"Order of the Day" - statement as issued to the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force on J General Eisenhower's determination that operation OVERLORD (the invasion of France) would bring a quick end to the war is obvious in this message to the troops of the Allied Expeditionary Forces on June 6, 1944, the morning of the invasion. On May 7, 1945, German General Alfred Jodl signed an unconditional surrender at Reims, France. Fighting by the brave soldiers, sailors and airmen of the allied forces western front, and Russian forces on the eastern front, led to the defeat of German Nazi forces. By June 30th, over 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of supplies had landed on the Normandy shores. Casualties from the three countries during the landing numbered 10,300. Almost 133,000 troops from England, Canada and the United States landed on D-Day. The invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries.
#D day location code#
The beaches were given the code names UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO and SWORD. The operation, given the codename OVERLORD, delivered five naval assault divisions to the beaches of Normandy, France. Small boats and aircraft headed in the same direction to further sell the idea.The D-Day operation of Jbrought together the land, air and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest invasion force in human history. Allied aircraft dropped aluminium foil, known as Window, attempting to fool German radar that a large force was heading for the Calais area. The idea was to simulate an airborne invasion and distract German forces from the imminent attack.Īs D-Day kicked off the deceptions were far from over. Ten members of the SAS jumped with the Ruperts and operated loudspeakers on the ground, blasting out sounds of gunfire and men shouting. To help draw further German strength away from the Normandy area, around 400 three-foot-tall dummies known as Ruperts were parachuted into areas East and West of Normandy under Operation Titanic on the night of 5 June. Whilst bombing under the Transportation Plan campaign looked to cut off Normandy from being effectively supplied by German reinforcements, areas around the Calais region were also targeted to convince the enemy that was the true target for the invasion. In the build-up the D-Day, Allied bombing also played a key role in fooling the enemy. The Allies knew that German reconnaissance would pick up any build-up of forces in England prior to an invasion, so the main aim of Bodyguard was to convince Hitler an attack was coming later than it was actually planned and at a location different to Normandy. Its name was Operation Bodyguard and the secret department known as The London Controlling Centre (LCS) mapped out its finer details. Roosevelt planned to penetrate Hitler’s Fortress Europe. It aimed to throw German High Command off about exactly how Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Up to a year before the Allies stepped foot on the Normandy beaches, a deception campaign was being formulated. D-Day kicked off the Western Allies push to Berlin and a large part of its success depended on German ignorance about its exact location, date and time. On 6 June 1944, the largest seaborne invasion in military history heralded the start of Operation Overlord. The Germans knew an Allied invasion on Western Europe would eventually come, they just didn’t know exactly where and when.
#D day location series#
In 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of the Atlantic Wall, a series of coastal defences that stretched from the edge of the Arctic Circle down to the France-Spain border.