1. D-Day Timeline
Interactive timeline focused on the events leading up to and following Operation OVERLORD

2. D-Day Timeline, 1944 January 15 January 16 March May May May 8 June

3. January 15, 1944
Erwin Rommel placed in command of Army Group B, splitting command for German troops in the West between Rommel, Von Rundstedt, and Hitler, who personally controls the Panzer tank divisions

4. January 16, 1944
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower assumes duties as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, to oversee Operation OVERLORD, the Allied invasion of Europe at Normandy

5. March 1944
Lt. General George S. Patton placed in command of First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG) in and around Dover, a mostly fictitious army and the capstone of FORTITUDE South

6. May 1944
Due to success of Operation FORTITUDE, Germans believe that there are twice as many Allied divisions assembling in Britain as actually were; von Rundstedt placed in command over Rommel’s Army Group B

7. May 1944
French Allied agents send to London 700 radio reports and 3,000 written descriptions on German military positions

8. May 8, 1944
Eisenhower chooses June 5 as D-Day for the Normandy invasion

9. June 1944
By June, the Germans have fortified the “Atlantic Wall” with 20 million cubic yards of concrete, 1.2 million tons of steel, 6.5 million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, 500,000 beach and underwater obstacles, and thousands of Rommel’s Asparagus (anti-glider poles)

10. June 4, 1944
D-Day postponed from June 5 to June 6 due to bad weather; in Southern England, 175,000 men, an armada of 5,333 ships and landing craft, 50,000 vehicles, and 11,000 planes sit poised to attack secretly across the English Channel

11. June 6, 1944
D-Day: Allies land in Normandy at five sites code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword; by nightfall nearly all 175,000 men are ashore at a cost of 4,900 casualties; Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic Wall has fallen in less than one day

12. June
The Allies’ artificial harbor—or Mulberry—constructed at Omaha Beach is destroyed by a huge storm in the Channel; a second Mulberry at Gold Beach handles 7000 tons of supplies daily throughout the Normandy Campaign