Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
D-Day had been many months in the planning, and had from its inception been a co-operat-
ive enterprise between the United States and the British Empire. The coast of Normandy was
chosen as the point of entry and divided between the Allies; the Americans were allocated the
west and the British and Canadians the east. All of the arrangements were, of course, kept ab-
solutely secret. An elaborate deception was devised to convince the German authorities that
the Allies were planning to enter Pas-de-Calais, at the eastern end of the English Channel.
This allowed the invaders to surprise the Germans when they landed. Targeted bombing over
the preceding months had also severely damaged German defences in Normandy.
The invasion was inevitably an amphibious operation, requiring the combined effort of the
Allied armies and navies. Five convoys of vessels departed from England on 5 June - a day
later than originally planned, owing to bad weather conditions in the Channel - and reached
Normandy early the following morning. Their routes are marked on the map as blue arrows,
each labelled with the initial letter of the codename for its allotted landing beach. From left to
right, these are: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The arriving Allied ships bombarded
the coastal defences, causing sufficient damage to allow the disembarking troops to break
through them. Additional support came from airborne assaults, shown here as pale green ar-
rows. Arriving first, the airmen were able to gain control of key points, such as bridges, be-
fore the Germans were aware of the invasion from the sea.
The Allied forces gained less ground on this first day than they had hoped and lost about
7,000 men in the fighting. This map is an appendix to a report evaluating the level of oppos-
ition that they encountered on the landing beaches. Nevertheless, the operation was deemed
a success and gave the Allies a small but secure foothold on the continent. The amount of
territory under their control increased steadily over the succeeding weeks until by the end
of August they had freed most of north-western France. Although another eleven months of
fighting would follow D-Day before the final German surrender came, Operation Neptune
provided the Allies with a solid base for beginning the liberation of occupied Europe.
