The Beaches of Normandy

One of the most exciting places that I will visit this summer is the infamous beaches of Normandy, the site of the D-Day landing. I wrote an article on the D-Day landings to help you realize how historic this site is.

 4 years after German forces over ran France, and the British expelled from continental Europe, 3 years since Hitler invaded the USSR, 2 and a half years after the US formally entered the war, the Germans were now either halted or retreating on the eastern front, defeated in North Africa, and being pushed up the Italian peninsula. The allies then started stockpiling troops and supplies and launching strategic bombing runs in preparation for the D-Day landings to liberate Nazi occupied France. 



Then the supreme commander of allied expeditionary forces general Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a message to all members of the allied expeditionary force, "You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months". In the middle of the night 3 divisions of paratroopers (2 American and 1 British) had landed behind enemy lines to help facilitate the D-Day landings. Then in the early morning of June 6 1944, 6 infantry divisions, 160,000 Allied troops landed at along a 50-mile (80K) stretch of beach separated into 5 sections of beaches, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. With the support of 195,700 naval and merchant Navy personnel, and 5000 ships this was the largest amphibious invasion in human history and was executed by land, sea and air elements.

In addition to the invasion of Normandy there was a massive deception campaign to confuse the Germans and convince them that the landings would be at Pas-de-Calais because the distance from England was shorter. To do this the allies launched operation fortitude south. The goal of the operation was to convince Adolf Hitler that the invasion will be made up of the nonexistent first United States army group, led by real General George S Patton. It also was meant to convince the Germans that the Normandy invasion was just a diversion from the main invasion. Other successful operations include operation Glimmer and Operation Taxable which involved heavy bombers flying precise patterns to France during the D-Day invasion. The planes carried radar reflecting aluminum strips to create a picture on German radar of an incoming invasion fleet. Ultimately these campaigns were successful in convincing Hitler because he refused to move vital forces from Pas-de-Calais to Normandy until it was too late.