Transcript D-Day - WLWV Staff Blogs

WWII Notes 11
World Wars – Hamer
May 3, 2011
7:45 - 24:30
 The
Invasion of
Normandy was
put under the
command of
SHAEF
(Supreme
Headquarters,
Allied
Expeditionary
Force) which
was led by
General
Dwight. D.
Eisenhower
Ike speaking to the 101st
Airborne on June 5, 1944
 England
originally wanted to just enter
the European Front through Italy
 America believed that a cross channel
invasion from England to France would
be the shortest route to Germany was the
only way to go in the long run.
 Soviet Union pressed for a Western Front
even after the Allied invasion of Italy
 The
best choices of
landing sites on the
continent were: the Pas
de Calais and
Normandy.
 Because the Pas de
Calais is the shortest
distance from England,
closer to Germany, and
has the most
accessible beaches, it
was the most heavily
fortified by Germany.
 Therefore, the Allies
chose Normandy for
their invasion.
Pas de Calais
Normandy
 The
Allies had to ensure that the beaches
at Normandy would support the weight of
troops and tanks.
 Beginning on New Years’ Eve 1943, 5
British soldiers set off in a midget
submarine to collect samples from what
would become Sword Beach.
 These samples along with others collected
from the rest of the beaches convinced the
Allies that the beaches would be
supportive enough.
 Exercise Tiger
April and May
1944:
 American
Forces
practiced
landing for the
invasion of Utah
beach over 8
days in
Southern
England.
 Over
700 American servicemen died when
the Landing Crafts were surprisingly
attacked by German torpedo boats during
Operation Tiger. The Americans were
practicing on this beach because it was
made of the same material as Utah beach
(gravel)
• When Hitler found out that the Allies were
practicing an amphibious landing at this
particular beach in England, he realized
that it had the same makeup as Normandy.
 The
final plan had five groups by sea and
three by air (more air groups were
requested, but there were only enough
carrier planes for three)
 In total, 47 divisions would be committed
to the Battle of Normandy: 19 British, five
Canadian and one Polish divisions under
overall British command, and 21
American divisions with one Free
French division, totaling 140,000 troops
landing on the beaches.
 About
6900
ships would
be involved.
 A total of
12,000
aircraft
would
support the
landings
including
1000
transport
planes to
carry the
parachute
divisions
24:30 – 28:20
 During
the war, the British
operated a system known as
Double Cross.
 Through Double Cross, the
British turned German spies and
used them as double agents.
 Initially Double Cross was used
to determine what the Germans
were looking for, but later it was
used to pass along
misinformation, such as before
the landing at Normandy.
XX
Double Cross
was run by the
Twenty
Committee
 In
order to persuade the Germans that
the main invasion would really be
coming to the Pas de Calais, as well as to
lead them to expect an invasion of
Norway, the Allies prepared a massive
deception plan, called Operation
Fortitude.
 The point of this was to convince
Germany that the Allies has many more
troops than they actually did
 An
entirely fictitious First U.S. Army
Group (“FUSAG”), supposedly located in
southeastern England, was created in
German minds by the use of double
agents and fake radio traffic “confirming”
the existence and location of FUSAG and
the Pas de Calais as the likely main attack
point.
 General
Patton was
placed in command of
FUSAG.
 This placement of such
a famous general
strengthened
Germany’s belief in the
existence of FUSAG.
General George Patton
“Old Blood and Guts”
•Dummy tanks,
trucks, and
landing craft, as
well as troop
camp facades
(constructed
from scaffolding
and canvas)
were placed in
ports on the
southeastern
coasts of Britain
to look like the
army.
Dummy
landing
craft
Inflatable tank
German aerial view
 Operation
Skye was mounted from
Scotland using radio traffic designed to
convince Germany that an invasion
would also be mounted into Norway.
 Two dozen aging British officers were
sent to Northern Scotland where they
carried on constant radio conversations
for their fake armies.
 The
last part of the deception occurred on
the night before the invasion: a small
group of SAS operators deployed dummy
paratroopers (scarecrows with
parachutes) over Le Havre and Isigny.
 These dummies led the Germans to
believe that an additional airborne
assault had occurred; this tied up
reinforcing troops and kept the true
situation unclear.
 The
main benefit of all of these deceptive
measures was that they convinced the
Germans that the Allies had 3 times as
many troops and landing gear than they
actually did.
 Therefore
the Germans believed that a fake
attack (a feint) would come before the real
attack
• When the D-Day attack came Germany thought
the Normandy invasion was just a diversion to
pull their divisions away from Calais.
 This
worked so well that the Germans kept
18 reserve divisions near Calais even after
the invasion of Normandy began as well as
keeping some in Norway.
A
complete
Mulberry harbor
was constructed out
of 600,000 tons of
concrete between
33 jetties, and had
10 miles (15 km) of
floating roadways to
land men and
vehicles on the
beach.
• By June 9, just 3 days after D-Day, two harbors that
were built in England and floated across the Channel,
codenamed Mulberry 'A' and 'B', were constructed at
Omaha Beach and Arromanches, respectively.
A
large storm on June
19 destroyed the
American harbor at
Omaha, leaving only the
British harbor which
came to be known as
Port Winston.
 In the 100 days after DDay, it was used to land
over 2.5 million men,
500,000 vehicles, and 4
million tons of supplies
providing much needed
reinforcements in
France.
Omaha Harbor after the
storm of June 19, 1944
 Operation
Pluto built oil pipelines from
England to the French coast to transport
much needed fuel in a faster and safer
way to the continent.
 By VE Day, over 781 million liters of oil
had been pumped to the continent.
 Higgins
Boat – LCVP:
Boat with a wide
ramp on the front
and a shallow draw
allowed the Allies to
land their troops at
Normandy.
 Troops climbed
down rope nets
from their ships
onto the Higgins
Boats to go to shore.
They could also
carry small
vehicles.
LCVP at Omaha Beach
 "Andrew
Higgins
... is the man who
won the war for us.
... If Higgins had
not designed and
built those LCVPs,
we never could
have landed over
an open beach.
The whole strategy
of the war would
have been
different." —
General Dwight
Eisenhower
 Many
other landing
craft were also used
to land people and
equipment
 The LST - Landing
Ship Tank – could
carry tanks for an
amphibious landing
– used at Sicily and
Normandy
Canadian LST at Sicily,
1943
 Hobart’s
Funnies
were specially
designed British
tanks used to
accomplish
specific tasks:
• Churchill AVRE with bobbin – had a 10 foot wide canvas
cloth that was reinforced with steel poles to roll in front
of it and make roads so itself and following vehicles
would not sink into the soft sand on the beaches
 ARK
– armored ramp carrier – Would lay down
ramps for other tanks to climb over obstacles
 Armored bulldozer – used to clear obstacles on the
D-Day beaches
 Crab-
Modified
Sherman Tank with a
mine flail (rotating
chains) in front to
clear land mines
 AVRE with fascine –
carried a large
bundle of sticks and
pipes to throw into a
ditch to use as steps
for following tanks.
• DD Tanks – Duplex
Drive medium
tanks (Shermans)
that used
propellers in the
water and treads
on land.
The DD had a flotation device that went around them and
could be deflated at shore. This allowed tanks to land at
Normandy without using landing crafts for them, they
were deployed 2 miles from the beach and swam to
shore.
 Worked fairly well except at Omaha where 27 of the 29
were lost in high swells 

28:20 – end
 In
preparation for the
anticipated Allied reinvasion of Europe, Hitler
ordered the construction of
fortifications around
Germany’s occupied areas
in March 1942.
• These fortifications were known
as the Atlantic Wall
 Rommel
was put in charge
of improving the Atlantic
Wall in early 1944
 The
original
landing was
planned for June
5th
• Both a spring tide
and full moon
were needed to
make the landings
successful
• Bad weather on
the 4th required the
troops to wait a
day in their ships
until the new Dday of June 6, 1944
Convoy of large LCI in the
English Channel
 The
first phase of D-Day
was an air assault
landing of 24,000
American, British,
Canadian and Free
French airborne troops
shortly after midnight on
D-Day
• British 6th airborne division was supposed to
take control of bridges east of the landing to
prevent German reinforcements – they were
successful
 The
13,000 troops of the
American 82nd and 101st
airborne divisions were
dropped in a widely
scattered pattern so
45% of units were unable
to gather
 Even with this chaos, the
Germans were unable to
successfully break
 The main goal of this
through to the beaches
attack was to capture
from the West.
Cherbourg – it was not
taken until June 30, 1944
 Bombers
and
Destroyers were
supposed to bomb
and shell the German
seawall in
preparation for the
landing
 Sadly many of these
overshot their
targets, especially at
the American
beaches
German Prisoners
Higgins Landing
Crafts
 One
of the American beaches,
Omaha, turned out to be some of
the most deadly landing sites
• Ineffective pre-landing shelling
• STEEP cliffs
• Sinking tanks
 Juno
– The Canadian beach
suffered the second highest
casualty rate, but they were off
the beach within a few hours
 Utah
– the second American beach had the
lightest casualties and had landed at the
wrong place
 Pointe du Hoc – 2nd Army Ranger Battalion:
goal was to take out large artillery
positioned there – successful but with a
50% casualty rate
Note that while the
size of the preinvasion bombs were
huge – they most
often missed their
targets
Top: Emplacement for
the guns of Pointe du
Hoc
Right: Cliffs the Army
Rangers had to scale
 175,000 Total
Allied troops
would land on
D-Day
US Army
Normandy
Clip – 8min
• German counter-attack to initial invasion
were delayed because of internal
arguments among the German highcommand.
• The Fuhrer system required that all
major decisions had to go through Hitler
• Fortitude South had been so successful in
deceiving the German’s that they were
convinced the main invasion of France was
still to come from the Pas-De-Calais.
10,000 Allied
casualties with
4,500 Allied and
American troops
dead
4,000-9,000
German
casualties
• Invasion of Normandy was the decisive
Allied victory that turned the tide of World
War II.
• Success of the invasion was necessary for
the Allies to launch an attack to liberate
France.
• Allies moved permanently to the offensive
as the armies marched through Europe to
liberate the other conquered nations.
De Gaulle in
Triumph!
BBC Overlord
Map
History Channel
Overlord Clip 3min