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2,000 ships, 4,000 landing craft and 11,000 airplanes were involved in the largest seaborne invasion ever. Allied troops crossed the choppy English Channel toward Normandy on June 6, 1944, on Operation Overlord: the regaining of northern Europe after four years of Nazi occupation.
First planned for 1942, the landing had been repeatedly postponed, this time with a delay of 24-hours caused by the worst storm in a quarter century. D-Day (a term referring to the first day of any military operation, but now associated with this 1944 invasion) started with paratroop raids before sunrise. Minesweepers (ships equipped for detecting and removing sea mines) cleared the waters while warships and bombers fiercely attacked enemy positions. Pre-manuafactured floating harbours were moved into place.
At 6.30am, American, British and Canadian troops under General Montgomery began swarming from landing craft onto beaches codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. After wading through the icy waves or charging towards land on amphibious (able to travel on water and on land) tanks, the troops struggled past steel obstacles and barbed wired to recapture the first patches of French soil. At the end of the day, 155,000 men were onshore.
While preparations for the large-scale landing
was too massive to conceal, the Germans did not put up a good defence
because of disputes between Hitler, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (overseer
of military operations in France) and Runstedt (commander-in-chief in
the west). They quarrelled over the probable invasion point and the best
line of defence. When the attack came, Hitler took it as a diversionary
tactic (an intentional distraction), and held back his forces for the
"real" invasion.
Resistance was strong only initially at Omaha Beach, with 3,000 Americans casualties on the first day of fighting. The Allied invaders quickly spread out along 100 miles of coastline. However, Normandy's Nazi-occupied cities were harder to regain. Cherbourg held out for ten gruelling days, while Caen held out more than a month.
By mid-August, the Allies had broken out Normandy, and were sweeping across France. The Low Countries (the low-lying countries between Germany and France – the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg), and Germany itself, lay before them.
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