First Army: Lieutenant General Omar Bradley^[81]

The First Army contingent totalled approximately 73,000 men, including 15,600 from the airborne divisions.^[15]

Utah Beach

• VII Corps, commanded by Major General J. Lawton Collins^[82]
  • 4th Infantry Division: Major General Raymond O. Barton^[82]
  • 82nd Airborne Division: Major General Matthew Ridgway^[82]
  • 90th Infantry Division: Brigadier General Jay W. MacKelvie^[82]
  • 101st Airborne Division: Major General Maxwell D. Taylor^[82]

Omaha Beach

• V Corps, commanded by Major General Leonard T. Gerow, making up 34,250 men^[83]
  • 1st Infantry Division: Major General Clarence R. Huebner^[84]
  • 29th Infantry Division: Major General Charles H. Gerhardt^[84]

British and Canadian zones

Commander, Second Army: Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey^[81]

Overall, the Second Army contingent consisted of 83,115 men, 61,715 of them British.^[15] The British and Commonwealth air and naval support units included a large number of personnel from Allied nations, including several RAF squadrons manned almost exclusively by overseas air crew. For example, the Australian contribution to the operation included a regular Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) squadron, nine Article XV squadrons, and hundreds of personnel posted to RAF units and RN warships.^[85] The RAF supplied two-thirds of the aircraft involved in the invasion.^[86]

Gold Beach

• XXX Corps (UK), commanded by Lieutenant General Gerard Bucknall^[87]
  • 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division: Major General Douglas Graham^[87]
  • reinforced with
    • 56th Infantry Brigade
    • 8th Armoured Brigade
    • 47th (Royal Marine) Commando

Juno Beach

• British I Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General John Crocker^[88]
  • 3rd Canadian Division: Major General Rod Keller^[88]

Sword Beach

• British I Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General John Crocker^[89]
  • 3rd Infantry Division: Major General Tom Rennie^[89]
  • 6th Airborne Division (UK): Major General Richard Gale^[89]

79th Armoured Division: Major General Percy Hobart^[90] provided specialised armoured vehicles which supported the landings on all beaches in Second Army's sector.

Coordination with the French Resistance

Through the London-based État-major des Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur (French Forces of the Interior), the British Special Operations Executive orchestrated a campaign of sabotage to be implemented by the French Resistance. The Allies developed four plans for the Resistance to execute on D-Day and the following days:

• Plan Vert was a 15-day operation to sabotage the rail system.
• Plan Bleu dealt with destroying electrical facilities.
• Plan Tortue was a delaying operation aimed at the enemy forces that would potentially reinforce Axis forces at Normandy.
• Plan Violet dealt with cutting underground telephone and teleprinter cables.^[91]

The resistance was alerted to carry out these tasks by messages personnels transmitted by the BBC's French service from London. Several hundred of these messages, which might be snippets of poetry, quotations from literature, or random sentences, were regularly transmitted, masking the few that were actually significant. In the weeks preceding the landings, lists of messages and their meanings were distributed to resistance groups.^[92] An increase in radio activity on 5 June was correctly interpreted by German intelligence to mean that an invasion was imminent or underway. However, because of the barrage of previous false warnings and misinformation, most units ignored the warning.^[93][94]

A 1965 report from the Counter-insurgency Information Analysis Center details the results of the French Resistance's sabotage efforts: "In the southeast, 52 locomotives were destroyed on 6 June and the railway line cut in more than 500 places. Normandy was isolated as of 7 June."^[95]

Naval activity

Naval operations for the invasion were described by historian Correlli Barnett as a "never surpassed masterpiece of planning".^[96] In overall command was British Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who had served as Flag officer at Dover during the Dunkirk evacuation four years earlier. He had also been responsible for the naval planning of the invasion of North Africa in 1942, and one of the two fleets carrying troops for the invasion of Sicily the following year.^[97]

The invasion fleet, which was drawn from eight different navies, comprised 6,939 vessels: 1,213 warships, 4,126 landing craft of various types, 736 ancillary craft, and 864 merchant vessels.^[15] The majority of the fleet was supplied by the UK, which provided 892 warships and 3,261 landing craft.^[86] In total there were 195,700 naval personnel involved; of these 112,824 were from the Royal Navy with another 25,000 from the Merchant Navy; 52,889 were American; and 4,998 sailors from other allied countries.^[15][10] The invasion fleet was split into the Western Naval Task Force (under Admiral Alan G. Kirk) supporting the US sectors and the Eastern Naval Task Force (under Admiral Sir Philip Vian) in the British and Canadian sectors.^[98][97] Available to the fleet were five battleships, 20 cruisers, 65 destroyers, and two monitors.^[99] German ships in the area on D-Day included three torpedo boats, 29 fast attack craft, 36 R boats, and 36 minesweepers and patrol boats.^[100] The Germans also had several U-boats available, and all the approaches had been heavily mined.^[44]

Naval losses

At 05:10, four German torpedo boats reached the Eastern Task Force and launched fifteen torpedoes, sinking the Norwegian destroyer HNoMS Svenner off Sword Beach but missing the British battleships HMS Warspite and Ramillies. After attacking, the German vessels turned away and fled east into a smoke screen that had been laid by the RAF to shield the fleet from the long-range battery at Le Havre.^[101] Allied losses to mines included the American destroyer USS Corry off Utah and submarine chaser USS PC-1261, a 173-foot patrol craft.^[102]

Bombardment

Bombing of Normandy began around midnight with more than 2,200 British, Canadian, and US bombers attacking targets along the coast and further inland.^[44] The coastal bombing attack was largely ineffective at Omaha, because low cloud cover made the assigned targets difficult to see. Concerned about inflicting casualties on their own troops, many bombers delayed their attacks too long and failed to hit the beach defences.^[103] The Germans had 570 aircraft stationed in Normandy and the Low Countries on D-Day, and another 964 in Germany.^[44]

Minesweepers began clearing channels for the invasion fleet shortly after midnight and finished just after dawn without encountering the enemy.^[104] The Western Task Force included the battleships Arkansas, Nevada, and Texas, plus eight cruisers, twenty-eight destroyers, and one monitor.^[105] The Eastern Task Force included the battleships Ramillies and Warspite and the monitor Roberts, twelve cruisers, and thirty-seven destroyers.^[1] Naval bombardment of areas behind the beach commenced at 05:45, while it was still dark, with the gunners switching to pre-assigned targets on the beach as soon as it was light enough to see, at 05:50.^[106] Since troops were scheduled to land at Utah and Omaha starting at 06:30 (an hour earlier than the British beaches), these areas received only about 40 minutes of naval bombardment before the assault troops began to land on the shore.^[107]

Airborne operations

The success of the amphibious landings depended on the establishment of a secure lodgement from which to expand the beachhead to allow the build-up of a well-supplied force capable of breaking out. The amphibious forces were especially vulnerable to strong enemy counter-attacks before the arrival of sufficient forces in the beachhead could be accomplished. To slow or eliminate the enemy's ability to organise and launch counter-attacks during this critical period, airborne operations were used to seize key objectives such as bridges, road crossings, and terrain features, particularly on the eastern and western flanks of the landing areas. The airborne landings some distance behind the beaches were also intended to ease the egress of the amphibious forces off the beaches, and in some cases to neutralise German coastal defence batteries and more quickly expand the area of the beachhead.^[108][109]

The US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were assigned to objectives west of Utah Beach, where they hoped to capture and control the few narrow causeways through terrain that had been intentionally flooded by the Germans. Reports from Allied intelligence in mid-May of the arrival of the German 91st Infantry Division meant the intended drop zones had to be shifted eastward and to the south.^[110] The British 6th Airborne Division, on the eastern flank, was assigned to capture intact the bridges over the Caen Canal and River Orne, destroy five bridges over the Dives 6 miles (9.7 km) to the east, and destroy the Merville Gun Battery overlooking Sword Beach.^[111] Free French paratroopers from the British SAS Brigade were assigned to objectives in Brittany from 5 June until August in Operations Dingson, Samwest, and Cooney.^[112][113]

BBC war correspondent Robert Barr described the scene as paratroopers prepared to board their aircraft:

Their faces were darkened with cocoa; sheathed knives were strapped to their ankles; tommy guns strapped to their waists; bandoliers and hand grenades, coils of rope, pick handles, spades, rubber dinghies hung around them, and a few personal oddments, like the lad who was taking a newspaper to read on the plane ... There was an easy familiar touch about the way they were getting ready, as though they had done it often before. Well, yes, they had kitted up and climbed aboard often just like this—twenty, thirty, forty times some of them, but it had never been quite like this before. This was the first combat jump for every one of them.^[114]

United States

The US airborne landings began with the arrival of pathfinders at 00:15. Navigation was difficult because of a bank of thick cloud, and as a result, only one of the five paratrooper drop zones was accurately marked with radar signals and Aldis lamps.^[115] Paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, numbering over 13,000 men, were delivered by Douglas C-47 Skytrains of the IX Troop Carrier Command.^[116] To avoid flying over the invasion fleet, the planes arrived from the west over the Cotentin Peninsula and exited over Utah Beach.^[117][115] Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Normandy_Landings
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