Landing at Normandy During the Second World

¶ … Landing at Normandy

During the Second World War, the Allies which were comprised of the United States, England, the Soviet Union, Canada, and several other smaller nations took arms against the Axis Powers. On June 6, 1944, the Allied forces landed on Normandy Beach in France, soundly defeating German forces at that location. This assault, also known as the D-Day Invasion, would be the turning point of the war and led to the Allied victory over the Axis powers of Japan, Italy, and Germany. The operation was unquestionably the largest of all amphibious invasions in history with almost 200,000 soldiers landing on the shores of France (Utah). Not only where ships launched from England to Normandy, but there were also air forces and other military departments all working together. What makes the whole procedure so amazing is the fact that so many nations came together and agreed to a plan that was both audacious and risky and yet it was successful. It was an enormous undertaking that required the participation of many nations under complete secrecy to prevent the enemy discovering the plan. What follows is a complete account of the landing at Normandy beach from the inception of the plan to the after-effects from the success.

The heads of the Allied Forces during World War II were President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin. These men, as well as military organizer Frederick Morgan, determined that the best way to defeat their enemies was in a large, combined surprise attack against the German forces. To this end, they created the position of "Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander" (Battle). The missions of the COSSAC were to choose the exact place of the landing for this combined attack. The COSSAC was also responsible for gaining as much information as possible about the enemy and their supply lines before launching the attack. The third responsibility of the COSSAC was to determine how the Allied troops would be formed, how they would be organized upon the landing, and how the landing and subsequent attack would proceed.

All three heads of the Allies agreed that the war efforts against Germany would have to be successful if they were to have any hope of victory in the Pacific (Teaching). It was believed that the Japanese forces would never surrender to the Allied forces so long as they had Germany still fighting. This unified leadership, which was created at the Arcadia Conference of December 1941, would last throughout the rest of the war (Badsey 2008,-page 11). In October of 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill commanded a young captain named Lord Mountbatten to lead a force which he dubbed "Combined Operations." This procedure led by Mountbatten was also known as Operation Mulberry (Battle). He told the captain, "You must prepare the invasion of Europe because unless bringing the fight against Hitler on land, we will never win this war" (Battle). The first big successes for the Allied forces were in Northern Africa, specifically in French Morocco and Algiers. Due to his successes leading the Allies in these maneuvers, General Dwight David Eisenhower was named commander of all Allied forces in Europe of 1943.

In February of 1944, Eisenhower was ordered to take over plans for what was then known as Operation Overlord, a project which had already been in development for over a year. Churchill believed that the key to defeating the German forces was in the recapturing of France from the Axis Powers (Battle). To this end, he and the two other heads of the Allied Powers, along with Eisenhower and other important officers went about planning a heavy assault on the enemy. Three points were determined as necessary for a successful military attack. The first was that the attack had to be launched from England so that the Germans would be psychologically inclined to prohibit ground attacks on England. The second point was that Britain would require much new training and equipment to fulfill seriously depleted supply lines. The final point was that the economics and industry of the United States should be utilized as much as possible since they were the freshest in terms of supplies and lack of fatigue (Battle). All of these three points were able to be achieved through unification of the nations, and the eventual invasion of France took form. "The American fighting doctrine was that wars are won by administration and organization. The best American troops went to rear-area positions, the less good to the fighting arms, the worst of all to the infantry" (Badsey 2008,-page 17). From the outset, the Allied forces were far more organized than their enemies. It was this organization that would lead to their military success. Organization and agreement prevented the Allied forces from imploding like the Germans.

A few days before the invasion, hidden messages were broadcast through French radio. Listening to the BBC, listeners heard the first three lines of the Chant d'automne, which sent the message that the invasion would take place forty-eight hours later (Battle). Just before the mission began, General Dwight D. Eisenhower transmitted a now famous message to his fellow officers and their troops:

You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world (World).

In his pocket, he held a speech that he would read in case the invasion was not a success. The letter states that all forces did their utmost to launch a successful attack and that "if any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." Obviously, he did not have to send that letter nor say those words because the assault at Normandy was a success. It says much about the leader that Eisenhower fully intended to take responsibility for the failure of the invasion, but went on to share the praise for the success. This is indicative of the feeling of the leaders of the invasion, who took the entire situation upon themselves and each felt responsibility for the results of D-Day.

From the outset, it did not seem like the signs were in favor of the Allied troops. Indeed it seemed very doubtful that their mission would be a success. It had been raining for days on end. This increment weather made the seas choppy and even more dangerous than usual (Landing). Although this slowed the forces down, it did not prohibit their efforts or stop the invasion. On the morning of June 6, 1944, more than 4,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes, and nearly three million soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines met in England to cross over into Normandy, France. According to the servicemen who were there on that historic morning, the atmosphere was one of excitement, trepidation, and apprehension for no one was certain how the day would end. Adolph 'Bud' Warnecke said:

We were so loaded down with equipment -- every man had at least one anti-tank mine, and we had bundles in the doors, bundles under the aircraft, and the C-47 was loaded to the point where he could take off but he couldn't land with it so he had to drop it…Looked down and had never seen so many ships in all my life and probably will never see 'em again. You coulda walked across the English Channel -- not that you had to walk on water -- you could just step from ship to ship -- that is how it looked from the air (D-Day).

Reportedly, a Nazi commanding officer who witnessed the beginnings of the Allied attack from the shores of the French beaches were to have said, "Don't worry Pluskat, the Allies haven't got that many ships" (Normandy). Obviously this assessment by the Germans was completely incorrect.

Part of the reason that the Germans lost the battle was that they were so heavily undersupplied. Some portions of the blockade were only at half-supply and the highly-successful panzer divisions were out of support range to provide aid to the Germans at Normandy (Burbeck). The Germans did one thing going for them that the Allied troops had to be mindful of. Germany had set up a fortification wall near Normandy Beach which was dubbed "the Atlantic Wall." It was constructed by German engineers, the Organization Todt, which specialized in military construction (Battle). So, even though the Germans were in upheaval politically, they should have been relatively strong in their defense. Even in smaller numbers, the Axis Powers were still able to put up quite a fight. Still all the beaches were overturned quickly to the Allies, except for the attack on Omaha Beach which would not be won until later in the afternoon.

Despite efforts both to keep the invasion a secret and also to misinform the German forces, the enemy was aware that something was to occur on the beaches of Normandy. However they truly felt that the invasion at Normandy was intended as a distraction and that the real attack was to be at the Pas-de-Calais (Battle). The Germans took most of their forces to this other location, leaving only 150,000 troops around Normandy Beach. Fieldmarshal Erwin Rommel of the Nazi forces, also called "The Desert Fox" was reluctant to remove so many of his troops all at once (Buckley 2006,-page 41). Cognizant of the potential implications, he was reported to have stated: "If we do not succeed in our mission to close the seas to Allies, or in the first 48 hours, to throw them back, their invasion will be successful…In the absence of strategic reserves and due to the total inadequacy of our navy and of our air force we will have lost the war" (World). This proved to be an insightful statement. Since the war, Rommel has been deemed a master tactician who just happened to be on the wrong side of the war. Had the Germans listened to Rommel's warnings, it is quite likely that the United States and their Allies would not have succeeded.

Prior to the invasion of Normandy, Germany's armed forces were already falling apart to a great degree. Hitler was encouraging conflict within his own brigade leading to disharmony both politically and ethically. "By 1944, Germany's armed forces resembled not those of a single power, but of an alliance whose members functioned together rather less well than those of its enemies" (Badsey 2004,-page 9). With increasing discourse among the officials in the Nazi regime of Germany, it is doubtful that they would have been able to keep up a united front against their enemies even without the highly effective attack on the beach of Normandy by Allied forces.

Before the onshore invasion by boat, paratroopers from England and the United States parachuted out of airplanes to land in France. Not all the soldiers made it onto the battlefield. Some would not travel far enough and drowned in the waters of the English Channel. Others landed too far and found themselves in the Atlantic (Normandy). The 50-mile beach was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword (Normandy Invasion). This sea assault was referred to as Operation Neptune. On June 6, 2008, Army company commander Leonard Schroeder, believed to be the first man to land on Normandy Beach, remembered the feeling of waiting. "We prayed and prayed that everyone got the right signal" (Lee 2008). He suffered a wound when a machine gun fired into his left forearm. Schroeder would watch half his platoon mates die and another large percentage fall. This would be the case for many soldiers on that day. No one survived the invasion unscathed, on either side of the battlefield. They would either die, get injured, or watch others die or get injured. Everyone was touched by the glory of victory and the horror of reality on D-Day.

The assault on Sword Beach was an initial aerial attack led by British forces. Sword Beach was divided into four landing bases: Oboe, Peter, Queen, and Roger. The key objective of these forces was to take the town of Caen. Unlike the other segments of the beach, Sword forces faced fewer German forces. The defenses on this portion of Normandy Beach were weaker than other sections. Among those fighting on Sword Beach were nearly 200 members of the French underground (Battle). It did not take long for the British and French soldiers to claim Sword Beach, although they were unable to reach the town of Caen on that day. Still their invasion was a marked success.

Juno Beach was taken by the Canadian forces. They faced heavy German blockades and their first wave suffered 50% casualties. Of all the battalions that landed on Normandy Beach that day, the Canadians became the closest to reaching their ultimate targets. It was an extremely dangerous section to land. Purportedly, the Canadian troops and their arsenal were extremely strong. At one point, the Canadians were found to be "driving over the dead and wounded to attack German positions" (Normandy). The sea was both heavily mined and the seawall was twice the size of that on Omaha Beach, which gave German soldiers very good positions to snipe at the approaching troops. Luckily for the Canadians, half of the mines did not go off. The Germans had learned sometime earlier that the material they had used in creating the mines did not survive well in sea water and under heavy pressure. Yet they had not replaced the mines for fear of their own safety and believing the knowledge of the devices would be enough to ward off potential attackers. Still the Canadians sustained one of the heavier percentages of losses for the day.

Those who landed on Gold Beach were tasked with marching through enemy territory and attacking one of their supply ports located at Port en Bessin. The invasion here was led by Major General Douglas Alexander Graham. Gold Beach was broken into three sections: King Sector, Jig Sector, and Item Sector. The British forces were in charge of this part of Normandy Beach. Their primary objective was to establish a beachhead here which would connect their forces with those of other Allied troops. The soldiers on Gold Beach successfully reached their primary objective.

Utah Beach had the lightest casualties of all the sections of the beach. Only about 200 of the 23,000 troops that landed on the beach were injured or killed. The landing at Utah Beach was special in that Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., son of former President Teddy Roosevelt, was the only general to land with the initial attack. Roosevelt was 57 at the time, making him the oldest soldier to participate in the landing at Normandy Beach. He would later be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on June 6th of that year. Other high officers would also make their way onto Normandy Beach, but after the initial wave when there were fewer casualties.

The key to the success or failure of the invasion at Normandy was the Omaha Beach section of the territory (Normandy). Omaha Beach was the most heavily fortified of the five sections. This wave, led by General Omar Bradley would see, unsurprisingly, the location of the heaviest allied casualties. A first-person account by Captain Richard Merrill, 2nd Ranger Battalion stated, "I was the first one out. The seventh man was the next one to get across the beach without being hit. All the ones in-between were hit. Two were killed; three were injured. That's how lucky you had to be" (Bastable 2006,-page 131). The primary objective of Omaha Beach was to secure a 5-mile beachhead, which would connect the British and American forces. It was on Omaha Beach that allied forces made the littlest inland progress. For a while it seemed doubtful if they would be able to keep the territory under Allied control. Little went as planned. Fewer supplies were sent than expected. German forces were extremely strong and Allied forces suffered huge losses. Still the Allied Forces prevailed on Omaha and the four other sections as well.

It was an extremely bloody battle and there were many casualties on both sides. Although the Allies carried the day, they were not immune to the weaponry and artillery of the Germans. Injuries had to be treated on the battlefield by medics and other emergency staff. One of the soldiers was quoted as saying, "They're right in there, giving morphine and bandaging wounds while the bullets whiz past their ears" (Landing). There were reports of emergency operations taking place under the light of day while the bullets were still flying and more and more soldiers were falling due to wounds inflicted. Injured parties who were able to be shipped back across the Chanel to England for medical treatment supposedly had to take taxis to the nearest hospitals because no other automobiles were available. They had all been occupied in the invasion.