D-Day and the Liberation of Europe
The planning and execution of Operation Overlord, the Normandy landings, and the Allied campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation.
Planning the Largest Amphibious Invasion in History
By 1943, the Western Allies had been promising the Soviet Union a second front in Western Europe for over a year. Stalin, whose forces were bearing the overwhelming brunt of the fighting against Germany, was growing increasingly frustrated. The cross-Channel invasion of France — codenamed Operation Overlord — was the most complex military operation ever attempted, and its planning consumed enormous resources and intellectual energy.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in December 1943. The plan called for landing five infantry divisions simultaneously on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast, preceded by airborne drops of three divisions behind German lines. The challenges were immense: tides, weather, beach obstacles, fortified positions, and the need to maintain absolute secrecy about the landing site. The Allies executed an elaborate deception campaign — Operation Fortitude — using fake armies, double agents, and dummy equipment to convince the Germans that the main invasion would target the Pas-de-Calais, 150 miles northeast of Normandy.
The logistics alone were staggering. The Allies assembled nearly 7,000 ships and landing craft, 11,000 aircraft, and over 150,000 troops for the initial assault. They even designed and built artificial harbors (Mulberry harbors) that would be towed across the Channel to create port facilities on the open beaches. PLUTO (Pipe-Lines Under The Ocean) would eventually pump fuel directly from England to France.
