D-Day Essay, Research Paper
D-Day
Introduction
June 6, 1944 will be remembered for many reasons. Some may think of it as a
success and some as a failure. The pages following this could be used to prove
either one. The only sure thing that I can tell you about D-Day is this: D-Day,
June 6, 1944 was the focal point of the greatest and most planned out invasion
of all time. The allied invasion of France was long awaited and tactfully
thought out. For months the allied forces of millions trained in Britain
waiting for the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, General
Eisenhower to set a date. June 6, 1944 was to be the day with the H-hour at
06:30. Aircraft bombed German installations and helped prepare the ground
attack. The ground forces landed and made their push inland. Soon Operation
Overlord was in full affect as the allied forces pushed the Germans back towards
the Russian forces coming in from the east. D-Day was the beginning and the key
to the fight to take back Europe.
Preparations for D-Day
Operation Overlord was in no way a last minute operation thrown together. When
the plan was finalized in the spring of 1944 the world started work on preparing
the hundreds of thousands of men for the greatest battle in history.
By June of 1944 the landing forces were training hard, awaiting D-Day.
1,700,000 British, 1,500,000 Americans, 175,000 from Dominions (mostly Canada),
and another 44,000 from other countries were going to take part.
Not only did men have to be recruited and trained but also equipment had to be
built to transport and fight with the soldiers. 1,300 warships, 1,600 merchant
ships, 4,000 landing craft and 13,000 aircraft including bombers, fighters and
gliders were built. Also several new types of tanks and armoured vehicles were
built. Two examples would be the Sherman Crab flail tank and the Churchill
Crocodile.
On the ground Britain assembled three armoured divisions, eight infantry
divisions, two airborne divisions and ten independent fighting brigades. The
United States had six armoured divisions, thirteen infantry and two airborne
divisions. With one armoured division and two infantry divisions Canada also
contributed greatly with the war effort especially when you look at the size of
the country at the time. In the air Britain’s one hundred RAF squadrons (1,200
aircraft) paled in comparison to the one hundred and sixty-five USAAF squadrons
(2,000 aircraft).
The entire Operation Overlord was supposed to go according to Montgomery’s
Master Plan which was created by General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery. His plan
was initiated by a command system which connected the U.S. and Britain and
helped them jointly run the operation. His plan was to have five divisions act
as a first wave land on the sixty-one mile long beach front. Four more
divisions as well as some airborne landings would support the first wave. The
beaches of Normandy would be separated into five beaches, codenamed, from west
to east Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The Americans would invade the two
westernmost beaches, being Utah and Omaha and the British and it’s Dominions
would take Gold, Juno and Sword. The Canadians were nearly the entire force to
land on Juno beach. The operation was also coordinated with various French
resistance groups called the ?Secret Army.?
The naval plans were to transport the allied expeditionary forces, help secure
and defend a beachhead, and to help setup a method of constant resupplying of
allied forces. Operation Overlord, in short, was as follows: The airforce
would be used to knock out German defences and immobilize their forces, blowup
tanks and other dummies were used to fool Germans into thinking the invasion was
coming at Pas de Calais, the navy would transport the troops while doing
whatever it can to help them gain ground, and enough of France would be
liberated and held by allied forces so that they would not be pushed back into
the sea.
Utah Beach
Utah beach was a stretch of beachfront approximately five miles long and located
in the dunes of Varreville. Like most beach attacks that day, the planned
attack time was 06:30 or H hour. As early as 02:00 (H-4:30) the preparations
for attack were being made as minesweepers started working at creating a safe
path for allied battleships, frigates, corvettes, etc. At about 02:30 the
flagship for Utah beach was in place and the order was given for the landing
crafts to be loaded and placed into the water. The four waves of troops were
ready to go and the German radar had not spotted any buildup of ships. The
first gunfire occurred at daybreak when some ships were spotted and fired upon
by coastal guns. 276 planes, all B-26 Marauder’s flew in to drop their payload
of 4400 bombs on the targets. Almost all missed and nearly a third fell onto
the beaches and into the sea, far away from their targets. Although some guns
were silenced the poor accuracy of the aircraft was costly and would turn out to
be only one of the many errors made by the allied forces.
At 06:30 the first of the troops landed, the 8th and 4th infantry missed the
correct beach and landed 2,000 yards away on what turned out to be a less
heavily defended beach. This mix up was blamed on smoke and rough seas. These
first troops were all part of the twenty landing craft, each carrying thirty men
that made up the first wave. After the first wave came the 32 amphibious tanks.
The second wave of troops consisted of 32 craft carrying combat engineers and a
naval demolition team. Dozer tanks would make up the third wave. Long after
the securing of the beach 2 engineer battalions arrived. This may sound like
all the divisions made it easily to shore but that is not true. Many amphibious
tanks were unable to make the trek on the rough seas and sank. Two out of the
three control vessels for the beach hit land mines and sank and countless
landing craft were shelled by German coastal guns. There were also several
drownings involving troops being weighed down by their equipment and drowning in
water around six feet deep.
If the soldiers managed to make it to shore they were still faced with German
machine gun fire. Fortunately, the beach and it’s surroundings had become the
victim of a large sea launched missile attack clearing most of the German
defences. Once divisions had made it on the beach and secured it they had to
start moving inland on their pre-planned missions. The divisions that landed on
the wrong beach decided ?to start the war from right here.? Most of the landed
troops were supposed to secure the areas and push inland, eventually meeting up
with the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions that had dropped behind the enemy in
order to cut them off from escape and so that they could be attacked from two
angles.
In the Utah Beach attack there were six divisions involved. The 4th and 8th
divisions that landed on the wrong beaches still continued on with their
missions. The 4th, which was originally supposed to land on the islands of St.
Marcouf to destroy coastal guns thought to be there ended up moving inland and
linking up with the 101st airborne division. The other division that landed in
the wrong location was the 8th. Their mission was to reduce beach
fortifications and to move inland. The last two divisions were the 12th and
22nd. Both divisions were to work together to secure the Northern region of the
beach. The 22nd was to move northwest clearing beaches and the high ground
overlooking them while the 12th moved inland on their left flank. Unfortunately
the 22nd was unable to make it’s deep swing into the Northwest.
By the end of the day the only infantry that was able to make it to it’s D-Day
objective was the 8th infantry that had landed on the wrong beach. Most of the
area was secure except for a pocket of Germans that controlled a small area
shaped like a two mile finger on the ridges north of Les Forges. The
experimental idea of having two airborne divisions drop farther inland had
helped make the Utah Beach attack a near success.
Omaha Beach
The Omaha beach area was the largest of all the Normandy beaches at
approximately 34,500 yards in length. The beach itself had only five passable
ways off, creating another difficulty for the landing troops and vehicles.
Behind the beach were heavily defended bluffs and high cliffs.
In order to invade the area, with it’s twelve German strongpoints over 34,000
troops and 3,300 vehicles would be involved in the Omaha Beach invasion. The
large number was partly because of the fact that beginning in April of the same
year German military had started to fortify the area in hopes of deterring any
invasion from the area. The sandy beaches themselves were free of mines but
three bands of obstacles were put into place in order to create impassable
obstacles for landing sea craft. First large gate-like structures were built,
simply to get in the way. The second band were large posts and logs dug into
the beach also creating obstacles. The third and final obstacle was farther up
the beach, they were large ?hedgehogs? which were mined obstacles that looked as
though they were some sort of weird medieval art.
Like the rest of the beaches, the planned attack time (H hour) was 06:30. Many
would think that this would be when the death toll would first start to rise but
this just wasn’t so. Many men died far from the beach. Two companies of
amphibious DD tanks sank because of heavy seas. Included with the 27 tanks that
sunk were 11 landing craft that tipped. Soldiers on these transports drowned
because the weight of the equipment they were carrying held them under the water.
Other craft hit mines, losing troops, supplies and weapons. Most of the
landing craft were being fired upon by German machine gun fire even when the
crafts were still over 1,000 yards away from the beach. Some even ran aground
while still 100 feet from shore. Attempts to improve the situation were made by
groups such as the 29th division who decided to bring their tanks in on the
landing craft. 8 of the 16 tanks made it to the beach. Other craft either
missed their landing area or arrived too late. The lateral current dragged some
infantry units 100’s of yards from their objectives and a few battalions, like
the 2nd Ranger battalion arrived 40 minutes after they were scheduled to land.
Once most of the craft had managed to make it to the beach the soldiers still
faced many problems. Air strikes that were planned to knock out enemy machine
gunners were not successful enough. Most of the troops were pinned behind the
sea wall and other obstacles by machine gun fire ahead of them and the raising
tides behind them. Tides rose four feet per hour, shrinking the beach by eighty
feet in the same time period. Those soldiers who were too injured to walk or
crawl drowned as the tide sped up on them. With soldiers pinned down and not
enough vehicles being able to get off the beach other craft were unable to land
due to the lack of room.
For the first few hours at Omaha Beach things looked grim. No major advances
were being made. The real turnaround that day was when a few destroyers
actually came in as close as eight hundred yards in order to fire at enemy
strongpoints. The risk of grounding the destroyers took and the arrival of
tanks lead to the eventual fall of the German beach defences. Once the groups
could move inland their individual missions were put into place.
One of the most important missions put upon any division was the destruction of
six French-made 155mm naval guns at Pointe du Hoc. This responsibility was
given to the 116th brigade and it’s two combat teams: US 5th Ranger and US 2nd
Ranger teams. The 5th met the fate of many battalions as the landed on the
wrong beach. Luckily the remaining two teams did manage to destroy the naval
guns that were capable of attacking ships as far out as 25,000 yards (22km).
This would prove to be one of the few missions that were completed that day.
Because of the great break downs in planned assaults, the day started to look
like a chaotic day with only individual missions of survival. Most divisions
managed to stay organized and plan their survival and attack plans. Col. George
H. Taylor of the 16th regiment said, ?Two kinds of people are staying on this
beach, the dead and those about to die, not let’s get the hell out of here.?
These sort of speeches sparked other soldiers to continue with their slightly
revised missions. Originally it was planned for the area’s above the beaches to
be taken by an advance up the heavily defended bluffs but the plan was changed
to a less organized direct assault on the German gunners in the high cliffs.
Other such companies that decided on newly created missions included the 16th
infantry and the 29th division. These two groups decided on a joint mission to
save their allies who were pinned on the beach. Also involved on the Omaha
Beach invasion were the US 1 Infantry Division, and the US 18th and 115th
Brigades.
By the end of D-Day on Omaha Beach the advance had gone barely one and a half
miles inland. Several of the enemy strongpoints were intact and the beachhead
was still under fire. Although this beaches day sounds like a disaster the
major exits from the area were held, three villages were under allied control
and hole in the German line about two and half kilometers long was made and the
coastal guns were destroyed. The landing had been made, all the troops could do
was secure the area and organize the beach for the introduction of
reinforcements and supplies.
Gold Beach
Gold Beach was the second largest of the beaches of Normandy and was also the
middle beach: Utah and Omaha to the west and Juno and Sword to the east. Gold
beach was like most of the other beaches invaded on D-Day except it had one
characteristic which was disadvantageous to the allies. Coral reefs, ranging
from twenty to a hundred yards out could ground landing craft at low tide.
Because of this factor the Gold Beach was postponed almost an hour after most of
the other attacks that day. H hour on this beach was to be 07:25.
It turned out the this adverse condition would soon show to have it’s pro’s and
con’s. The largest pro being that this left more time for bombardment of German
defenses by RAF bombers and naval guns. The con’s were of course the fact that
with the rising tides men landing on the beach would end up facing the fate of
many soldiers on Omaha beach, being pinned behind a sea wall and being drowned
by the advancing waves. It would also turn out that, along with beach obstacles,
the rising tide would make it even harder for landing craft to make their
transport runs.
Not soon after the arrival of the first wave of landing crafts the problems
started to mount. Also, like at Omaha, regiments decided to bring their DD
Sherman tanks on their LCD transports instead of floating them in. This was
mainly because of the weather which created high seas. Unfortunately this sort
of tactic left the tanks as sitting ducks and all but one of the tanks were
disabled or destroyed. Soon one problem lead to another as those soldiers that
landed on the beach were unable to advance and were without any tanks to bail
them out of their predicament. Eventually with the help of the one tank that
survived the landing the troops at Gold Beach were able to press forward.
Not unlike any of the other beaches, Gold had a complicated battle plan
including many divisions, regiments and even a commando group. The overall goal
was to take the key points of the German defenses and secure the area. One such
key point was Port-en-Bessin which was to be invaded by the British 47th Royal
Marine Commando who would later meet up with an America regiment from Omaha.
The problem was that not everything went according to plan and they were unable
to take the city and Americans who were supposed to help in the fight inland by
moving through the North-west flank of the area never showed up. Another such
joining of teams did go according to plans as the 50th division met up with a
division of Canadians from Juno beach after coming within a mile of their D-day
objective of the taking of Bayeux. The only two groups to succeed in their D-
day objectives as Gold Beach were the 69th and 231st regiments. The 231st
successfully took the city of Arromanches while the 69th took la Riviere even
after they were forced to originally bypass the stronghold and return and