Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Western Europe during World War II. This military operation, which began on 6 June 1944, is more commonly known as D-Day.
On the morning of 6 June 1944, thousands of Allied troops landed on five beachheads in Normandy—Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The landings involved a combination of American, British, and Canadian forces. Despite facing intense German resistance, particularly at Omaha Beach, the Allies were able to secure the beachheads.
The BBC’s Radio London airs the opening lines of Verlaine’s poem Chanson d’Automne – a coded message to launch Operation Overlord and alert French resistance fighters that the long-awaited Normandy Landings are imminent.
America’s General Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, watches paratroopers embark. “Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the armed forces! You are now leaving for the great crusade we have been preparing for many months,” he declared.
Allied aircraft drop more than 5,000 tonnes of bombs along the coast from Le Havre to Cherbourg, targeting roads, railways and German batteries. Such tactical bombings were also aimed at preventing the Germans from pinpointing the precise landing zone.
Nearly a thousand gliders land, and unload soldiers and equipment. They had to overcome obstacles on the beaches such as “Rommel's Asparagus” – wooden stakes with tripwires – ordered by Germany’s General Rommel. The Allies managed to take control of the strategic Pegasus Bridge in the town of Bénouville, the first place to be liberated.
Thousands of British and US paratroopers are dropped on the Normandy coast. German units are put on alert. Marshal Rommel, convinced that the Allied landings would not take place in June, had returned to Germany for his wife's birthday. He was not informed until around 10 am.
English paratroopers take the town of Ranville, north of Caen.
Hitler is asleep and his entourage decide not to wake him. The Germans still do not believe the Allies will land in Normandy en masse and are waiting for them further north, in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region.
Daybreak, the tide is low. According to Allied plans, almost 5,000 American ships are to land on beaches codenamed Utah and Omaha. British and Canadian troops are to land to the east, on the beaches of Gold, Juno and Sword.
53,500 British soldiers begin landing at Gold and Sword. 1,000 would be killed or wounded.
23,300 US soldiers begin landing at Utah. 200 would be killed or wounded.
General Eisenhower announces Operation Overlord has been launched on the coast of France. He had also prepared a communiqué, in the event of failure, announcing troop withdrawal.
Hitler is woken up and informed of the D-Day landings, but believes it’s just a diversion tactic.
Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill announces the landings to parliament. “During the night and the early hours of this morning the first of the series of landings in force upon the European Continent has taken place.”
“The supreme battle has begun,” declared France’s General de Gaulle in exile in London. Calling on the French to “fight, using all the means at their disposal”, he described the landings as “the decisive, long-awaited shock” for the liberation of France.
In one day, 156,000 Allied troops invaded France. Nearly 10,000 were killed, wounded or missing. Thousands of French civilians were also casualties.
