On 23 January, 1944, the Allies had settled on a basic plan of attack for
the invasion of Europe. The Americans would land on the western beaches
of Normandy, closest to their western supply bases in Britain, and the
English and Canadians would land on the eastern beaches. Preceding the
invasion, the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would land by parachute
and glider near the town of St. Mere-Eglise to secure roads from the beaches
and to generally harass the Germans from reinforcing the beaches. Two corps
of troops would land in the initial wave, VII, who would expand the beachhead
south, and V corps, which would cut west to capture the port of Cherbourg.
With the port, operations for the retaking of Paris and the whole of France
could commence. On the British side paratroops would also be landed to
help enable Canadian and British divisions to land and secure a beachhead.
Over all, Allied planners intended
to gain a foothold between the Seine and Loire Rivers. Assuming that the
Germans, after initial resistance, would choose to withdraw their forces
behind the natural barrier provided by the Seine, they estimated that the
task would take about ninety days. After a pause to regroup and resupply,
the Allies would then begin an advance into the regions beyond the Seine
and toward Germany.
In preparation for the invasion, the
number of U.S. fighting men based in Great Britain would double in the
first six months of 1944, going from 774,000 to 1,537,000 . At least 16
million tons of supplies would be needed to feed and supply those men and
their allies: six and one quarter pounds of rations per day per man; 137,000
jeeps, trucks, and half-tracks; 4,217 tanks and fully tracked vehicles;
3,500 artillery pieces; 12,000 aircraft; and huge stores of supplies. Troop
barracks and supply depots for the entire force were spread across the
English countryside. The congestion extended to Britain's harbors, where
ships crammed with even more supplies stood by. By the day of the attack,
besides the immense force of fighting ships that would land the troops
in Normandy and of cargo vessels that continued to cross Atlantic
supply routes, more than 3 million tons of merchant shipping were used
in the invasion. Landing craft were in such short supply that Eisenhower
postponed the invasion for one month, from May to June.
Preparation for the invasion was fierce.
Allied air forces opened the way for the attack itself by waging massive
bombing campaigns in Germany and France. In Germany, between January and
June, 1944, Allied fighters swept the skies clear of German warplanes and
took a heavy toll in pilots. As a result, by June 1944 the enemy lacked
the air power to mount more than a token resistance to Allied plans.
Meanwhile, in France, the French resistance cut railroad
tracks, sabotaged locomotives, and targeted supply trains as Allied aircraft
bombed roads, bridges, and rail junctions to prevent the Germans from moving
reinforcements toward the invasion beaches. To deceive the enemy's intelligence
agencies, the attacks occurred along the entire length of the Channel coast.
By June, despite intelligence reports questioning the value of the attacks,
all rail routes across the Seine River north of Paris were closed; the
transportation system in France was at the point of collapse.
In June1944 the final invasion did
occur. The Germans found themselves caught off guard. They had supposed
that the invasion would come at Calaís, not Normandy. Hitler's impenetrable
Atlantic Wall was cracked, and the German commander Erwin Rommel found
himself groping for troops he did not have to contain the invasion. Even
after the initial strike had been made, the Germans still feared it was
just a ploy, and failed to commit all their troops to repulsing the invasion.
But with the beachhead secured, the Allies found that expansion of that
beachhead was slow and costly. They had to attack dug in Germans across
a landscape covered with hedgerows. Fighting was intense, and the fast
invasion planned after the initial beachhead found itself stalled. But
the Germans just did not have the munitions or men to face the Allied forces,
and the Allied air forces were exacting a costly toll on the defenders.
Eventually, they were forced to pull back, give up Paris and with it France.
D Day was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
--Nat Weller
--history teacher: Mr. Denning
--sources:
¥http://www.nando.net/sproject/dday/dday.html
¥Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers. Published
by Simon M. Schuster, New York ©1997
¥http://www.dday.org
¥http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/domestic/1994/940606/940606.cover.html
