Transcript D Day - daysocialscience

Topic overview
1. The planning phase and build-up
2. D Day,the securing of the beachhead and
the break-out from Normandy
The furthest extent of Hitler’s empire in
1942
Section 1: The planning phase
• Preparations for a ‘second front’ against Nazi Germany
date back to 1942.
• The Allies knew they would have to capture a port to
ensure the success of the invasion of France.
• A ‘dress-rehearsal’ took place in 1942 when a BritishCanadian raid on the port of Dieppe was carried out.
• The aim was to capture and hold a French port for a
short period to test German defences.
• The raid was a total disaster: of the 6,086 men who
made it ashore, 4,384 were killed.
The raid on Dieppe (19.8.42)
Lessons learned
• The Dieppe raid had a major influence on the
planning for D Day.
• The Americans would not commit to an invasion
until they had ensured the following:
• Overwhelming force was assembled
• Air superiority over the invasion zone
• The Americans resisted strong political pressure
from the USSR to launch a second front in 1943.
• The American troop build-up in Britain continued
rapidly in 1943-44, as did the intensity of air
raids on Germany.
Roosevelt knew the risks of the invasion. He
resisted Stalin’s pressure for an early launch of the
second front. This delay was the cause of much
bitter feeling between the Russians and Americans.
American locomotives sent to England being
unloaded from a Liberty Ship.
Air raids in preparation for D
Day
• The British and Americans began bombing
targets in occupied France in preparation for D
Day.
• The French railway system came under
continuous attack.
• Raids were concentrated in the Calais region to
mislead the Germans in to believing that was the
intending invasion area.
• The Normandy region was bombed, but less
heavily.
Operation Fortitude
• The Allies began a massive deception of
operation to conceal the intended landing zone.
• A massive build-up of fake armies and
equipment was concentrated in Kent to fool the
Germans in to thinking Calais was the intended
target.
• Canvas and rubber tanks were assembled to
confuse any German aerial reconnaissance
aircraft. (In fact there were no German spy
planes over England in 1944)
Fortitude – an inflatable rubber
tank
Fortitude – canvas aircraft
What do such operations reveal about Allied planning for D day ?
Fortitude- fake radio signals
•
Enormous amounts
of ‘fake’ wireless
messages were
transmitted relating
to possible invasion
plans in the Calais
region in the hope
the Germans would
believe them.
Agent ‘Garbo’
The British Secret Service (SIS)
managed to infiltrate a double
agent in to the German
intelligence apparatus.
Agent Garbo (Juan Pujol Garcia)
passed false intelligence to the
Germans leading them to believe
the invasion would come in the
Pas de Calais region of France.
Normandy was the best kept
secret of the war.
Hitler expected the
invasion here in the Pas de
Calais
Normandy
The French resistance
(Maquis) assisted the
preparations for D Day by
disrupting French
railways and causing
other acts of sabotage to
the telegraph and
telephone system.
Such acts brought terrible
retribution on the local
populations.
June 1944
• The timing was now favourable for an
invasion
• The U boats had been defeated
• The German air force was largely
grounded for lack of fuel.
Hitler’s Festung Europa (fortress Europe)
The Atlantic Wall
• Despite all Allied efforts, the Germans
obviously expected an Allied invasion
somewhere in France.
• Hitler appointed two of his ablest
Generals, Gerd Von Rundstedt and Erwin
Rommel to take charge of strengthening
the French coast line from attack.
Von Rundstedt with Hitler and at his trial at Nurenberg.
From Norway to the
South of France the
Germans built up a
defensive line against
the expected
invasion.
Tens of thousands of
Russian POWs were
put to work to
construct elaborate
defences.
The line was by no
means complete or
evenly spread by the
time of D Day.
The Atlantic Wall
Despite gaps in the line, the defences were formidable in
some places.
Futuristic looking
German
blockhouse on the
island of Jersey.
The remains of a German blockhouse today.
Rommel inspects anti-tank defences on a French
beach.
Admiral Ramsay
General Eisenhower
General Montgomery
Leigh-Mallory
‘Operation Overlord’ planning meeting.
Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower gives a pep
talk to American paratroopers the evening before D Day.
•
Southampton docks
Landing Craft
Churchill visits Southampton
The capture of
Cherbourg was a key
objective. It was not
captured until the end
of June and was badly
damaged.
The Allies could not
risk launching the
invasion without a
useable port.
They constructed an
artificial harbour
which could be towed
across the channel.
Sections of a Mulberry Harbour today in Normandy.
Towed to France in sections the Mulberry Harbours
allowed the Allies to unload supplies until Cherbourg
was captured.
Section 2: D day and the breakout from Normandy
The troops spent up to four hours in the landing craft and
most were violently seasick.
American troops on Omaha Beach, scene of
the heaviest fighting and over 5,000 US deaths
on D Day.
British troops approaching Sword Beach
British troops landing at Sword Beach
Secured beachhead area D Day +1
•
156,000 men ashore on day 1
German POWs arriving at Southampton
French civilians
ponder their
liberation from
Nazi
occupation as
they survey the
ruins of their
homes.
Caen was a D-Day objective, but took more than two months
to capture, by which time the town lay in ruins.
The capture of the town of Carentan, linking Utah and Omaha
beaches, was crucial to the survival of the Allied beachhead
The Mayor of Southampton honours the millionth American soldier
to embark for France. D Day + 1 month.
French civilians place flowers at a
US cemetery in Normandy.