Though it was cold, the men were sweating. Vomit filled the bottom of the boats, and as water kept rushing in over the gunwales, the green-faced men had to bail this vile stew with their helmets. Most of the Americans were packed into flat-bottomed Higgins boats launched from troop transports 10 miles from the French coastline. Hours later, the largest amphibious landing force ever assembled began moving through the storm-tossed waters toward the beaches. Their job was to blow up bridges, sabotage railroad lines, and take other measures to prevent the enemy from rushing reinforcements to the invasion beaches. Just after midnight on June 6, Allied airborne troops began dropping behind enemy lines. It was one of the gutsiest decisions of the war. The delay was unnerving for soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but when meteorologists forecast a brief window of clearer weather over the channel on June 6, Eisenhower made the decision to go. But on the morning of June 4, foul weather over the English Channel forced Eisenhower to postpone the attack for 24 hours. “We couldn’t wait.” Meanwhile, the American and British air forces in England conducted a tremendous bombing campaign that targeted railroad bridges and roadways in northern France to prevent the Germans from bringing in reserves to stop the invasion.Īllied leaders set June 5, 1944, as the invasion’s D-Day. “We were getting ready for one of the biggest adventures of our lives,” an American sergeant said. Trucks, tanks, and tens of thousands of troops poured into England. In the meantime, they prepared ceaselessly for the attack. Hitler charged Rommel with finishing the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile fortification of bunkers, landmines and beach and water obstacles.At the Tehran Conference in August 1943, Allied leaders scheduled Overlord to take place on or about May 1, 1944. In November 1943, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), who was aware of the threat of an invasion along France’s northern coast, put Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) in charge of spearheading defense operations in the region, even though the Germans did not know exactly where the Allies would strike. The following year, Allied plans for a cross-Channel invasion began to ramp up. The Americans entered the war in December 1941, and by 1942 they and the British (who had been evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in May 1940 after being cut off by the Germans in the Battle of France) were considering the possibility of a major Allied invasion across the English Channel. READ MORE: D-Day Facts About the Epic Invasion Preparing for D-DayĪfter World War II began, Germany invaded and occupied northwestern France beginning in May 1940. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. Early on 6 June, Allied airborne forces parachuted into drop zones across northern France. The D in D-Day stands simply for day and the term was used to describe the first day of any large military operation. During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France.
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