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D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy |
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When on D-Day-June 6, 1944-Allied armies landed in Normandy on the
North-western coast of France, one of the most important events of World War II
happened; the fate of Europe hung on the results of the invasion. If the
invasion failed, the United States might turn its full attention to the enemy
in the Pacific-Japan-leaving Britain alone, with most of its resources spent in
mounting the invasion. That would enable Nazi Germany to gather all its
strength against the Soviet Union. By the time American forces returned to
Europe, Germany might have control of the entire continent.
Although fewer Allied ground troops went ashore on D-Day than on the first day
of the earlier invasion of Sicily, the invasion of Normandy was in total
history\'s greatest amphibious operation, involving on the first day 5,000
ships (the largest group of ships ever assembled), 11,000 planes, and about
154,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers, including 23,000 arriving by
parachute and glider. The invasion also involved a long-range deception plan on
a scale that the world had never before seen and the secret operations of tens
of thousands of allied resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied countries of
Western Europe.
American General Dwight D. Eisenhower was named supreme commander for the
allies in Europe. British General, Sir Frederick Morgan, established a combined
American-British headquarters known as COSSAC, for Chief of Staff to the
Supreme Allied Commander. COSSAC developed a number of plans for the Allies;
most notable was that of Operation Overlord, a full-scale invasion of France
across the English Channel.
Eisenhower felt that COSSAC\'s plan was a sound operation. After reviewing the
bad hit-and-run raid in 1942 in Dieppe, planners decided that the strength of
German defenses required not a number of separate assaults by relatively small
units but an immense concentration of power in a single main landing. The
invasion site would have to be close to at least one major port and airbase to
allow for efficient supply lines. Possible sites included among others, the
Pas de Calais across the Strait of Dover, and the beaches of Cotentin. The
Allies decided that the beaches of Cotentin would be the landing sites for
Operation Overlord.
The main reason that the invasion worked was deception. Deception to mislead
the Germans as to the time and place of the invasion. To accomplish this, the
British already had a plan known as Jael, which involved whispering campaigns
in diplomatic posts around the world and various distractions to keep German
eyes focused anywhere but on the coast of northwestern France. An important
point to the deception was Ultra, code name for intelligence obtained from
intercepts of German radio traffic. This was made possible by the British early
in the war having broken the code of the standard German radio enciphering
machine, the Enigma. Through Ultra the Allied high command knew what the
Germans expected the Allies to do and thus could plant information either to
reinforce an existing false view or to feed information through German agents,
most of it false but enough of it true-and thus sometimes involving sacrifice
of Allied troops, agents or resistance forces in occupied countries-to maintain
the credibility of the German agents.
Six days before the targeted date of June 5th, troops boarded ships,
transports, and aircrafts all along the southern and southwestern coasts of
England. All was ready for one of history\'s most dramatic and momentous
events. One important question was left unanswered though: what did the Germans
know? Under Operation Fortitude, a fake American force-the 1st Army
Group-assembled just across the Channel from the Pas de Calais. Dummy troops,
false radio traffic, dummy landing crafts in the bay of the Thames river, huge
but empty camps, and dummy tanks all contributed to the deception. Although the
Allied commanders could not know it until their troops were ashore, their
deception had been remarkably successful. As time for the invasion neared, the
German\'s focus of the deception had shifted from the regions of the Balkans
and Norway to the Pas de Calais. The concentration of Allied troops was so
great, that an invasion of France seemed inevitable. Bombing attacks, sabotage
by the French Resistance and false messages from compromised German agents all
focused on the Pas de Calais with only minimal attention to Normandy. Also,
German intelligence thought that the Allies had 90 divisions ready for the
invasion (really only 39), so that even after the invasion of Normandy, the
belief could still exist that Normandy was just a preliminary measure and the
main invasion of the Pas de Calais was still to come. None of the German high
command in France doubted that the invasion would strike the Pas de Calais.
Even Adolf Hitler, had an feeling that the invasion would come to Normandy but
was unable to order his commanders to make more than a few reinforcements
there.
Due to bad weather, the first step in the invasion began a day late, on June 6
around 12:15 am. An air attack on Normandy. The Germans saw the airborne
assault as nothing more than a raid or at most a diversionary attack. As the
airborne landings continued, Field Marshal Von Rundstedt nevertheless decided
that even if the assault was a diversionary attack, it had to be defeated. Around
4:00 am, he ordered two panzer divisions to prepare for counter
attack, but when he reported what he had done to the high command in Germany,
word came back to halt the divisions pending approval from Hitler. That would
be a long time coming, for Hitler\'s staff was reluctant to disturb his sleep.
For the following 12 hours, Allied forces landed on five beaches defeating
Germany\'s forces with just a few deaths. It was 4 p.m. on D-Day before Hitler
approved the deployment of the two panzer divisions. Allied deception had been
remarkably effective and because Hitler had been sleeping and was then slow to
carry out any action, German power which could have meant defeat for the
invasion had been held back. The rest of the reserve in France and the 19 divisions
of the massive Fifteenth Army in the Pas de Calais, stayed where they were
feeling that the main invasion was still to come.
The next day, after word reached Hitler that German troops had found copies of
U.S. operation orders indicating that the landing in Normandy constituted the
main invasion, he ordered the panzer reserve into action, but Allied
intelligence was ready for such an emergency.
Through Ultra the Allied command learned of Hitler\'s orders, and through a
compromised German agent known as Brutus, it sent a word that the American
corps orders were a plant. The main invasion, Brutus reported, was still to
come in the Pas de Calais. Hitler canceled his
orders.
Had Allied commanders known of the near-bankruptcy of troops on the German side,
they would have had more cause for encouragement. The Seventh Army (German
defense of Normandy) had thrown into the battle every major unit available. The
commander of the Seventh Army was reluctant to commit any forces from the West
to the invasion, fearful of a second Allied landing. Meanwhile, most German
officials continued to believe that a bigger landing was still to come in the
Pas de Calais.