D-Day
June 6 - 1944
WW2 - D-Day: Normandy landings
When the Allied Commanders looked at ways of defeating Nazi Germany, the Americans always felt that the only way was to land in France, and follow a route via Belgium and Holland in the heartland of the Third Reich. Landings on the French coast were not possible until 1944 as there were insufficient landing graft and more importantly insufficient troops trained for seaborne operations.
D-day assault routes into Normandy
U.S. assault troops move onto Utah Beach
The Facts
- Date: June 6 - 1944
- Location: Normandy, France
| Countries Involved | |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom United States Canada Australia Belgium Czechoslovakia Denmark Free France Greece Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland |
Germany |
| Countries Commanders | |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower Bernard Montgomery Omar Bradley Miles Dempsey Trafford Leigh-Mallory Bertram Ramsay Arthur Tedder |
Gerd von Rundstedt Erwin Rommel Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg Friedrich Dollmann Hans von Salmuth Wilhelm Falley |
| Number of Casualties | |
| Over 10,000 | Between 4,000–9,000 |
Battle result: Decisive Allied victory
Preparation and Planning were the two keywords for D-Day: almost nothing was left to chance: special weapons were devised to get through the German defences, special equipment to get men onto and then off the beaches, and inland. In addition special tactics and the coming together of experience from previous amphibious. Yet despite all this, heavy losses were predicted. When D-Day dawned on 6th June 1944, a huge armada took more 156,000 men ashore on the first day. Hitler’s Atlantic Wall had been broken, and D-Day marked the beginning of the end of the war in the west, with Victory achieved eleven months later.
US troops on D-Day landing craft"
U.S. troops wading onto Beach
D-Day Landings
