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D-Day is a term often used by the military to refer to the day on which
an operation is going to start. By far, the best known D-Day is June 6,
1944 — the day on which the Battle of Normandy began. With this terrible
battle, the Allied forces made their best to liberate Europe from the
German Nazi occupation during World War II. The invasion of France was
originally planned for June 5, 1944 but it was delayed by General
Eisenhower because of bad weather.
 While D-Day is used for the day on which a military operation starts,
the term H-Hour is used for the hour on which a combat attack or operation
is to be initiated. They designate the day and hour of the operation when
the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is
essential. There is but one D-Day and one H-Hour for all units
participating in a given operation.
Ok, now let's travel back in time to the 1940s. In midsummer 1943, a
year before the Anglo-American invasion of Normandy that would lead to the
liberation of western Europe, Hitler's Wehrmacht (“Armed Forces”) still
occupied a great part of Europe, after the campaigns of 1939–41 and most
of its Russian conquests of 1941–42. It also had some territories on the
coast of North Africa, from the time when the Germans had gone to help
their Italian ally in 1941. The Russian counteroffensives at the Battle of
Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk had pushed back the perimeter of
Hitler's Europe in the east. Yet he or his allies still controlled the
whole of mainland Europe, except for neutral Spain, Portugal, Switzerland,
and Sweden. The Nazi war economy, though not as powerful as America's, was
much bigger and stronger than that of Britain and that of the Soviet Union
except in the key areas of tank and aircraft production. Without direct
intervention by the western Allies on the Continent —an intervention that
would need a large American army to be successful —Hitler could count on
prolonging his military dominance for years to come.
In January 1944 the Allies decided that it was time to start fighting
the Nazi army in its own territory, because otherwise the future of World
War II was absolutely uncertain, not to say frightening, for the
Europeans.Therefore, an invasion of the continent through France was
designed in an absolute secret. The Allied forces appointed an invasion
commander, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, to be the most important person of an Anglo-American chain of
command.
During
the first six months of 1944, the United States and Great Britain
concentrated land, naval, and air forces in England to prepare for "Operation
Overlord", the assault on Hitler's "Fortress Europe." While the Soviet
Union was keeping a great portion of the German forces busy, the
western Allies organized their resources, trained their forces,
separately and jointly, for the operation, and combined their invasion
plans to take full advantage of their joint and combined capabilities.
Before the invasion, the air and sea components played major roles.
The 12,000 planes of the Allied air forces swept the Luftwaffe from
the skies, photographed enemy defenses, dropped supplies to the
resistance, bombed railways, attacked Germany's industries and
isolated the battlefield. The Allies' naval component was similarly
active during this period. The navies escorted convoys, patrolled and
protected the English Channel, examined the features of different
beaches and beach defenses, conducted amphibious rehearsals and
organized and loaded a mighty flotilla to land the assault forces in
France. Meanwhile, the nine army divisions (three airborne and six
infantry) from the United States, Britain and Canada trained and
rehearsed their roles in the carefully choreographed operation.
Rangers climbed cliffs, engineers destroyed beach obstacles, and lots
of supplies were gathered. |
 May
1944 had been chosen at the conference in Washington in May 1943 as the
time for the invasion. Difficulties in building enough landing craft made
the Allies put it off until June, but June 5 was fixed as the unalterable
date by Eisenhower on May 17. As the day approached and troops began to
embark for the crossing, bad weather began to make the whole operation a
nightmare, threatening dangerous landing conditions. After tense debate,
Eisenhower and his subordinates decided on a 24-hour delay, and they even
called back some ships already at sea. Eventually, on the morning of June
5, Eisenhower, assured by chief meteorologist James Martin Stagg of a
break in the weather, announced, “O.K. We'll go.” Within hours an armada
of 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other ships, and 500 naval vessels—escorts
and bombardment ships—began to leave English ports. That night 822
aircraft, carrying parachutists, flew to the Normandy landing zones. They
were a fraction of the air armada of 13,000 aircraft that would support D-Day.
More than 150,000 men were on the ships and some 23,000 were taken there
on planes, in the greatest invasion in history
| In the invasion's early
hours, more than 1,000 transports dropped paratroopers to secure the
flanks and beach exits of the assault area.Amphibious craft landed
some 130,000 troops on five beaches along 50 miles of Normandy coast
between the Cotentin Peninsula and the Orne River while the air forces
controlled the skies overhead. The Normandy invasion began therefore with overnight parachute landings, massive
air attacks, and naval bombardments. Later on, an early morning amphibious
phase began on June 6. “D-Day” deployed from bases along the south coast
of England, the most important of these being Portsmouth.
The invasion itself gave prominence to
land forces but also paid great attention to air and sea components.
Allied air forces carried three airborne divisions into battle,
protected the force as it crossed the English Channel, and attacked
targets throughout the invasion area before and after the landing in
support of the assault forces. More than 5,000 ships--from battleships
to landing craft--carried, escorted and landed the assault force along
the Normandy coast. Once the force was landed, naval gunfire gave the
soldiers critical and important support as they fought their way
across the beaches trying to avoid the heavy German guns. |
 The
five beaches the Allies chose to land on were: Omaha and Utah beaches in
the west, where the US troops fought. Sword and Gold beaches in the
east, taken mainly by the British, and Juno beach, also in the east, which
was assaulted by the Canadians. Free French and
Polish forces also participated in the battle after the preliminary phase
(assault phase), and there were also soldiers from Belgium,
Czechoslovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway.
In all of the beaches and in all the battles, thousands and thousands
of Allied casualties showed that the Germans were there, waiting for them
and they were terribly strong. The Allied forces were surprised by this,
as they expected just minimal oposition from the German batteries on the
beaches. The real situation was far worse, and dead soldiers started to
cover the beaches and the water from the beginning of the operation. More
than10,000 men died in just a few hours. Some military commanders who
witnessed this disaster from the ships, even thought of aborting the whole
operation and leaving the beaches, going back to Britain. Fortunately they
didn't, and maybe we are living in a free Europe today thanks to their
effort and their lives, because as the Allies
disembarked, they were taking the first steps on the final road to victory
in Europe.
Also fighting in the areas and villages surrounding the beaches, the
Allies encountered great difficulty as they tried to march inland. The
Germans were determined to defend the occupied territory until the last
minute of their lives. However, thanks to the success of the
parachutists (a great many of whom died even before landing) the flanks of
the beaches were firmly held, but efforts to break out were anyway
frustrated by fierce German resistance and counterattacks, particularly
around Caen in the British-Canadian sector. The British and Americans
suffered great losses, and they started to think that it all would end up
in disaster.
 However,
the Allies were determined to carry on. By July 25, with most of the
German tanks pushed westward by the British offensive, the Americans found
it far easier to move along France. Reinforcement gave them a clear
superiority in tank and infantry divisions, while the Allied Expeditionary
Force had the bombardment power to devastate the Germans. Operation Cobra,
scheduled for July 25, opened with a devastating air attack. Through the
gap that was opened due to this attack, the U.S. First Army marched toward
the town of Avranches, which was taken on July 30. At this point, Patton's
Third Army joined in the advance, and as a result of this, a massive
American army was now on its way to drive into Brittany and, by a left
turn, to encircle the Germans in Normandy from behind. The way to Paris
was clear, and the future of Europe was now far from the Nazi forces.
The battle for
Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to establish
and expand, and concluded with the liberation of Paris in late August
1944. Little by little, the German army was pushed back, little by little
occupied Europe started to see the end of the war, and we can say that
freedom was eventually obtained at really tremendous cost. Over sixty years later, the
Normandy invasion, named in secret "Operation Overlord", still remains the
largest sea invasion in history, involving on the whole almost three million troops
crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy in then German-occupied
France. We shouldn't forget that this massive invasion marked the
beginning of the end of the most terrible war
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