The D day Series. The Day that Changed History; Unravelling the significance and Recounting the events, of D Day.
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Wikimedia commons; File:Operations Greenwood and Pomegranate Normandy July 1944 EN.svg
Above; Normandy, the location for the D Day landings.
Why was D Day important?
Before I answer this question let me just explain that D in D Day doesn’t stand for anything other than a letter for the day. It was just a name. During World War Two, Nazi Germany conquered the majority of Europe, had Italian allies and a beneficial relationship with ‘neutral Spain”. The Germans had brought totalitarianism to these former democratic countries. All across Europe, people’s former freedoms were now denied and Jews were rounded up to be executed in the “Holocaust”. The Nazis needed to be removed from all occupied areas and freedom restored. D Day in June 1944 was one of the events that turned the tide on German expansion. The Germans had already been turned out of Northern Africa and were being pushed back by the British and Americans in Italy but that front was a long way from Berlin. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union troops (“Russians”) were pushing the Germans back but were desperate to share the burden of fighting them with the British and Americans opening up a Western Front in France. D Day was that opening. By June 1944 the Soviet armies were in Lithuania and bordering Poland and destined for Germany. Successfully invading France would bring the end of the war a little closer but also prevent the Soviets from taking over the whole of Europe. Even though the Soviet Union was an ally of Britain and the USA, she was not trusted with the Allies worst nightmare being a Nazi Europe being replaced by a communist Europe!
Invading France was no easy operation. In 1942, the British and Canadians had attempted an invasion of Dieppe which resulted in an embarrassing disaster. Far more resources of all kinds were needed for a successful invasion. The coastal defences would have to be bombarded from the air and sea with a vast array of planes and ships. More planes would be needed to guarantee air superiority to allow troops to be landed unhindered. Numerous vehicles and contraptions would have to be invented and manufactured to clear away all of the beach devices to allow the men to land and have a clear way to getting ashore. One thing in their favour was that the US airforce had destroyed numerous Luftwaffe (German airforce) fighter planes which meant that they would not be able to attack the Allied forces from the air leading to a devastating extent.
The invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy showed that invasions from the sea were possible but difficult. Unlike the previous two coastlines, Germany had created the “Atlantic Wall” from Norway to Spain which incorporated a vast amount of concrete and iron work plus numerous huge guns in concrete emplacements. Hitler demanded 15 000 concrete strongpoints manned by 300 000 men. He envisaged interlocking machine gun and artillery gun fire so that there were no blind spots for the enemy to hide. Fortunately, planning was one thing but reality was another and not all of them got built. However, the largest coastal batteries were surrounded by 23 feet of re-inforced concrete! These were designed to blow Allied ships out of the water. In all, 1 200 000 tons of steel was used and 17 000 000 cubic metres of concrete were used to make any invasion seem impossible. Beaches were not simply defended by barbed wire, all kinds of iron prong devices were preventing any landings and ports looked impossible to capture. Taking France would need to be exceptionally well planned and co-ordinated with a vast amount of courage and daring.
Above; one of four large guns in the German Battery at Longue Sur Mer. This is free to visit and a must for D Dan fans.
Below; From the amazing tapestry at the D Day Story, Portsmouth which shows Rommel at one of the Atlantic Wall gun placements.
By the end of the first day, 156 000 soldiers had landed in Normandy. There were 10 000 casualties which was far fewer than was estimated. From D Day in June 1944, Allied troops went on to successfully liberate Paris and on the 8th May 1945, they accepted the unconditional surrender of German forces with Hitler having committed suicide a week earlier. Their path to Paris was not a smooth one with great difficulties breaking out of Normandy but they were never pushed back into the sea. If it hadn’t been for the tremendous courage of the armed forces of the Allied Nations, the ingenuity of key participants and the highly detailed planning of all aspects, the world would be a very different place today. German surrender was only half of the victory, however , and it took two nuclear bombs to secure a Japanese surrender on the 15th August 1945 to end all hostilities.
Why did Operation Overlord plan to invade Normandy?
D Day was in fact two operations, “Operation Neptune” to get the troops over to France and “Operation Overlord”, what the troops should do when they get to Normandy. The German defences were particularly strong around the Calais region, the area closest to Britain. Normandy, on the other hand was much further away but had relatively fewer defences. There were still all kinds of defence systems in Normandy but, with careful preparation, it was thought, that these could be overcome.
One of the first parts of the plan was to fool the German high command into thinking that Calais would be the Allied target and therefore ignore any other fake landings elsewhere and focus German army units in that area. To do this, the British created a whole network of fake German spies in Britain directed by a double agent code named “Garbo”. Garbo, whose real name was Pujol, was Spanish and in 1940 he volunteered to spy on Britain for the Nazis. He recruited 27 fake agents and because his supply of information was so “good”, he was awarded the Iron Cross, the top military medal that Germany could award!
IWM
He was trusted by the Germans and had supplied them with a convincing information on the British and now supplied them with details of her planned invasion of Calais. To create, in German minds , a sense of accuracy so information he passed on was accurate but of no military importance. He also passed on accurate information at a very late stage giving the Germans no time to react to it but assuring them that his contacts were very real and loyal. Even after June 6th when Operation Overlord had begun, the German high command believed it was fake based on the quality of Garbo’s information. More detailed information can be seen at the D Day Museum in Portsmouth.
Below; a screen presentation of Garbo’s network from the Portsmouth D Day Story.
Garbo did not act alone and other agents also corroborated Garbo’s findings. To assure the British that the Germans were believing this dis-information, German codes were broken at Bletchley park by some amazing cryptographers and the first computers, which decoded german orders, plans and messages.
To add to the deception tactics, a non-existent fictitious army under General Patten was based in the South-East corner of Britain was reported on by the double agents. German reconnaissance planes flew over the bases to find tanks and planes etc that looks real from several thousand feet up but in actual fact were totally fake.
Below; an inflatable tank. IWM
Below; a real Sherman tank at the Airborne Museum at Sainte Mere Eglise.
Below; A Sherman in a landing beach scene at the Overlord Museum.
Above; a fake aeroplane made of wood. IWM
Information gathering
Lessons learned from the disastrous Dieppe raid resulted in comprehensive information gathering before the final decision for the go-ahead was made. The aim was to capture the port of Dieppe but within six hours of the landing of 6086 troops, the order was given to retreat. In total, 3623 men were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Added to these stats, was the loss of 106 aircraft and 33 landing craft together with a destroyer. A whole regiment of tanks failed to get beyond the beach and the infantry were held back by intense German fire and beach obstacles. Overlord plans would include avoiding existing harbours and transporting a prefabricated harbour to Normandy.
Above; to gather information about Normandy, a request went out for any postcards of Normandy that people had and any photos taken recently.In the Portsmouth D Day Story there is a display of some of those postcards and photos.
Below; Also in the Portsmouth museum there is an example of an aerial photograph and a special lens so that visitors can interpret the reconnaissance photo like the experts.
Above; A coastal silhouette booklet for Sword beach. Aircraft flew in low over the coast in order that the photos taken would represent the view that the landing craft crew would get from their landing craft. It was very easy to go off course and so this was a valuable aid. (Portsmouth D Day Story)
Above; this fascinating case from the the D Day Story,Portsmouth includes a special suit warn by a soldier to gather sand samples because planners needed to know which beaches could sustain tanks . The last thing they wanted was to have all of their vehicles stuck in sand! The suit had padded elbows and knees to facilitate stealthily crawling up a beach to collect samples. They also had to calculate the gradient of the beach, again for vehicles tomato speedy progress soon after reaching the shore.
In the middle is a reconnaissance camera used by the RAF and and in the bottom right of the photo is a suitcase radio used by agents and the French Resistance to send back information, in morse code, on such things as troop movements, new defences, minefields and new gun batteries.
What took place on D Day?
The biggest sea invasion of all time. A staggering 2 million soldiers were gathered in Britain from over 12 countries to participate in beating the Nazis. Originally planned for June 5th, Operation Overlord was postponed to June 6th because of bad weather. Storms at sea would have prevented a successful landing, numerous soldiers would have been sea sick and in no fit state to fight and air cover would have been very limited. On June 6th a window in the stormy weather was forecast and consequently, 6939 ships began transporting men and supplies across to Normandy to five adjacent beaches, Gold, Juno, Sword, Omaha and Utah. Eyewitnesses said that there were so many ships in the Portsmouth area that a man would be able to walk from ship to ship all the way to the Isle of Wight.
The Germans had deployed thousands of mines in the Channel for such a crossing and so the first ships to leave England were 277 mine sweepers. These cleared the way for 138 large battleships that would be used to bombard the German defences. Although the vast majority of the ships used were from Britain, the USA and Canada, the Free French supplied 10 ships, Poland 2 cruisers, Norway 3 destroyers, the Dutch 2 single mast sailing ships (sloops) and the Greeks 2 escort ships. Apparently the oldest ship was the American USS Arkansas built in 1909 and used to bombard German gun batteries at Cherbourg.
Above; part of the invasion fleet depicted on the D Day Story Tapestry.
Below; in the Portsmouth D Day Story is a 15 inch shell like the ones that were used to bombard German shore defences.
Allied Airborne Operations
Long before any troops set foot in Normandy, at just after midnight on 6th June, allied airborne forces were parachuting and gliding into drop zones across Northern France to secure the flanks of the landing zones and take out key places such as Pegasus Bridge. Over 18 000 paratroopers were dropped to ensure that when the troops began landing from the sea their progress would not be hindered.
Below; the actual Pegasus Bridge is preserved at the Pegasus Bridge Memorial Museum and you can walk across it and see where bullets have marked the structure.
Below; a replica Horse glider based on those used at Pegasus Bridge in 1944.
Below; sometimes things do not go according to plan and in this case it was paratrooper John Steele of the 82nd Airborne Division who ended up hanging from the tower of a church at Sainte Mere Elise whilst a firefight was taking place between the Germans and twenty of his colleagues. The episode is commemorated today with a full size dummy hanging from the one of the pinnacles of the tower. Poor man was hit by shrapnel as he descended and could not use one of his legs. He got snagged at 4.00am in the morning and was left hanging there for two and a half hours. Failing to cut himself free, he decided to act dead to discourage any German soldier from shooting him. He was eventually cut down by the Germans and treated for his wounds. Fortunately, he escaped three days later and was able to participate in the later stages of the war. After the war, he returned several times to Sainte Mere Elise to attend commemorations of the D Day landings.
Behind German lines too, were the French Resistance, the British Special Operations Executive and the SAS.
Above. The work of the French Resistance blowing up railway lines to prevent reinforcements and supplies getting to the Normandy landing area.
Below; two members of the French Resistance in a recreated scene from the Overlord Museum, Omaha Beach and a secret suitcase radio on the right from the Arromanches Museum. They were intercepting a coded message from the BBC, “blessing mon coeur d’une langueur monotone”, which was a line from a poem by Verlaine that meant that the Allies were about to land. After the war Eisenhower praised the Resistance and said that their efforts were the equivalent of 15 divisions of Allied forces. In total, 89 Resistance groups were involved in the Normandy campaign. However, this help did come at a high price with 3095 Resistance members being sent to concentration camps, where 1056 died. Furthermore another 2383 were executed or killed in action by the Nazis.
Above; some of the kit used by the Resistance and French people from Pegasus Bridge Memorial Museum. On the left is a small “Galene” radio set to enable the French people to listen to the BBC. Listening to foreign broadcasts was illegal and anyone found in possession of a radio would be imprisoned or deported to Germany. At the bottom you can see a variety of “one shot weapons” such as the “pistol pen” that were supplied to the Resistance. The idea was that one shot could kill or incapacitate a German, allowing the Resistance fighter to seize the soldier’s weapons. Also in this photo are propaganda leaflets that had been dropped to the French population by the RAF. You can also see some food coupons for rations and a gas mask.
Above; British airborne troops synchronising their watches prior to parachuting over Normandy. (IWM)
Above; US airborne soldiers en route to Normandy.(USNA)
Above; German beach defences. when the tide was in, landing craft could crash into these unseen barriers!(IWM)
Below; beach iron work from Omaha beach preserved at the Overlord museum.
Above; a beach scene from the Overlord Museum. On the far left is part of a tree trunk with a mine mounted on it. At high tide this would be just under the water line waiting for a landing craft to hit it on its approach to the beach. A total of 4 million mines were spread across the Normandy beaches.
Above; . Nervous US troops in a landing craft.(Public domain)
Above; US troops wading to then beach amidst a hail of bullets. Wikimedia Commons.
Above; British troops landing at Gold Beach. (IWM)
Above; Landing craft depositing British troops. (IWM)
What was Operation Titanic?
Just after midnight RAF planes took off to deceive the Germans even more in Operation Titanic. This involved 4 fake airborne assaults away from the area covered by Operation Overlord. Their plan was to drop 500 dummy parachutists (“Ruperts”), rifle fire simulators, metal radar reflective foil (“Window”) and 2 SAS teams. In Lower Normandy, near Maltot, 50 Ruperts were dropped to draw German reserves away from Caen. West of St Lo, 200 Ruperts were dropped to simulate the dropping of an air division. Twelve SAS men were also dropped carrying sound recordings of rile, mortar fire and shouted orders together with amplifiers to fool the enemy. After 30 minutes, the SAS disappeared as they were trained to do , having occupied and totally confused the enemy.
Above; exhibits from the Portsmouth D Day Story. On the left is a Rupert and above the Rupert, is some window. This was dropped to simulate aircraft and ships on German radar screens and divert German attention away from the landing beaches of Normandy.(See the paragraph below)
What were the two ingenious plans, Operations Taxable and Glimmer?
The Raf also decided to create the 2 ghost fleets of ships moving across the channel towards France that would show up on enemy radar. Operation Taxable dropped long lengths of “Window” called “Ropes” over an area of 14 by 16 miles between Fecamp and Le Havre. For 3 1/2 hours, Lancaster bombers dropped huge quantities of “Rope” in a specific pattern” that seemed like a large invasion force was on the move. To make sure the illusion worked, 4 RAF air-sea rescue launches equipped with “Moonshine” electronic signal repeaters that picked up radar German signals from reconnaissance planes, amplified them and then sent them back thereby confirming the observation that a vast fleet was in the area. Large barrage balloons containing more reflective foil simulating large ships, were towed just to complete the effect. Operation Glimmer was a similar but smaller plan in the area between Dunkirk and Boulogne, miles away from the landing beaches
Ingenious devices to overcome beach obstacles and German opposition.
Various devices some of which were called “Hobart’s funnies” (named after the inventor, Major General Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart) were designed and manufactured to overcome all foreseen difficulties. Below you can see one invention to get tanks ashore. Unfortunately, several of them sank when approaching Omaha beach at an angle allowing waves to come over the top of the collar.
Four views of the Sherman DD tank that had an inflatable collar and despite its weight, it could float in water and be propelled by the 2 propellors at the back. From IWM.
At the Portsmouth D day Story is an amphibious vehicle named the DUKW or Duck. It was successful on all fronts with 586 being supplied to the Soviet Union before they decided to make their own and they even traversed coral reefs in the war in the Pacific.
Above; Three of “Hobart’s Funnies”. The photo on the left is showing a flail that destroys landmines as the tank moves forwards, thus clearing a path for others to follow. (IWM)
What were Mulberry Harbours?
One of the reasons for D Day not being reversed with the Allies being pushed back into the sea were the rapidly constructed Mulberry harbours that enabled a continuous supply of equipment, fuel, ammunition, food, medical supplies etc. Early in the planning it was realised that all the harbours on the French coast would be heavily protected and so two harbours had to be built. The aim was to pre-fabricate essential harbour items and tow them across the channel. As early as the afternoon of the 6th June, 400 towed component parts set sail to create the Mulberry harbours. They included blockships (codename Corncobs) to create an outer breakwater and 146 caissons (codename Phoenixes). One harbour was destined to be at Arromanches and the other at Omaha landing beach. On the 8th June, the first caisson was sunk and by the 15th Junea further 115 had likewise been sunk to create a 5 mile arc. Unfortunately, a storm on the 19th June wrecked the Omaha port and from then on supplies were delivered to Omaha beach with Landing Ship Tanks. The Arromanches harbour survived and in 10 months it was used to land over 2 1/2 million men, 1/2 million vehicles and 4 million tons of supplies. At Arromanches there is a brilliant museum that has a large section devoted to the Mulberry Harbour.
In this photo from the Imperial War Museum, you can see the line concrete caissons . Outside of the caissons the waves show that the sea is fairly rough but inside the caissons, the sea is calm and ships can be unloaded without hindrance.
Above; you can see from this photo from the IWM that the scale of the harbour is huge carrying all of these lorries and handling loads of ships including the small ones on the left of this photo.
Above; a model of a concrete caisson used for a breakwater at Arromanches from the D Day Story Portsmouth.
Above; the beach at Arromanches where you can explore a caisson from close range.
Above; what remains to day of the Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches.
Below; one of several large models at the Arromanches Museum showing the the harbour in use.
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