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RicksFilmRestoration Leidschendam, Nederland |
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| Spectacular D-day in color: Commemorating 80 years of D-day, 6 June 1944 | ||||
| This video involves the period from late 1943 until 6 June 1944 | ||||
| One of the most memorable and spectacular
events of World War 2 was D-day, the allied operation aimed at defeating the Germans and
ending their hegemony, thus liberating north-west Europe. The invasion of Nazi-occupied France was codenamed Operation OVERLORD and took place on Tuesday 6 June 1944. Originally it was planned for the 5th of June but was delayed because of poor weather. A severe storm battered the Normandy coast, even making the German commander in charge of defending the North French coast, Erwin Rommel, believe that an attack would be highly unlikely. He even went back home to Herrlingen in Germany for his wife's birthday. This error of judgement gave the allies an additional advantage of surprise after military weather stations predicted a spell of calmer weather early the next morning. The Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault in what was to become the largest seaborne invasion in history. In effect it opened a second front to attack the Germans, the first front being the Russian frond. The aim was to weaken the Germans by forcing them to divide their defences over two fronts. One may wonder why Normandy was chosen to land the troups. The initial decision to land in Normandy was made by the chief of staff Lieutenant-General Frederick Morgan in 1943. He and his team ruled out the Straits of Dover region and deemed a landing between the Cotentin peninsula and near to Caen as being the most suitable. The French Resistance had indicated that there were fewer defences in Normandy than the Atlantik Wall region surrounding Calais. The Normandy region had many bunkers containing antiquated firepower from the First World War. Chosing the route with the longest distance from the UK should also give the Allies an element of surprise. It was assumed that the Germans would be anticipating an attack via the shortest route, far more east. Maps had also shown that there were good roads to get landing troops off the Normandy beach area and inland, on the long road to the liberation of Europe. Preparations for the invasion already started about a year earlier in 1943. Supreme allied commander, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower lead the planning team. Many excercizes were held by means of simulated landings under attack. In the last months of 1943 and early 1944 thousands of American and Canadian soldiers crossed the Atlantic to participate in the greatest world conflict of the 20th century. Factories were transformed into war production facilities as the country changed into a war economy. Large scale preparations were undertaken to construct the necessary numbers of ships, amphibuous landing craft, tanks and aircraft. Stocks were expanded and old ships adapted. By December 1943 the plan was set. At the Theran conference involving the leaders of the allied powers US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Sovjet Premier Joseph Stalin approved the plan. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. In the weeks preceeding D-day there were massive troup transports in the UK towards the south coast. Roads were closed off and locals must have been aware that the preparations for the invasion were on its way. As early as May 26th the British-Canadian forces were redirected from the assembly areas to nineteen embarkation points. The Americans followed 4 days later on the 30th of May. Many troups were unaware that this was the real thing. For all they knew it might have been another training excersize. They waited for days on end until it dawned on them that the operation was about to begin, when announcements were made that this might be a good time to take the first seasickness pills. Moments later the briefings commenced, explaining in detail to the troups what ordeal and challenges they were about to face. The first thing that sprung to mind to everybody involved was: “Will I come back alive?” and “If not, what will happen to my family?” The invasion began shortly after midnight on the morning of June the 6th with extensive aerial and naval bombardments. It also involved an airborne assault with the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops. The Normandy area of attack stretched over a length of 80 km and was divided in five zones, named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. Troups were transported by all kinds of naval vessels from ports all along the British south coast, as far away as from Falmouth in the west, Dartmouth, Weymouth, Poole, New Forest beaches like Lepe beach, Portsmouth and Shoreham as well as various further away ports from the East coast. Nearly 7,000 naval vessels, including battleships, destroyers, minesweepers, escorts and assault craft took part. Utah and Omaha were assigned to the American 1st army respectively the 1st and 4th infantry division under the command of US General Omar Bradley, , deploying 73000 troups. Gold and Sword were assigned to the British 2nd army, respectively the 50th and 3rd infantry division commanded by General Miles Dempsey, consisting of 62000 troups. The beach in between Gold and Sword, Juno beach was attacked by the Canadian 3rd infantry division, deploying 21000 troups. The Americans, British an Canadians formed the core of the troups but it should not be forgotten that also Australian, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, Greek, New Zealand, Norwegian, Rhodesian and Polish participated in naval, air and ground support. In total 2 million men were made available for the invasion. In total 156,000 men participated in the first attack wave. No women were part of these divisions, but they did play an important supporting role in the background in the Women’s Royal Naval Service. They were involved in logistical and secretarial support, wireless telegraphy, radar operation and code breaking. There was just one woman, a war correspondent, on the beaches at Normandy that day. Try to imagine what it was like to be involved in such a daring operation. Following the storms of the previous day, the seas were still very rough for the crossing towards North of France. If sea sickness had not yet occured during the crossing, it was a matter of catching up during the last leg of their journey. The men had to transfer from their ships into the landing craft, climbing down nets. Once the doors of the landing craft opened the battle for survival commenced. The terrors and fears that they suffered must have been immence! The troups landed under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. Due to a navigation error the American troups landed more than one kilometer south of their target. Conditions at Utah beach were favourable as they landed at lightly defended sandy beaches and low dunes. After being informed of this situation, American president Roosevelt simply said "We'll start the war from here". Casualties were heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs. American rangers had great difficulty to capture the German battery on a 100 meter high cliff at Point Du Hoc. Allied intelligence got the situation at Omaha beach wrong as they anticipated light resistance. In stead the landing troups met severe defences by the elite German 352nd infantry division who were ready and waiting at the cliff top overlooking the beach. Minutes after the first landings nearly all officers and petit officers were killed, leaving the troups leaderless and thus in chaos. On D-day the American 1st division suffered 2,400 fatal casualties and a similar number of wounded and missing, the highest losses of the entire operation. At Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled using specialised tanks. The British at Gold encountered less resistance and the 50th division managed to break through the German defences, in particular by the deployment of tanks. There were only about 400 casualties. The Canadian landings at Juno beach are probably the best known because of the stunning film footage made by Sergeant Bill Grant, of the Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit. Here is that footage in splended color! The house seen through the opened landing craft doors is still there at Bernieres sur mer. Other great footage shows captured German soldiers at the local railway station. German resistance on the fifth, most Easterly beach, Sword, was light and within less than an hour the British 2nd army managed to break through the defences. Shortly after these troups managed to join up with the paratroupers who had captured the strategically important Pegasus bridge, south of Sword. The Allies were assisted by the French resistance; their main role was sabotage. The evening before D-day they had been alerted via a coded message on Radio London. It were the first two lines from the Chanson d’Automne poem by Paul Verlaine: "Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne. Blessent mon cœur d’une langueur Monotone". The second line indicated that D-day was imminent within the next 24 hours. The Allies failed to achieve any of their major goals beyond the establishment of the beachheads on the first day. Carentan, Saint-Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands, and the important city of Caen just South of the landing beaches, was not captured until 21 July. Only Juno and Gold beaches were linked on the first day. It took until 12 june before all five beachheads were connected. However, the operation did gain a foothold which the Allies gradually managed to expand over the coming months. At least 10,000 allied casualties on D-day were recorded, with over 4,400 confirmed dead. German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Due to the earlier Allied deception campaigns, the Germans for weeks continued to assume that there was going to be a second invasion in the English channel. For that reason they did not move all their troops to Normandy, a very important mistake. There are three important activities that played a crucial role in the success of D-day, namely the use of glider planes to transport large numbers of troups, the provisional Mulberry harbours and Pluto, the Pipeline Under The Ocean to provide essential fuel supplied to the allied military vehicles. The gliders are addressed in a separate video which I released recently. Just to sum up that approximately [x ] men were transported in crude, flimsy, wooden, engine-less planes, namely the American Waco CG 4A, the British Airspeed Horsa and General Aircraft Hamilcar, towed by a variety of aircraft, in particular the Douglas C47, the military version of the DC3, Dacota. In view of the fact that all French harbours were still in enemy hands, a genius plan was worked out, under the code name Mulberry, to construct floating harbours that were connected by kilometer long floating beach heads with the main land. Each beach head consisted of an array of floating pontoons connected by bride elements, so called Whales. Till this day the remnants of the floating habors can still be seen at Arromanches. These Mulberry harbours fulfilled a crucial role in landing tanks, trucks, jeeps and other vehicles awaiting the liberation of nearby Cherbourg harbour. The third remarkable element of D-day was Operation Pluto, short for "Pipe line under the ocean". The allies realised that sufficient fuel supplies for ships and vehicles would be a critical issue, knowing that the supply ships were extremely vulnerable to attack. Hundreds of kilometers of fuel pipes were produced, consisting of bendable 3 inch pipes. These pipes consisted of a lead core, steel wire reïnforcement and a tar outer coating. The first pipeline, nicknamed “Bambi” ran from Sandown on the Isle of White to Cherbourg. The second, more successful 45 km long pipeline, nicknamed “Dumbo” ran from Dungeness on the Kent coast to Boulogne. Other pipeline roots followed soon. In total 12 became operational. Six huge floating drums were developed to lay the pipes. These drums were assigned with the designation HMS Conundrum 1 to 6. Each drum could hold 140 km of pipe. Pumping stations at Dungeness were disguised as holiday camps. So far part one of our documentary about D-day 6 june 1944, commemorated 80 years later. In part-2 we will address the military advances of the allied troups towards Paris in the Battle of Normandy. |
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RicksFilmRestoration Leidschendam Nederland E-mail: ricksfilmrestoration@gmail.com Wij communiceren alleen per E-mail. We only communicate by E-mail. |
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