Eighty years ago, the Allied Forces began the largest amphibious military invasion in human history. On June 6, 1944, more than 130 battleships, cruisers, and destroyers bombarded the French coast while 277 minesweepers cleared the water. Behind them, about 7,000 vessels, packed with nearly 200,000 soldiers from eight Allied nations, crossed the channel, ready to storm the beaches of Normandy. Overhead, over 1,200 aircraft delivered paratroopers behind enemy lines. It was feat the size and scope of had never been seen. It still remains singularly large and impressive today.
More than 2 million Allied personnel took part in Operation Overlord, the code name for the Battle of Normandy that began with the D-Day invasion and continued on through August. During the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943, the Allies appointed U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower to command the Expeditionary Force and put British General Bernard Montgomery in charge of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all the land forces. The allies chose the Normandy coast for the landings, assigning Americans the sectors codenamed Utah and Omaha, while the British were to land at Sword and Gold, and the Canadians were to land at Juno.
By Harrison (Sgt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit - http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib//8/media-8246/large.jpg This photograph BU 1024 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain The Allies needed to develop special technology to meet the conditions expected on the Normandy beachhead. They invented artificial ports, called Mulberry harbors, to provide deep water jetties and places where the invasion force could download reinforcements and supplies before major French ports were recaptured from the Germans and their damage repaired. Two Mulberry harbors were created: Mulberry "A" at Omaha Beach and Mulberry "B" at Gold Beach. The harbor at Omaha Beach was damaged by a violent storm before it was ever completed, and the Americans abandoned it, landing their men and material over the open beaches. However, the harbor at Gold Beach was a great success. Over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tons of supplies used Mulberry “B” during the 10 months it was in use.
Another technology developed for the D-Day landings were the Hobart's Funnies,a group of specialized armoured fighting vehicles based on the British Churchill tank, and American M4 Sherman, but equipped with bulldozers, flamethrowers, demolition charges, reels of canvas that could be unrolled to form paths for other vehicles, assault bridges, ramps, and other modifications to help take the beach and destroy German fortifications. Hobart's Funnies were named for Major-General Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart, a British Engineer.
Train damaged by resistance sabateurs https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205206871 All the while that Allied forces were developing their plans and technologies, Resistance groups were active throughout German-occupied France. Their contributions to the invasion of Normandy included the gathering of intelligence on German defences and the carrying out of sabotage missions to disrupt the German war effort, including the destruction of rail lines and train engines and the cutting of telegraph and telephone lines. Because there were many different Resistance organizations that operated independently and often had different goals, coordinating them with the Allied forces was difficult. Many, however, listened to the secret messages from the Free French that were broadcast over the BBC. On the first of May, and again on June 1, such messages warned that the invasion would be soon and encouraged Allied secret agents and resistance fighters to carry out their acts of sabotage as soon as possible.
Although the Allies failed to accomplish their objectives for the first day of the invasion, they were able to gain a tenuous foothold on the land that Germany had held since taking France. They captured the port at Cherbourg on June 26, and the city of Caen on July 21. By August 25, the Allies had liberated Paris. Five days later, the Germans retreated east across the Seine marking the close of Operation Overlord and the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime.
Few of the veterans of D-Day are still alive, but we remember them and honor them for their bravery.
Few of the veterans of D-Day are still alive, but we remember them and honor them for their bravery.
Code: Elephants on the Moon is author Jennifer Bohnhoff's novel about Eponine Lambaol, a girl who senses that strange things are going on in her Nazi-held village in Normandy. As D-Day nears, she joins with others to resist the Germans and prepare for the Allied invasion. Written for middle school readers, adults have also found this an informative and entertaining read.
