D-Day (1944): The Allied Normandy Landings of Operation Overlord

D-Day, 6 June 1944, was the opening day of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France, the largest seaborne invasion in history. Under the overall name Operation Overlord, and with the naval assault codenamed Operation Neptune, American, British and Canadian troops, with smaller contingents from France, Poland, Norway and other nations, landed on five beaches in Normandy after airborne troops had dropped inland during the night. By evening about 156,000 men were ashore, and within three months the Allies had liberated Paris.

Background

After the fall of France in 1940 and the Dunkirk evacuation, Germany controlled the coast of western Europe. From 1941 the Soviet Union fought most of the German army in the east and pressed its Western allies to open a second front. The United States and Britain agreed that a cross-Channel invasion was essential, but disagreed for a time on its timing. The costly Dieppe Raid of 1942 showed how hard it would be to capture a defended port directly.

At the Tehran Conference in late 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill promised Stalin an invasion of France in the spring of 1944. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander, with Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder as his deputy. General Sir Bernard Montgomery commanded the ground forces in the assault, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay the naval forces and Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory the air forces.

Planning and deception

Planners chose the coast of Normandy between the Cotentin Peninsula and the mouth of the River Orne. It was less heavily fortified than the Pas-de-Calais, within range of fighters from England and wide enough for a five-division assault. Because no port could be captured quickly, two prefabricated “Mulberry” harbours would be towed across the Channel and assembled off the beaches.

A huge deception plan, Operation Fortitude, used dummy equipment, fake radio traffic and double agents to persuade the Germans that the main blow would fall on the Pas-de-Calais, led by a fictitious army group under General George S. Patton. It worked well: for weeks after 6 June German commanders kept strong forces north of the Seine waiting for a second landing.

Across southern England some two million Allied service personnel, with vast stocks of vehicles and supplies, gathered for the operation. Training was intense and sometimes deadly: in April 1944 German fast attack boats struck a rehearsal convoy in Exercise Tiger off Slapton Sands in Devon, killing more than 700 American servicemen.

Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall” was a chain of bunkers, gun batteries, minefields and beach obstacles stretching from Norway to Spain. In Normandy it was incomplete. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commanding Army Group B, had worked since early 1944 to strengthen it, convinced that the invasion had to be defeated on the beaches. His superior, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, favoured holding armoured reserves inland for a counterattack. The compromise left the panzer divisions spread out, and several could only be released with Hitler’s approval.

The landings needed a late-night moon for the airborne drops and a low, rising tide at dawn so that beach obstacles would be exposed. Only a few days each month were suitable. The invasion was set for 5 June, but a storm swept the Channel. Group Captain James Stagg, Eisenhower’s chief meteorologist, forecast a brief improvement, and in the early hours of 5 June Eisenhower gave the order to go on 6 June. German forecasters, lacking Atlantic weather stations, did not expect such a break; Rommel was in Germany for his wife’s birthday when the invasion began.

The airborne assault

Shortly after midnight on 6 June, British glider troops under Major John Howard seized the bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne, the canal bridge later known as Pegasus Bridge. The British 6th Airborne Division landed east of the Orne to protect the left flank, and paratroops attacked the Merville gun battery.

On the western flank the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions jumped behind Utah Beach. Cloud and anti-aircraft fire scattered many of the transport aircraft, and paratroopers landed miles from their drop zones. Small groups nevertheless fought their way to key objectives and caused confusion among the defenders. Sainte-Mère-Église was taken early that morning, one of the first French towns liberated.

The five beaches

After a heavy air and naval bombardment, landing craft began reaching the shore at about 06:30 on the American beaches and later on the British and Canadian beaches, where the tide came in later.

Utah, on the eastern side of the Cotentin, was assaulted by the US 4th Infantry Division. Currents carried the first wave south of the planned spot onto a less defended stretch, and the division landed with fewer than 200 casualties.

Omaha, between Vierville and Colleville, was the hardest. Bluffs overlooked the beach, the bombing had largely missed the defences, and many amphibious tanks sank before reaching shore. Men of the US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions were pinned down at the water’s edge for hours, and at one point General Omar Bradley considered diverting later waves. Small groups gradually worked up the bluffs, and by nightfall a shallow beachhead had been won at a cost of more than 2,000 casualties. Nearby, US Rangers under Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder scaled the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc to destroy guns that had in fact been moved inland, then found and disabled them.

Gold, assaulted by the British 50th Division, was taken by evening, and troops pushed towards Bayeux. Juno was the target of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division; rough seas and reefs delayed the landing and the first waves suffered heavily, but by the end of the day the Canadians had advanced further inland than any other Allied division. Sword, at the eastern end, was taken by the British 3rd Infantry Division, with Free French commandos among the troops who stormed Ouistreham.

Specialised British armoured vehicles, nicknamed “Hobart’s Funnies” after Major-General Percy Hobart, cleared mines and obstacles on the British and Canadian beaches. Overwhelming Allied air superiority meant that the Luftwaffe was almost absent over the beaches.

By midnight the Allies held five footholds, though none of the main objectives had been fully reached. The city of Caen, a target for the first day, was not taken until July. The only serious German armoured counterattack, by the 21st Panzer Division, reached the coast between Juno and Sword in the evening but withdrew. Gold and Juno were linked by nightfall, and all five beaches were joined within days.

Key people

• Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, who took the final decision to launch the invasion.
• Bernard Montgomery, commander of 21st Army Group and of the Allied ground forces in Normandy.
• Bertram Ramsay, who directed the naval operation, including nearly 7,000 vessels.
• Erwin Rommel, the German field marshal responsible for the coastal defences.
• Gerd von Rundstedt, German Commander-in-Chief West.

By the numbers

Figures vary between sources; the death toll has been revised upwards as records were checked.

Consequences

The landings were followed by eleven weeks of hard fighting in the Battle of Normandy. Allied troops struggled through the hedgerow country known as the bocage, while British and Canadian forces fought a long battle for Caen. In late July the American breakout, Operation Cobra, broke the German line, and in August much of the German army in Normandy was trapped in the Falaise Pocket. Paris was liberated on 25 August 1944.

The cost to civilians was heavy. Bombing and shelling destroyed towns such as Caen, Saint-Lô and Le Havre, and an estimated 20,000 French civilians were killed during the Normandy campaign. Combined with the Soviet summer offensive in the east, the invasion left Germany fighting a two-front war it could not win.

Myths and facts

• “The Germans had no idea an invasion was coming.” They expected one in 1944; what they did not know was the time and place, and many believed Normandy was a feint.
• “Every beach was like Omaha.” Omaha was exceptional. At Utah the casualties were relatively light, and the British and Canadian beaches were secured faster than planned in some areas.
• “D-Day ended the war in a single blow.” It opened a campaign that lasted another eleven months, with heavy fighting in the Ardennes and Germany.

Timeline

• 1943, November–December: At Tehran the Allies confirm an invasion of France for 1944.
• 1944, January: Eisenhower takes up command of SHAEF in London.
• 1944, 28 April: Exercise Tiger off Slapton Sands ends in heavy American losses.
• 1944, 5 June, early hours: Eisenhower decides to launch the invasion on 6 June.
• 1944, 6 June, shortly after midnight: British glider troops capture Pegasus Bridge; airborne divisions land.
• 1944, 6 June, about 06:30: First seaborne landings on Utah and Omaha.
• 1944, 6 June, morning: British and Canadian troops land on Gold, Juno and Sword.
• 1944, 25 July: Operation Cobra begins the American breakout.
• 1944, 25 August: Paris is liberated.

Why it matters

D-Day opened the long-awaited second front in western Europe. Together with the Soviet advance in the east, it sealed the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945 and shaped the post-war division of Europe. The beaches and cemeteries of Normandy remain among the most visited war memorials in the world.