D-Day: History in an Hour
Rupert Colley
Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.Midnight, Tuesday 6 June 1944: the beginning of D-Day, the operation to invade Nazi-occupied Western Europe and initiate the final phase of World War II. A vast undertaking, it involved 12,000 aircraft and an amphibious assault of almost 7,000 vessels. 160,000 troops would cross the English Channel during Operation Overlord, paving the way for more than three million allied troops to enter France by the end of August 1944.Forces from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Free French and Poland all heavily participated, alongside contingents from Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway, They capitalised on the element of surprise achieved due to bad weather and the success of Operation Bodyguard – a feat of massive deception to convince Hitler that the landings would hit Pas-de-Calais. In just over a year, the war would be won. ‘D-Day: History in an Hour’ is the story of how the largest military operation in history had been planned, practised and executed.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…
D-DAYHistory in an Hour
Rupert Colley
CONTENTS
Cover (#ua6386192-260a-59fe-b845-631036bea629)
Title Page (#u9f2e4c4e-8b32-53a2-9d12-49b4e1ee2955)
Introduction
Background
Deception
Eisenhower
The Atlantic Wall
Bombing
Training
Eve of the Invasion
6 June: D-Day (the 1,738th day of the war)
Five Beaches
The Battle of Normandy
Liberation
What Might Have Been…
Appendix 1: Key Players
Appendix 2: Timeline
Appendix 3: D-Day and Battle of Normandy Statistics (#ube62a64a-7546-5802-8730-1f810d973d60)
Appendix 4: Normandy Cemeteries
Copyright
Got Another Hour?
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION (#u6059ab15-139a-5a89-844a-3995b4326231)
D-Day, 6 June 1944, was a date that altered the course of history. The invasion of Occupied France by Allied forces, codenamed Operation Overlord, had been years in the planning and subject to the utmost secrecy. The Germans knew that an attack would come but when and where was the subject of much speculation for Adolf Hitler and his generals. For the operation to succeed, it was vital for the Allies to maximize the element of surprise. The Allied commanders, planning the assault, could not allow the enemy to meet the attack in strength at the very moment it was at its most vulnerable – the time it took to land troops on the beaches of Normandy. The stakes could not have been higher – the liberation of Western Europe from the occupying forces of Nazi Germany, ahead of the assault on Germany itself and, ultimately, the defeat of Hitler.
In order to trick the Germans into believing the invasion would take place elsewhere, the Allies embarked on an elaborate campaign of deception. The ruse worked and on D-Day 156,000 Allied troops managed to land along a fifty-mile stretch of Normandy coastline. It was vital, also, to maintain the deception even after D-Day to oblige Hitler into keeping much of his force back in preparation for a possible assault elsewhere.
D-Day was, for the Germans, the beginning of the end. Now the prospect of liberation from Nazi rule was within reach. The sixth of June was the day that millions of people across occupied Europe had hoped and waited for. Among them was 14-year-old Anne Frank. On 22 May 1944, Anne wrote in her diary, ‘All of Amsterdam, all of Holland, in fact the entire western coast of Europe all the way down to Spain, are talking about the invasion day and night, debating, making bets and… hoping. The suspense is rising to fever pitch.’
This, in an hour, is the epic story of D-Day.
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