The topic of this research report:
World War II: D-day invasions
In less than twelve months after World War II began the Axis powers in Europe had conquered the countries of Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France having only suffered defeat at the battle of Britain. After the Axis powers in Europe had declared war on the US their main objective was to prevent any United States military landings. Nevertheless, after much clandestine preparation, which consisted of searching for and preparing a landing site, gathering supplies, and training soldiers, the United States military was ready to launch their amphibious landing which is forever remembered as D-Day. D-Day was an important turning point in World War II because of the successful outcome of the covert preparation for the amphibious landings, the victorious execution of the amphibious landings, and the fruition and culmination of the American victories that occurred as a result of the landings on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
On July,15, 1943 the COSSAC, Chief of Staff Supreme Allied Commander, presented his covert plan for “Overlord” to the British Chiefs of staff*1*. This plan consisted of three parts: reconnaissance, the psychological conditioning of the enemy, and the physical conditioning of the chosen landing site. The first part of this covet plan was photo reconnaissance. This part of the plan consisted of photos of all most fifteen thousand miles of coastline which represented a large list of landing sites. Fortunately, photo reconnaissance had being going on for a year in advance so a majority of their time was not wasted on collecting this information*2*. After collecting this large list of possible landing sites, they then had to limit the invasion to an area in which they would hold a significant military advantage over the enemy. So the decision was made to use the spitfire aircraft, which was the most numerous Allied aircraft fighter at the time of the landing preparations. The main reason that they chose the spitfire was because of the overall amount of spitfire aircraft that would be able to be used in the invasion. They then used the spitfire’s gas tank range to futher reduce the list of landing selections so that the allies would be able maintain air superiority. Because of the spitfire's gas tank range the allies were able to fly over to the landing site stay there for a few minutes to provide cover for the landing forces and then return safely to base to refill and go back again *3*. After using the spitfire to reduce the list of landing sites they then reviewed the weather forecasts for the few places that they were considering for the landings. They also acquired and studied soil samples from the landing sites. A UDT/s frogman crawled ashore on to one of the beaches of Normandy and acquired a small bucket of sand for the army engineers to analyze to determine how well it would support tanks and other heavy vehicles*4*. They calculated the tides to determine the best time to land so that they would avoid a majority of the enemy beach defenses. They even went as far as to study the moon’s phases so that they could find when the tide would be at its highest point so they could avoid as much of the beach defenses as possible during the landing*5*. Now the second part of the COSSAC’s covert plan went in to effect. This part of the plan consisted of the psychological conditioning of the enemy forces. This consisted of almost two times the amount of air raids in the north of Europe than the south aiming to convince the Germans that the landings would take place some where in north. Meanwhile, strategically placed air raids that were intended to cut off the Normandy Beachhead landing sites from any German military support were occurring*6*. They had airplanes filled with “chaff ”, a special type of material that was designed to reflected radar. This was used to simulate fake landings in Norway and northern France. The Allied forces sent fake radio messages as well, which they allowed the Germans to intercept to mislead them in pinpointing the exact location of the actual landing site*7*. Now the final step was put in to effect this third part incorporated the physical conditioning of the chosen landing site. This consisted of special demolition teams called,”UDT/s“ or underwater demolitions teams. These teams were to swim up to the beaches and set explosives on any defenses the Germans had placed in or under the water and then remove them from the landing parties path. On the Utah beachhead alone they cleared some seven-hundred yards of beach in two hours and another nine-hundred yards by the afternoon*8*. After a year of planning, covet preparation, and conditioning of both the enemy and the landing sites the Allies were ready to launch “Overlord”.
