Influences of D-Day

There are many important factors concerning the D-Day attack during World War II made by the Allies of the invasion in Normandy. When Hitler seized the western part of Europe in 1941, the Allies decided that France was the starting factor to invade the German Nazi front and change the tide of war while the Red army attacked from the east. To stop Hitler from advancing, Churchill and F.D.R.

proposed to strike the German forces. Their proposal created an outbreak through devious and enduring plans revolving around the capture of occupied France including those such as “Operation Fortitude” and “Operation Overlord”. Many strategies had to be coordinated to allow for this mission to be a successful attack.1940- “Combined Operations”-The Allies created the COSSAC, which stands for “Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander.” This operation is led by Frederick Morgan, and its purpose is to choose the place of landing for the mission, gather information from the previous missions, and to coordinate the troops’ transportation.

August 1942- “Operation Jubilee” was a landing near Dieppe, France and was an attack to test the German defense system. The Allied soldiers were sacrificed to time the German’s reaction on this attack of an opened second front in Western Europe.1943- “Leader Conference”- The Allied leaders met and created an offense at the Quebec Conference. They decided that Normandy would be the pinpoint for the invasion in Western Europe. The beach was just right for them to come ashore because of its stable conditions. The composition of the Norman beaches is relatively close to those found along Western England.

Thus, the soldiers could train on the other side of the Channel and they could even test the resistance of the tanks on this particular type of sand whish was a huge benefit to practice the invasion.December 1943- March 1944- “Operation Fortitude” is where the Allies prepare a “phantom army” set up in England, equipped with inflatable armored vehicles and wooden guns in order to give wrong intelligence to the German services. These fake units are positioned in front of the French Pas-de-Calais region, in the area of Dover. The German reconnaissance aircrafts see this fake army and are ordered to prepare itself against a landing.

They wanted the Germans to think that Pas-de-Calais was the initial attack and Normandy was only a diversion making it easier to invade. This caused more of the German troops to stay near Pas-de-Calais while less would stay in Normandy.1944- “Operation Overlord” is where the important Intel is transmitted to the French resistance via the radio. The B.B.

C. (British Broadcast Company) sends coded messages during the French broadcast. Every message has its own meaning and purpose. Thus, five days before June 6, 1944, the first three lines of the “Chant d'automne” poem of Verlaine is broadcasted. These numerous messages announce the beginning of the sabotage operations.

The local resistants destroy railroads, telephone lines and install anti-tank mines on the roads. The night between June 5 and June 6, 1944, nearly 1,000 sabotage actions are carried out by the French resistance.1944- “Operation Quicksilver” was a sub-plan of Operation Fortitude, the 1944 deception plan designed to make the Germans to hold troops away from Normandy in belief that the Normandy landing was only a trick and that the major invasion would come in the Pas-de-Calais. The key element of Quicksilver was the creation in German minds that "First United States Army Group" (FUSAG) commanded by General George Patton supposedly would land in the Pas-de-Calais for the major invasion of Europe, after the landings in Normandy had lured the German defenders to that front.1944- “Weather”- The invasion was originally scheduled for June 5, but 24 hours before on June 4, three teams of meteorologists recommended that the invasion be postponed for 24 hours because of a forecast of a very bad storm that day.

That forecast proved correct. An invasion on June 5 would have been a catastrophe with the rains and gale winds. The forecasting teams, one American and two British, were coordinated by Group Captain James Stagg.1942- “Operation Round Up”- To carry out the preparation of the European invasion, it is necessary for the Allies to gather their troops in Great Britain in preparation for a greater scale operation in France, which is by then called “Round-up”. Initially, the allied armies must be equipped and trained in order to carry out various and precise missions.

The American and Canadian troops first train on their own soil, but it is already necessary to transfer their armies across the Atlantic toward England, which becomes the starting point of the attack in Europe.1944-“Operation Titanic” was the codename for an operation carried out on June 5–6 1944 by the Royal Air Force and the Special Air Service in support of the Normandy landings. The objective of the operation was to drop 500 dummy parachutists in places other than the actual drop zones used, in the hope that the Germans would believe that a larger force than was actually used had landed and deploy their reinforcements away from the real landing area.1944- “Gliders” were planes without engines towed by real ones, which could hold cargo and crewmen to safely land near their target on open terrain. Sent in June 6, they were used to sneak by the enemy because they made no sound, which allowed for stealth attacks to follow.

These gliders were made out of inexpensive material such as wood and so many were produced to outsmart and overcome their enemy.