D-Day: The last great battle of World War 2.

     By

    Irene Curran.

 

By 1944 the war’s outcome wasn’t in doubt, but early hopes that it would be over in Christmas, proved misplaced. For example in Italy: “the Allies continued their long slog northwards taking Rome in but finding more hills, rivers and Germans behind it”[1]. It had been decided in November 1943 at the Teheran Conference to open another front against the Germans in 1944. The invasion was known as Operation Overlord (D-Day). “The meticulous planning which preceded the invasion and some judgement errors courtesy of the Germans ensured its success”[2]. All the Allies equipment was top of the range while their deception plans encouraged the Germans to think that an attack would come by Pas de Calais rather than Normandy. The Germans also thought that weather conditions would prevent an invasion on June 6th. “At the same time the French railway and road systems were badly damaged due to Allied bombings and this would later cause problems for the Germans”[3].

 

The Allied naval force which crossed the Channel was huge. “ At 0900 (June 5th) the 1st group of landing craft left Spithead , off Portsmouth , after this a continuous stream of shipping headed out towards Mid Channel rendezvous place (Point Z) “[4]. General Eisenhower’s difficult order to sail was a good decision but nonetheless the wind had reached force 5. This made it difficult for the flat bottomed craft crews and passengers to land but they managed. The first to land (a few minutes after midnight) was a special force of British glider troops who took two vital bridges across the Orne River and a canal. “At the same time the U.S 82nd and 101st airborne divisions jumped over the western flank of the landings while the British 6th Airborne division jumped over the eastern flank”[5]. At around 0300 (June 6th) about 2,000 Allied bombers started a two hour bombardment of German defences along the landing beaches. This was then followed by a naval bombardment and by another air attack this time with 1,000 bombers which preceded the amphibious landing by 15 minutes.

 

The first American troops started landing on Utah and Omaha beaches at 0630. “The two beaches were 15km (10 miles) apart and separated by the Vire River. The U.S 4th Infantry Division landed on Utah beach and quickly established a large bridgehead, extending some 10 miles inland but there was still some small pockets of German resistance. The division suffered fewer than 200 casualties in the whole day”[6]. The U.S 1st and 29th divisions          who landed on Omaha beach had a completely different story. Landing was difficult and Allied Intelligence failed to discover the Germans 352nd Infantry division on the beach. The Infantry division was an experienced formation, which was sited well in good defensive position. Artillery, mortar and machine gun fire kept the U.S forces pinned down and caused heaviest losses by any of the D-Day divisions. “Some 2,000 killed, wounded and missing. But by the end of the day and after some particularly heroic actions they established two toe holds”[7].

 

Some 55 minutes after the U.S landings on Utah and Omaha, British and Canadian troops went ashore onto Gold and Juno beaches at 0725. “The British 50th Infantry division (Gold Beach) and Canadian 3rd Infantry division (Juno Beach) went ashore and quickly established itself and started pushing inland”[8]. The most eastern landing (3rd Infantry division, British) on Sword Beach took place at 0735 and they left immediately to link up with 6th airborne division (British) who landed during the night. “But the disembarkation of the division’s armour was delayed by bad weather and when the division encountered the Germans 21st Panzer Division, it was brought to a standstill, stopping them from reaching Caen its somewhat ambitious D-Day adjective”[9].


[1] R. Holmes, The Second World War in Photographs. Page 295.

[2] E. Fynes, European History 1870 -1966. Page 217.

[3] E. Fynes, European History 1870 – 1966. Page 217-218.

[4] D. Miller, Great Battles of WWII. Page 87.

[5] D. Miller, Great Battles of WWII. Page 87 – 88.

[6] D. Miller, Great Battles of WWII. Page 88.

[7] D. Miller, Great Battles of WWII. Page 88.

[8] D. Miller, Great Battles of WWII. Page 88.

[9][9][9][9] D. Miller, Great Battles of WWII. Page 88.

 

 

 

 

In the Anglo-Canadian sector, meanwhile, the first sign of activity had been almost imperceptible. At 4.45 am, two midget submarines- X20 and X23 – slid silently to the surface of the Channel, 1.6km (1 mile) offshore and 32km (20 miles) apart, at the outer limits of the assault area. Their job was to guide in the invasion craft with radar and sonar signals. Forty-five minutes later, the naval bombardment began. It started 20 minutes earlier than off the American sector and lasted over an hour longer, until 7.20am. At 7.05, groups of frogmen swam in to clear paths through underwater obstacles. But by 7.25, with the first landing craft approaching, their work was still unfinished. One frogman, Private Peter Jones, watched helplessly as a vessel, caught in heavy swell off “Gold” beach, collided with a mine-tipped steel tripod. It “shot up into the air as though lifted by a water spout” he remembered. “At the top of the spout bodies and body parts spread like drops of water”.

 

The run in for the British and Canadian craft had been shorter than for the Americans and they arrived in better order. But they too met fierce resistance. On ‘Juno’ beach, landing craft, tanks and bulldozers were soon ablaze, their metalwork twisting weirdly in the heat. But the terrain in the easterly sector was less favorable to the defenders than at ‘Omaha’; there were no commanding cliffs and routes inland were plentiful. The British ‘Funnies’ also proved their worth. Amphibious DDs were often in action before landing craft had lowered their ramps. Flail tanks blazed trails through minefields, and mortar-firing Churchill's blasted holes in sea walls. Troops were soon pouring off the beaches. At ‘Sword’, Commandos under Lord Lovat were led inland by their commander’s personal piper.

 

The Luftwaffe (the German Air Force) was so dominated by the Allied forces that it managed fewer than 30 sorties over the invasion area. Thus, by midnight on D-Day, the allies were firmly ashore, and Field Marshal Rommel’s aim of attacking the invaders on the beaches and pushing them back into the sea wasn’t achieved. Indeed the landing had succeeded, and the Germans would never be able to push them back again. One of the most important features of D-Day was the Allies’ overwhelming mastery in the sky. Over the battlefield fighters and fighter bombers awaited the call in “cab ranks” and were talked down on to the target by Forward Air Controllers (FACs).

 

Fighting inshore, the Allies did encountered difficulties. Thanks to the success of the airborne landings, the flanks of beachhead were firmly held, but efforts to break out of the centre were frustrated by fierce German resistance and counterattacks, particularly around Caen in the British-Canadian sector. A British armoured thrust at Villers-Bocage was defeated on June 13. A large-scale infantry offensive west of Caen, called Operation “Epsom”, was also defeated on June 25-29. There was gloom at SHAEF; it seemed that stalemate was descending. The gloom was deepened by Montgomery’s strategy. His plan was to draw German armour towards the British front and win a battle of attrition between tank forces. The successful German defence, however, led the Americans to doubt the plan’s viability.

 

In fact, the Germans were also depressed, for their bitter defence was using up men and equipment that could not be replaced. Moreover, the Americans were now able to profit from the deployment of most of the enemy's armour against the British to break into the base of the Cotentin Peninsula and advance on Cherbourg. The last bastion in the heavily fortified city fell on June 28, and clearance of the port began at once.

 

These setbacks brought about a crisis in the German high command, which in any case now suffered unforeseeable casualties. Dollman, commander of the 7th Army, died suddenly on June 28, just after the surrender of the main garrison in Cherbourg; his death was blamed on a heart attack, though it is quite likely he committed suicide. Rommel was severely injured when his car was strafed by a British fighter on July 17. Worst of all, Rundstedt confessed defeatism to Hitler, urged him to make peace, and was dismissed on July 2. He was replaced by Gunther Von Kluge, who soon came round to sharing Rundstedt's doubts. On July 20 a conspiracy of officers who believed the only hope of securing a peace lay in Hitler's removal made an attempt on his life at his East Prussian headquarters, Rastenburg. Its failure led to Hitler's taking draconian powers over the army and exacting terrible revenge on those suspected of complicity. Rommel was forced to commit suicide in October; Kluge did so on August 18. The German defence of Normandy had by then taken a turn for the worst.

 

Operation Anvil – the landing of troops on the French Riviera – had occurred without setbacks and by early September had linked up              with troops from Overlord. Belgium and the important port of Antwerp were taken in September. In Normandy, where the first great breach in the defenses of Hitler’s fortress had been won, the rubble was being cleared from the towns and villages over which the armies had battled. Two hundred thousand buildings in the province had been destroyed. There was another job to be done after the buildings had been restored; the gathering of the bodies of the soldiers who had died in Normandy’s fields and orchards. Buried where they had fallen in the ten weeks of fighting, or thrown together in the mass graves into which the victims of the Falaise pocket were heaped, in the years after the departure of the armies they were disinterred and brought together into more fitting places. The bodies of the 9,000 American dead (not repatriated) were buried together under a forest of white cruciform headstones at Saint-Laurnet above Omaha Beach. At both Ranville and Bayeux, close to the centers of the fierce fighting on the Orne and Odon Rivers, space had to be made for 2,000 British graves. At other spots, Douvers-la- Delivrande, Combes-en-Plaine, Fontenay-le-Pesnel, the cemeteries could be smaller, small enough to be hidden among the regrown hedgerows from all but the most determined visitor.

 

 

          

SHORT QUESTIONS

 

Q1 Long review of a source.                              

One of the books that I used for this project was D-Day: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches by S. Ambrose. This book is about the young men born into the false promise of the 1920's and brought up in the bitter realities of the Depression of the 1930s.The literature they read as youngsters was anti-war and cynical, portraying patriots as fools. But when the test came, when freedom had to be fought for or abandoned, they fought. On the basis of 1400 oral histories from the men who where there, this book reveals how the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944 had to be nearly                 abandoned before the first shot was fired. The true story of D-Day, as Stephen Ambrose relates it, is about the citizen soldiers – junior officers and enlisted men – taking the initiative to act on their own to break Hitler’s Atlantic Wall when they realized that nothing was as they had been told it would be.

 

The book starts with a brief account of the assault on Pegasus bridge by the British Paras, and then takes us back to the beginning and the reasons a second front was needed. It looks at the main generals, pays tribute to planners, engineers, British innovation and British intelligence, and then goes through the battle area by area, step by step. There is a large chunk of the book that focuses on Omaha Beach, and it is clear this was the place where the invasion nearly failed. The less detailed accounts of the Utah, Gold, Sword & Juno beaches are a small let down. I would have also liked a few more maps as well. Otherwise this book is an excellent tribute to those that gave their lives in the cause of freedom and democracy on the 6th June 1944.

 

Q2. Bibliography.

1. Holmes, R. The Second World War in Photographs. Carlton. London, 2000.

2. Miller, D. Great Battles of World War 2,  Greenhill Books. London, 1998.

3. Ambrose, S. D-day, June 6 1944: The Battles for the Normandy Beaches. Pocket Books. 5th June 2002.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

Q3.Short Review                                                                                                                            One of the books that I used for this project was Great Battles of World War 2 by David Miller. This book was published by Greenhill Books in London in 1998. This was a good source of information because it contained very detailed information. It also included maps, photos, tables, and gave detailed accounts of what really happened during the various battles.                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                           

 

 

Q4.Skills.                                                                                                                     Two skills that I learnt while doing this project were: 1 Computer Skills: I learnt how to use Microsoft Word and how to use the Internet to find information.

(2) I also learnt how to write a Leaving Certificate essay properly with footnotes and a Bibliography at the end (a list of books).