June 6, 1944 D- Day Exeter Dartmouth Weymouth Southhampton Portsmouth Newhaven ‘Piccadilly Circus’ assembly point ENGLISH CHANNEL June 4, 21:30 ‘OK, let’s go’ Following several days of bad weather, the Met Office predicts 24 hours of settled conditions from late on June 5. Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, decides the time is right to move. June 5: Task force sets sail 300 minesweepers clear channels to ‘Piccadilly Circus’ for the assembly of over 6,900 warships and landing craft. U.S. 82 and 101 Airborne Divisions 12,809 airborne troops secure the western edge of the battlefield but at the cost of 7,500 lives. N O R M A N D Y Assault areas 1 – Utah 2 – Omaha 3 – Gold 4 – Juno 5 – Sword 1 2 3 4 5 Guernsey Alderney Jersey Cherbourg Isigny Villers Caen Night of June 5 / 6: 1,056 RAF and USAF heavy bombers drop more than 5,000 tons of bombs on enemy strongpoints June 6, 00:20 – Airborne assault Pathfinder teams mark out three drop zones for gliders. British and U.S. paratroops drop into Normandy to seize and secure bridges and cut off enemy reinforcements 02:00 – Minesweepers clear approaches to beaches 04:30 – Naval bombardment of beaches commences 05:30 – ‘Drenching fire’ Heaviest bombardment of the war begins at dawn. 7 battleships, 23 cruisers and 103 destroyers pound German shore batteries to protect assault craft 06:30 – Hitting the beaches Utah – During D-Day 23,250 U.S. troops and support vehicles are landed. 350 casualties Omaha – 34,000 U.S. infantry. 3,000 casualties 07:30 – The British beaches Gold – 24,970 troops. 1,000 casualties Sword – 28,845 troops. 1,000 casualties 07:40 – The Canadian landings Juno – 21,400 troops. 900 casualties 12:30 – Establishing a bridgehead British infantry fight inland off Sword beach, aiming to take Caen by nightfall 16:00 – Infantry reach Bieville, three miles from Caen, but are stopped by tanks of the German 21st Panzer Division. Infantry knock out 16 tanks 19:00 – Counterattack 21st Panzer Division led by 50 tanks mounts massive counterattack on Sword beach. Drive fails just short of the cliffs, with the loss of 13 tanks Midnight – End of day one By midnight on June 6, 1944 the Allies have landed 155,000 men in Normandy, supported by over 1,000 tanks, support vehicles and artillery. They suffer 14,400 casualties – most heavily on ‘Bloody Omaha’ and the two airborne assaults on the western flank. German losses on D-Day are estimated at 6,000 British 6th Airborne Division 6,256 paratroopers secure the eastern edge of the battlefield, destroy all five bridges over the Dives River, silence shore batteries at Merville and capture intact the two bridges (Pegasus Bridge) across the Orne and Caen Canal. 6th Airborne Division suffers 650 casualties 10 miles JUNO Pointe du Hoc Periers Bieville Carpiquet French Resistance Merville Pegasus Bridge Ranville U.S. 1st Army Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley British 2nd Army Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey German 7th Army Generaloberst Friedrich Dollman Ste Mère Eglise Carentan Forêt de Cerisy UTAH Pouppeville Isigny Colleville Blay GOLD Arromanches St Leger Airfield Colombières Port en Bessin OMAHA St Laurent Bayeux SWORD Ouistreham Caen The Forces Françaises de l’Interieur worked with SOE (British Special Operations Executive), SAS and OSS (U.S. Office of Strategic Services) to gather much of the intelligence required for the Allies to mount the attack. Warned of the invasion in coded messages from the BBC, Resistance groups cut phone lines, sabotaged trains and railway lines and fought alongside the airborne forces KEY Planned extent of advance by midnight Actual extent of advance by midnight Flooded areas – part of German defences Cherbourg German 15th Army Generaloberst Hans von Salmuth © GRAPHIC NEWS 1994