1. WWII Notes 11 World Wars – Hamer January 5, 2011
D-Day
WWII Notes 11
World Wars – Hamer
January 5, 2011

2. Planning and Training

3. Ike speaking to the 101st Airborne on June 5, 1944
SHAEF
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

4. Location Selection PART 1
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

5. Location Selection PART 2
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.
Location Selection PART 2
Pas de Calais
Normandy

6. Research
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.

7. Training PART 1 Exercise Tiger April and May 1944:
American Forces practiced landing for the invasion of Utah beach over 8 days in Southern England.

8. Training PART 2
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.

9. Plans for the Final Attack
The final plan had five divisions by sea and three by air (more air divisions 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

10. Plans for the Final Attack

11. Espionage

12. Double Cross was run by the Twenty Committee
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

13. Operation Fortitude
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

14. FUSAG PART 1
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.

15. FUSAG PART 2 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”

16. FUSAG PART 3
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.
German aerial view
Inflatable tank
From an aerial view from a spy plane or even from a distant ground view, FUSAG would appear as if it was a real army preparing for an invasion. When viewed right up close though, it was obvious that FUSAG was made up of inflatable tanks and fake landing crafts. It was a truly brilliant and effective deception tactic.
Dummy landing craft

17. Operation Skye (North Scotland)
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.

18. Dummy Paratroopers on the Night of June 5, 1944
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.

19. Benefits of Spreading Misinformation
The main benefit of all of these deceptive measures was that they convinced the Germans that the Allies had 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.

20. Germans Anticipated attack in 1944
The Germans were definitely aware that an invasion was imminent. They knew that the allies had to open up another front in order to dent Hitler’s Europe. The problem was, the allied deception was so effective that the Germans never quite knew when or where the invasion would come from.

21. Technology

22. Mulberry Harbors PART 1
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.

23. Mulberry Harbors PART 2
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 D-Day, 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

24. Operation Pluto
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.

25. Higgins Boats (LCVP’s)
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

26. Higgins Boats (LCVP’s)
"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

27. LST’s
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

28. Hobart’s Funnies PART 1
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

29. Hobart’s Funnies PART 2
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

30. Hobart’s Funnies PART 3
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.

31. Hobart’s Funnies PART 4
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 

32. Invasion of Normandy

33. The Atlantic Wall
In preparation for the anticipated Allied re-invasion 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

34. German Defense System
Although the Allies used excessive deception tactics, the Germans were still prepared on Omaha beach. They used hedgehogs, log ramps, Belgian Gates, post lines, mine fields, barbed wire, and trenches. Not to mention the massive cliffs the Allies had to aim up at. Also picture is a machine gun pitt where a single German gunner could mow down hundreds of invading allied within minutes,

35. Convoy of large LCI in the English Channel
D-Day
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 D-day of June 6, 1944
Convoy of large LCI in the English Channel

36. Paratroopers PART 1
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

37. Paratroopers PART 2
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 through to the beaches from the West.
The main goal of this attack was to capture Cherbourg – it was not taken until June 30, 1944

38. H-Hour 6:30 am June 6, 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

39. Normandy Landing (June 6, 1944)
German Prisoners
Higgins Landing Crafts

40. Landing at Normandy PART 1
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

41. “Welcome to Hell”

42. Landing at Normandy PART 2
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
175,000 Total Allied troops would land on D-Day

43. Allied Invasion Routes: D-Day (June 6, 1944)

44. Deception Works Again
German counter-attack to initial invasion were delayed because of internal arguments among the German high-command.
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.

45. Fatalities
10,000 Allied casualties with 4,500 Allied and American troops dead
4,000-9,000 German casualties

46. D-Day: Turning the Tide of War
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.

47. The Liberation of Paris: August 25, 1944
De Gaulle in Triumph!

48. U. S. Troops in Paris, 1944