REMEMBRANCE TOURISM GUIDE 2020 TO NORMANDY’S D-DAY LANDINGS


PLANNING


Plans for a cross-Channel invasion had begun in May 1943 (at the Trident Conference, held in Washington DC), with four potential landing sites earmarked: Brittany, the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy’s beaches and Pas-de-Calais. The first two were ruled out as they were narrow isthmuses, deemed too easy to seal off by the Germans; Pas-de-Calais was the closest to the United Kingdom, yet was heavily fortified and offered little scope for a post-invasion onward displacement of troops. Normandy, which offered access down to Paris and over to the port of Cherbourg, was thus selected as the best option.


OPERATION FORTITUDE


Operation Fortitude, run under the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), was part of a broader plan called Operation


Bodyguard, designed to deceive


German high command into believing that the Allies were planning attacks on Pas-de- Calais, the Balkans, southern France and Norway. The deception worked: German command (particularly Rommel) took steps to heavily fortify Pas-de-Calais. Hitler believed that the Allies would attack across the Straits of Dover and so Operation Overlord retained the element of surprise.


THE TARGETS


The massive assault was delayed by 24 hours due to bad weather and rough seas, but the 50-mile stretch of coast remained the target. It was divided into five sectors, codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.


OPERATION OVERLORD


Operation Overlord (codenamed Operation Neptune) began just after midnight on June 6, 1944, when more than 13,000 elite paratroopers of the American 82nd and 101st Airborne


Divisions – as well as several thousand from the British 6th Airborne Division – were parachuted over Normandy by more than 1,200 aircraft. For 40 minutes from 5.50am, US navy battleships USS Arkansas, USS Nevada and USS Texas, alongside British ships, bombarded German gun emplacements on the targeted beaches. This was followed at 6.30am by amphibious landings of infantry and armoured divisions. It was the biggest seaborne invasion in history, with 6,939 vessels involved. On landing, Allied forces came under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, while their progress was hampered by mines and other obstacles.


At Utah Beach, the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment of the US VII Corps made their way ashore as the first wave. At 7am, US 1st Division troops landed at Omaha – many were drowned or shot as they waded through the sand flats. By the


end of D-Day, there were already known to be around 3,000 casualties among the 43,250 men who had landed.


British and Canadian units landed at Gold, Juno and Sword beaches. At the latter, the British landed 28,845 men on the first day, with 426 casualties. D-Day itself had been a success, but the Battle of Normandy had only just begun.


CASUALTIES


Allied forces suffered nearly 10,000 casualties; more than 4,000 were dead (among them 2,499 Americans, as verified in 2016 by the US National D-Day Memorial Foundation). Yet thanks to the courage and sacrifice of the Allies, Hitler’s European stronghold had been breached.


 To find out more about the main phases of the Battle of Normandy (Operation Overlord), visit the Normandy Tourism website at: http://en. normandie-tourisme.fr/


❯❯ Apr/May 2020 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 131


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