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The Push to Victory: the Normandy Landings

The Push to Victory: the Normandy Landings

The Push to Victory: The Landings

What Were They? Romany, homosexual, and mentally and It was decided that the Allies needed to The were part of Operation physically disabled people – which was carried start a new conflict or “front” in . In Overlord, the campaign for Allied forces to out by under , and late 1943, preparations began for Operation invade occupied Europe during the Second supported and facilitated by other Axis powers. Overlord – the codename for a land, sea and World . Thousands of soldiers landed on air invasion of Normandy in northern . the beaches of Normandy in France on the first The operation was headed up by American day of the campaign, 6th 1944, known as Dwight D Eisenhower, with resources D-Day. It was the world’s largest ever seaborne principally coming from America, and military invasion. Great Britain, although French, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, Australian, New Zealand, Norwegian, Background Rhodesian and Polish troops were also involved. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, prompting Great Britain and France to declare Troops disembark onto the Normandy a state of war. Over the next two years, most of beaches. the countries of the world were drawn into the conflict, which became known as the Second By 1943, Germany had occupied much of World War. Countries broadly divided into two continental Europe (including France, Belgium military alliances: the Axis (Germany, Italy and and the Netherlands) and it became apparent Japan) and the Allies (Great Britain, France, that the Allies needed to gain ground in France USA, , China). is estimated if they were to overcome the Axis powers. The to have claimed the lives of up to 85 million Allies had regained control in North Africa; people worldwide. they had invaded and were pushing through Italy; they had control of the Atlantic; and in One of the most chilling features of the Second the Soviet Union they had won the Battle of Soldiers move away from , World War was – the persecution Stalingrad. was mounting on the Axis carrying supplies. and genocide of over six million Jewish, powers.

Page 1 of 4 Creating a Smoke Screen that troops would be landing in the . All Areas of Attack In order to maximise the chances of Operation of this created widespread confusion. To effectively coordinate the invasion, the 50- Overlord, it was important to maintain an mile stretch of Normandy coastline was divided element of surprise. The Allies created Operation As D-Day drew near, efforts escalated to draw into five areas of attack by the Allies. These Bodyguard – a campaign of and German forces away from the Normandy were named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and deception to cover up the real details of D-Day. beaches. Roads and railway lines were bombed Sword. The idea was that these areas could by Allied forces and the be bombarded with troops who would then As part of , Operation movement, making the area difficult to reach for take over nearby towns and link the beaches Fortitude was born. This operation was German soldiers. The night before the invasion, together as they pressed forward into France. specifically designed to draw the Germans away dummy were dropped away from Each of the beaches was heavily defended with from Normandy before the landings. Fortitude the beaches, so the Germans thought they were German bunkers and artillery, and some nearby North used secret agents to leak false information being invaded by air, and small ships simulated towns had been taken over completely by the to the Germans that the Allies were planning an invasion fleet at the Pas de . military. to invade . Meanwhile, Fortitude South leaked the myth that the Allies were planning D-Day to cross the channel north-east of Normandy, Just after midnight on 6th June 1944, around at the Pas de Calais. The scale of the deception 20,000 paratroopers parachuted into the was so large that a whole fictitious force, based Normandy beaches; these were the advance in south-east England, was invented to fool the guard for the forces arriving by sea (known Axis powers. Fake equipment, such as inflatable as Operation Neptune). Over 7,000 vessels, tanks, was delivered to the pretend army base carrying 132,000 troops, arrived around six to keep up the elaborate deception. hours later. Many of these stayed to provide artillery support to the disembarked soldiers. Rut ‘Rutka’ Laskier Meanwhile, Operation Ironside, another offshoot of , was allowing Despite the successful deception campaigns communications to be intercepted that which had been running prior to the invasion, indicated that the Allies would invade at the Landing ships moving cargo onto the the troops still met with strong resistance Bay of Biscay, and Operation Zeppelin implied invasion beaches. from the Germans. The beaches were heavily

Page 2 of 4 defended with metal structures, mines and arrived before their armoured defences, resulting coastline. They continued to push forward, and barbed wire, to make landing from both air and in many casualties as they disembarked. in August, the Germans began to fully retreat sea extremely dangerous. Gun emplacements Significant German fortifications also slowed from France. overlooking the beaches kept up a steady progress. stream of fire, and at , there was There was still a considerable effort for the the added challenge of steep cliffs, giving the At Sword, a narrow landing area and difficult Allied forces before the Second World War Germans an immediate height advantage over meant that armoured support could not could be won, however. But the of the invading troops. fully land. The key objective of the area had France meant that the Allies had a significant been to take the town of , but this was not foothold in Europe and finally, in May 1945, At , troops were swept off course by achieved until several weeks later. the Germans surrendered. strong currents and landed far from where they had originally intended. However, paratroopers By the end of the day, it is estimated that around had arrived before them and, after periods of 2,500 Allied soldiers died on the Normandy intense fighting, the forces managed to advance beaches, with a further 7,500 wounded or four miles into France. .

Omaha was the deadliest of the five beaches, The Aftermath as it was the most heavily defended by the D-Day was just the first day of what would be a Germans. After a protracted battle, the Allies long and bloody conflict. Once the initial wave established their hold on the beach by the end of soldiers had pushed past the beaches, more of the day. troops landed and continued the onslaught into France. The German army fought back fiercely, At , troops managed to overcome and the French countryside, with its winding problems caused by an unexpectedly high , lanes and high , meant that the Allies and had pushed inland by six miles, to meet up were at a considerable disadvantage. There with soldiers from Juno by the close of D-Day. were heavy casualties. Nevertheless, by 12th The Royal Navy drop a depth charge on June, all five beaches were connected, meaning a suspected U-boat during the landing Stormy seas meant that troops at Juno had that the Allies had control of a large chunk of operations on the Normandy coast.

Page 3 of 4 The Push to Victory Facts a well-known military figure. To deceive the 2,000: number of tanks the Germans used Germans, MI5 hired an actor, M E Clifton in fighting the battle in Normandy. Only 70 D-Day James, to impersonate Montgomery in Algiers survived. D-Day is actually the name given to the first day in May 1944 and drop hints about a fictitious of any military operation – the ‘D’ comes from invasion of the south of France. It’s not known 10,000: estimated Allied casualties on D-Day. the word ‘day’. Because of the significance of how successful this plan was, but it certainly the Normandy landings, D-Day is now usually contributed to the general disinformation and 150,000: approximate number of soldiers who understood to refer to them. deception which was crucial to the success of invaded Normandy on D-Day. D-Day. Crossword Confusion! 9,000,000: tonnes of equipment which came to In 1944, a school headmaster was arrested as it D-Day in Numbers Britain from America to prepare for D-Day. was suspected he was trying to leak information 5: number of sections the Normandy beaches about D-Day to the enemy by including D-Day were divided into, for operational purposes. codenames as answers to crossword puzzles he was compiling for the Daily Telegraph. It turned out that he had got the words from his pupils, who had been visiting a nearby army base and overheard them being used there. Among the words, which appeared in the months before D-Day, were ‘Gold’, ‘Sword’, ‘Juno’, ‘Utah’, ‘Omaha’ and ‘Overlord’. It was eventually decided the teacher was completely innocent of any deception and the leaking of the codenames had been an accident.

The Dummy General The person in charge of D-Day operations in Britain was General Sir , D-day allied assault routes to Normandy.

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