By the spring of 1944 all the divisions taking part in the initial seaborne landing had participated in extensive amphibious exercises, usually off the coast of Scotland. The planners did all they could to ensure a successful assault. Some British veteran formations, survivors of action in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, were unenthusiastic about a frontal assault on Hitler's Fortress Europe. By early June 1944 more than two million Americans had arrived, along with a quarter-of-a-million Canadians.ĭespite massive amounts of equipment, including thousands of aircraft, tanks and guns, many American divisions were poorly trained. Meanwhile Operation Bolero, codename for the American build-up in Britain, transformed southern England into an armed camp. The Allies developed floating 'Mulberry' harbours Thus the D-Day landings were to be the most highly planned operations in military history. However, the disaster at Dieppe and their own experiences in the Pacific had qualified their optimism. The Americans had come to Europe to finish the war as quickly as possible, and this meant taking the shortest, most direct route to Germany. In order to frustrate an airborne attack, German engineers flooded low-lying areas and strung wires across fields to deter glider landings. Under the direction of General Erwin Rommel, all beaches on which a landing was considered possible had been festooned with belts of obstacles and minefields, and covered by machine-gun and mortar emplacements.įurther back, bunkers of enormous strength at Merville, Longues and Pointe du Hoc on the Normandy coast enabled large-calibre German guns to bombard a landing force.
It was the largest construction project in European history, involving at any one time more than 100,000 workers. Since the late summer of 1942 the Germans had been constructing the 'Atlantic Wall', a formidable complex of defences running from the Franco-Spanish border to Denmark. They much preferred an indirect strategy - operations in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. The British had never liked the idea of a direct assault on the coast of north-west Europe. The Allies were reluctanct to launch a direct frontal assault The Allied high command anticipated that a successful landing would cost 10,000 dead and perhaps 30,000 wounded, but were steeling themselves for much heavier casualties. Churchill had assured him that they would go together.
His driver, Kay Summersby, recorded that the general, overwhelmed by emotion, climbed back into the car with his shoulders sagged.Įisenhower had already written a letter accepting full responsibility if D-Day turned out to be a disaster. I wish to God it were safely over '.Īt about 22.00 the supreme allied commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, had made an impromptu visit to paratroopers of the 101st Airborne at Greenham Common airfield near Newbury. it may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war. The same night, the chief of the imperial general staff, General Alan Brooke, confided to his diary that '. Just after midnight on 6 June, a restless Churchill, haunted by memories of the disastrous Allied landings at Gallipoli 29 years earlier, bade his wife goodnight with the words, 'Do you realise that by the time you wake up in the morning twenty thousand men may have been killed?'
On the eve of D-Day the Allied leadership was in a state of neurotic anxiety.