D-day, yesterday 63 years ago
Yes… yesterday, 63 years ago is D-day.. I almost forgot.
June 6, 1944 (best known as D-day) is the day on witch the Battle of Normandy began. It commencing the Western allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.
You might have watch a movie by HBO miniseries, “Band of Brothers” (2001) co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks or another movie directed by Steven Spielberg too, “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). Those two movies are the closest moving pictures of this Battle of Normandy. The Band of Brothers tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers’ journals and letters, BAND OF BROTHERS chronicles the experiences of these young men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear.
They were an elite rifle company parachuting into France early on D-Day morning, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and capturing Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden. They were also a unit that suffered enormous casualties, and whose lives became legend.
While, Saving Private Ryan (1998 Academy-Award winning film) is particularly notable for the intensity of its opening 25 minutes, which depicts the Omaha beachhead assault of June 6, 1944. Thereafter it presents a fictional search for a paratrooper of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division. While this part of the plot is a work of fiction, the premise is very loosely based on the real-life case of the Niland Brothers.
Ok, Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe, which began on June 6, 1944, and ended on August 19, 1944, when the Allies crossed the River Seine.
Over sixty sears later, that means now, tne Normandy invasion still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving almost three million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy.
Operation Neptune was the codename given to the initial assault phase of Operation Overlord, ant its mission is to gain a foothold on the continent, started on June 6, 1944 and ended on June 30, 1944.
D-Day for the invasion of Normandy by the Allies was originally set for 5 June 1944, but bad weather caused Gen. Dwight. D Eisenhower to delay until 6 June and that date has been popularly referred to ever since by the short title “D-Day”. (In French, it is called Le Jour J or, occasionally, Le Choc.) Because of this, planners of later military operations sometimes avoided the term. For example, Douglas MacArthur’s invasion of Leyte began on “A-Day”, and the invasion of Okinawa began on “L-Day”. The Allies proposed invasions of Japan that would have begun on “X-Day” (KyÅ«shÅ«, scheduled for November 1945) and “Y-Day” (HonshÅ«, scheduled for March 1946).
The primary Allied formations that saw combat in Normandy came from the United States of America, United Kingdom and Canada. Substantial Free French and Polish forces also participated in the battle after the assault phase, and there were also contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway.
The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks, naval bombardments, and an early morning amphibious phase began on June 6. The “D-Day†forces deployed from bases along the south coast of England, the most important of these being Portsmouth. The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to establish, expand, and eventually break out of the Allied beachheads, and concluded with the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Falaise pocket in late August 1944.
The Battle of Normandy was described thus by Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945): “In the East, the vastness of space will… permit a loss of territory… without suffering a mortal blow to Germany’s chance for survival. Not so in the West! If the enemy here succeeds… consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time.”
Chronology
- May 1944 is originally planned as the date for the invasion. Difficulties assembling landing craft postpone the invasion until June.
- June 5/June 6: British 6th Airborne Division (Operation Tonga), U.S. 82nd Airborne Division (Operation Detroit) and 101st Airborne Division (Operation Chicago) air-land.
- June 6: Seaborne D-Day landings (Operation Neptune)
- June 7-17: the British 6th Airborne Division repulses repeated German attacks on the eastern flank of the invasion area
- June 12: U.S. 101st Airborne Division captures Carentan
- June 13: U.S. 101st Airborne Division repels a German counter attack west of the city at a place called Hill 30, Elements of the U.S. 2nd Armored Division are ordered to help relieve the paratroopers. British armour engaged in the Battle of Villers-Bocage.
- June 25–June 29: Operation Epsom, an offensive to the west of Caen, is repulsed by the German defenders.
- July 7: Caen is liberated.
- July 17: Erwin Rommel is severely injured when his car is strafed by a Royal Canadian Air Force Spitfire.
- July 18–July 20: Operation Goodwood initiated.
- July 24: Operation Cobra begins a breakout near Saint-Lô.
- August 3–August 9: Operation Totalize, a trap to capture retreating German armour in the Falaise pocket starts.
- August 25: Paris is liberated.
Ahhh.. the greatest war ever…
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