Introduction

Welcome to D-Day History.com. This blog is made by students of the 5th C of secondary school Santa Maria Marianists. We are Bernardo La Rosa, Luis Ignacio Garcia-Miro and Alonso Monsalve. In this blog we will talk about D-Day and the strategy used in Normandy.

What is the D-Day

The "D-Day" is a military term use to refer  the start of any combat operation and / or attack. Popularly  the D-Day is refer to the 6 of June of 1944, opening day of Operation Overlord; warfare operation that took place during the 2nd World War on the beaches of Normandy. This attack was for the  attack, invade and liberate France and Europe German control.

The terms D-Day and H-Hour are terms used when a day or time of an attack is still not give or when it is in secret, and these must be unique for all participating units.

The original  Day of the Normandy attack was the 5 of June of  1944, but poor weather and sea, causing a change for the 6 of June, giving more time to rehearse the attack acts Because this latter date is popularly known as the small D-Day

Data of the Operation

Date        6 June 1944

Location    Start in Normandy, France  and continued in many parts of the country.

Countries involved:

Allies	Nazis
United Kingdom  United States  Canada  Free France  Poland  Norway  Australia  New Zealand  Netherlands  Belgium	Germany

Comandantes

Allies	Nazis
Dwight D. Eisenhower  Bernard Montgomery  Omar Bradley  Trafford Leigh-Mallory  Arthur Tedder  Miles Dempsey  Bertram Ramsay	Gerd von Rundstedt  Erwin Rommel  Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg  Friedrich Dollmann  Hans von Salmuth  Wilhelm Falley †

Forces:

Allies: 815.000 

Nazis: 380.000

Casualties and losses

Allies: At least ~12,000 overall casualties.

Nazis: Estimated between 4,000 and 9,000 casualties

Normandy

The Battle of Normandy, Operation Overlord was originally called the invasion of Europe by the Allies in the northwest of France, which at that time was occupied by the Germans, was implemented during the 2nd World War. 
Preparations for the operation started in Britain, this was the initial battle and one of the most important and defining the wars, which started freeing Europe from German control.

At first it was intended to attack Italy but in 1944 there was a strengthening in this area and decided to switch to Normandy. For Operation Overlord armies were involved mainly U.S. and British imperial army, along with support French forces, Polish, Belgium, Greek, etc.

The Normandy attack was called Operation Neptune, and it was so amazing that 68 years remains the largest seaborne invasion operation in history.

Why did the Allies choose Normandy?

The Germans were expecting the allies to land at the beaches of Calais, because it would have been much more strategic. The allies knew that so they sent "dummies" to Calais to deliver men away from Normandy.

"The Allies tried to decieve the Germans into believing that the landing had to be at Pas de Calais. That included bombing the area. On the day of the landings, they dropped dummy paratroopers(no, not stupid paratroopers, but dummy models of them)."

Allies and Axis Strategies

Allies strategy:

The order of battle for the landings were from east to west

- The british second army consisted of 83,115 troops conformed by British and Canadian men.

• 6th Airborne Division Commanded by Major-General R.N. Gale was delivered by parachute and glider to the east of the River Orne to protect the left flank. The division contained 7,900 men, including one Canadian battalion.The British 2nd Army landed three divisions on D-Day. Two were from I Corps and one from XXX Corps on Sword Beach, Gold Beach, and Juno Beach.

German Strategy:

- "The military forces  of Nazi Germany reached its peak 1944. By D-Day, 157 German divisions were stationed in the Soviet Union, 6 in Finland, 12 in Norway, 6 in Denmark, 9 in Germany, 21 in the Balkans, 26 in Italy and 59 in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. However, these statistics are somewhat misleading since a significant number of the divisions in the east were depleted due to intensity of fighting; German records indicate that the average personnel complement was at about 50% in the spring of 1944"

"The German defenses used an interlocking firing style, so they could protect areas that were receiving heavy fire. They had large bunkers, sometimes intricate concrete ones containing machine guns and large-calibre weapons. Their defence also integrated the cliffs and hills overlooking the beaches. The defenses were all built and refined over a four year period."

Paratrooper about to jump into combat on D-Day, on 6 June 1944

A map of the Atlantic Wall, shown in green.

  German Reich

  Allies

Planning the invansion

General Eisenhower was the supreme comander from da d-day attack, their was a new plan assembled and their were preparde began 1943. The attacked occured 1944.
Normandy was chosen for the landings because it was in range of fighter aircraft based in England and had open beaches that were not as well defended as those of the Pas de Calais. Beforde d-day the Allied air forces wrecked the railways and bridges of northern France and achieved the necessary weakening of German air force strength. Other preparations included the manufacture of equipment including transport ships, landing craft, amphibious tanks and artificial harbours. For the war they mobilize materials and human huge. For the ships would download their package and passangers.
Allied forces practice the marine landings.

Maps of allied showing there strategy, and the  enemy movements.











The attack of Normandy was delayed a day because hte  weather problems, which helped the Alliedto practice and perfect there strategy. Something that was fundamental for the attack was the now common and everyday used pocket watch, which helped the general timing the attack perfectly. This operation was a success and is  known as the best landing and invasion operation of all time.

Landigs

Operation Overlord began on the morning of June 6 of 1944 with the landing of the paratroopers, with the mission of destroy artillery and enemy communication.

Then U.S. troops landed on the beaches of Omaha (where a 30m cliff closed the beach, they use dynamite to pass and conquer the beach, here 6000 soldiers died) and Utah (the lightest of all operations, without much human losses),

British forces invade the beaches of  Sword (here the key to success was the British well organized plan of attack and defend because this was a well-defended beach) and Gold (this was a bech that was easy to take, the British conquer this  without difficulty)

And he Canadian army invade  Juno (this was the beach with the biggest  resistance of all, it was defended  by the 716 division and tha Nazis eliminated 50% of the 1st attack wave, the Canadian managed to overcome and conquer the beach with the help of the bombers; this was the 1st beach to be taken and the Canadian army went ahead into  the liberation of France).

In total there was 175,000 soldiers on the landings.

Forces	Beaches
US	Omaha and Utah
Britian Army	Sword and Gold
Canadian Army	Juno

And Finaly

Hitler ordered to counterattack in the direction of the Avranches, because he wants to isolate the forces of Patton. Germans occupy the population of Mortain, but they were arrested by forces of USA and his allied.

After the withdrawal of German Army the allied forces cross the Sena. Between the troops of free France that were in Normandy were the 2nd armored division, participate in the release of Paris on Agust 25th. German army concentrated 40% of his forces, being destined the other 60% of his military army to the eastern.