The Crusade for Europe Begins

Newsweek 1/03/44

Ike with troops
from ILN 1944/02/26

General Patton from
ILN cover 1944/08/26

Eisenhower

buildup

fake trucks, photo in
D-Day Museum

gliders on D-Day,
from ILN 1944/06/17

Teheran - "Overlord in May"

but D-Day postponed 1 month for SHINGLE in Italy
Jan. 22 at Anzio - 36,000 land but stalled on beachhead
landing craft planned for England stay in Italy

FORTITUDE, the deception plan:

"Invasion" of Norway - Thorne's "4th Army" vs. 17 German divisions
"Invasion" of Pas de Calais - Patton's "1st Army" vs. 15 divisions
Op. STARKEY Sept. 8, 1943 - fake Dover docks; radio traffic
Double-Cross system agents; Ultra intercepts

SHAEF, the Command of OVERLORD:

COSSAC under Fred Morgan (until Teheran)
Combined Operations under Mountbatten
- after Dieppe Aug. 9, '42 - lack of air support
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
- under Eisenhower (after Teheran)
21st Army Group under Montgomery
U.S. First Army under Bradley
British Second Army under Miles Dempsey

Ike's decisions:

made Kay Summersby a WAC and moved her to Tedder's cottage at Bushy Park
increased landing force to 5 divisions - importance of American troops
postponed ANVIL; added 271 more LST's - importance of the beaches
put Spaatz and Harris under his command - importance of air power
Transportation Plan to use air power and sabotage to isolate the battlefield and prevent German concentration of force - was Ike's "greatest single contribution" (Ambrose)
asked deGaulle and his FCNL to help - importance of the resistance
broadcast speech to Resistance - importance of radio communication

Buildup in England:

3,000,000 men in 52 divisions
80,000 trucks; 10,000 tanks
60,000,000 C and K rations
5200 bombers, 5500 fighters
2400 transport planes from 163 airfields
1200 naval ships: 2 battleships, 23 cruisers, 105 destroyers
2500 landing craft

May 30 - troops began to load in England

Force A - 60,000 U.S. troops with 6800 vehicles
Force B - 25,600 U.S. reinforcements with 4400 vehicles
British forces - 75,000 with 12,000 vehicles

June 3 - Capt. James Stagg predicted bad weather

June 5 - Ike ordered "OK, we'll go" in 24 hours when Stagg predicted clearing

10:15 - "Wound my heart with a monotonous languor" was the BBC radio cue for French resistance

10:30 - 101st Screaming Eagles paratroopers finished takeoff and began jumping at 1:15 am

13,000 paratroopers in 822 C-47's with Maxwell Taylor, James Gavin
Easy Company in 506th regiment of the 101st, the Band of Brothers

Ike visited airfield: "Good luck to you tonight, soldier"

Normandy invasion, map from ILN 1944/06/17 - bg

June 6 - the "Longest Day" began

"Never had there been a dawn like this" - Cornelius Ryan
D-Day resources and maps of 1944
D-Day Museum in New Orleans 1 2

6:30 a.m. - landings began along 100 miles at 5 beaches

Utah - 23,250 land - 200 killed
Omaha - Big Red One & 34,250 land - 1000 killed
Gold - British 50th & 25,000 land
Juno - Canadian 3rd & 21,400 land
Sword - British 3rd & 28,850 land

82nd & 101st Airborne land 16,000 on west flank and British 6th Airborne land 8,000 on east flank

Ste.-Mere-Eglise became the first town in Europe liberated by the Allies
Pvt. John Steele landed in church steeple
toy crickets were used to signal friendly troops, one click to challenge and 2 clicks to respond

Rangers destroyed large German guns on high cliffs of Pointe du Hoc

German armor sketch - armored halftrack towing pillbox,
from ILN 1944/08/12

US soldier on D-Day,
from ILN 1944/06/17

Rommel rushed German armor to reinforce Normandy

but Hitler required some divisions held in reserve
by 1943, Panzer divisions had changed from all-tank emphasis to "a doctrine of tank-infantry-artillery co-operation." (Keegan p. 398)
tank no longer "autonomous instrument" but joined with other weapons as tactical device to wear down the enemy - attrition, not blitzkrieg, would be the strategy adopted by the Allies

Allied aircraft flew 10,500 sorties

British lost 4000 casualties on D-Day

U.S. lost 1465 dead, 1928 missing, 3184 wounded

9386 grave markers in Cemetery at Omaha Beach by 1995, including 33 pairs of brothers. Fritz Niland, one of four brothers from New York state who saw action during the war, was the inspiration for the film Saving Private Ryan
1557 names on the wall of the Garden of the Missing, including Raymond Hoback who died on the beach, with his brother Bedford Hoback, both from Bedford, VA, the town of 3200 that lost 21 of its young men on D-Day, the highest per capita loss on any U.S. community, and site of the planned National D-Day Memorial - see article from NYT 3/28/99

Battle of the Beachhead until July 25

Bradley organized 12th Group of 13 divisions
Hodge's First and Patton's Third
Mulberry harbors ready in 10 days but June 20 storm destroyed U.S. harbor
Monty fails to take Caen - "the crucible of Normandy"
German tank ace Michael Wittman at Point 213 June 12

D+6 map
from Time, 1944

2 U.S forces joined at Caretan by June 12
from ILN 1944/09/02

D+13 map,
from Time, 1944

June 13 - first V-1 hit London

[View of a V-1 rocket inflight from NA]

2400 will kill 5400 civilians
V-2 begins in August, will kill 512
sketch of V-2 launch area (or big) and vehicle (or big) from ILN 1944/11/25

Road to Warsaw
from Time, 1944 - big

June 22 - Stalin began BAGRATION

in 6 weeks advanced 300 mi. to the Vistula

June 27 - Cherbourg port taken

July 3 - Bradley failed to take Coutances

5000 die in the bocage

air bombardment
from NA 1944

July 5 - Ike visited front, drove jeep, flew over lines

but refused to order Monty

July 18 - Churchill did order Monty

GOODWOOD defeated by von Luck's panzers

Allies won "battle of the beachhead"

hedgerow cutter
from NA 1944

because they controlled the Channel and the air
Gen. Elwood Queseda organized Tactical Air Command
Sgt. Culin invented hedgerow cutter for tanks
770,000 U.S. troops (73,000 casualties)
591,000 Brit./Can. troops (49,000)

COBRA began July 25

Bradley's plan - a wheeling movement by Hodges 1st Army on right flank, invade Brittany, envelope German defenders of Caen

Armored Punch
from Time, 1944

July 25 - 1887 bombers flew sorties for 3 hours

"carpet" bombing with small fragmentation bombs
but own troops also hit
picture of Pas de Calais bombed

July 25 - the Breakout

"Lightning Joe" Collins takes Ste.-Lo through Mortrain Corridor
was the first use of blitzkrieg by the Allies, to attack suddenly with concentrated armor and then encircle the enemy beyond

German response:

von Rundstedt to German High Command: "Make peace, you idiots!"
but Hitler (who survived July 20 bombing by Col. Stauffenberg at Rastenburg) ordered von Kluge (not Rommel whose car was strafed July 17) to attack at Mortain Aug. 7: "we must strike like lightning" - op. LUTTICH planned for Aug. 7

Runstedt
from Time, 1944

Kluge
from ILN 1944/07

Aug. 1 - Patton's new Third Army took Avranches

Le Mans by Aug. 8
Middleton's 8th Corps to Brittany
but German troops under Farmbacher held ports until 1945

Battle of Falais destroyed the German defending army

black sky near Caen, smoke from bombing, from ILN 1944/08/19

Allied truck burns from German shell on road to Falais from ILN 1944/08/19

Canadian troops advance on Falaise road as German tanks burn, from ILN 1944/08/19

flail tank cleans road for engineers, from ILN 1944/08/19

Aug. 7 - op. LUTTICH began - 200 tanks attacked Bradley's 1st Army on the flank at Mortain down the valley of the river See

but Ultra had warned the Allies of the plan, and 4 American Divisions met the German attack
American infantry used anti-tank guns, half-track personnel carriers
Canadian 4th Armoured Division with 5 Sherman tanks killed Michael Wittman in his Tiger tank

Aug. 8 - Canadians took Falaise road, Eisenhower and Montgomery proposed "short hook" to envelop the German attackers at Falaise, Patton turned north from Le Mans in an American version of "blitzkrieg"