Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Operation Overlord
Top 10 Amazing
D-Day Statistics
1 4,000 ships in the fleet
2 5,800 bomber planes
3 4,900 fighter planes
4 153,000 troops
5 20,000 vehicles
6 11,000 casualties
7 2,500 dead
8 2,052,299 men came
ashore following D-Day
9 3,098,259 tons of stores
0 640,000 Germans killed,
wounded or taken
prisoner in the Battle of
Normandy
The planning, manufacture of armaments, and
training of men for the epic Allied invasion of
Normandy in June 1944, code-named Operation
Overlord, began in earnest in the winter of 1943, led
by Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery. D-Day
was planned for 5 June, but was delayed for 24
hours due to bad weather. The unfavourable
conditions, and an expected attack elsewhere (on
Pas-de-Calais, nearer to Britain), caught the Germans
by surprise when dawn brought the vast Allied fleet
to the sandy beaches of the Seine Bay, flanked by
airborne forces to east and west. “It was as if every
ship and every plane that had ever been built was
there”, said one British soldier. “The beach was alive
with the shambles and the order of war … there
were dead men and wounded men and men
brewing tea”. Once beachheads were established on
Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches, initial
penetration into Normandy was uneven. Cherbourg
fell on 26 June, Caen not until 9 July. Fighting
conditions were grim amongst the hedgerows of the
Bocage (see p98) , and it was not until 21 August,
after the Germans were cornered in a pincer
movement in the Battle of the Falaise-Mortain Pocket,
that the Battle of Normandy was finally won. Paris
was liberated on 25 August.
D-Day landing
British troops of the 56th Infantry landing on the beaches of Normandy, 6 June 1944
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