D-Day: Operations Fortitude and Overlord – A Brief Historical Background

The lecture on D-Day that you are about to read was created as a historical background for a tour of the Normandy landing beaches (to be published in the future). However, because of its particularly fascinating information, it certainly stands on its own, and therefore appears here before you. Everything you will read is based on Stephen Ambrose’s immortal book “D-Day” (Zmora Bitan Publishing, 564 pages).

Before we get to the impressive operation of the landing itself, “Operation Overlord,” let’s look at an equally impressive operation of deception: “Operation Fortitude.” No less effort was devoted to the deception operation, and it was indeed successful. The deception was in two stages.

In the first stage, it was intended to mislead the Germans about the location of the landing. But that was not enough, because once it began, mobile elite forces that the Germans had in many places would reach the landing beach in a short time, before a bridgehead could be established there. Therefore, there was a second stage of deception, in reverse: to make the Germans believe that the landing they had observed was only a diversionary attack, that the “real” landing would take place elsewhere, and therefore it was not worth rushing forces to a place where there was “only” a diversionary landing.

The Allied Fortitude Deception

The double fraud scheme had many components. A lot.

First, from the start, the natural landing place was the Pas de Calais area, opposite Dover in England. This is where the channel is narrowest, the route from the coast to Paris is shortest, it is clear that that is where the Allies will land. So that is it: because it is clear, they will land anywhere, but not there… But the Germans knew that too, so they need to be led back to believe that the landing will still be in Calais.

Off Calais, in the southeast of England, a huge concentration of forces was being built: thousands of tanks, thousands of barges, rigs, planes, gliders, everything the landing force would need. All made of cardboard, paper pulp, inflated rubber, cloth. Field kitchens belched smoke into the sky from coals that were fed over and over again. High-ranking “commanders” walked the streets with brigade badges that didn’t exist. Wireless operators passed carelessly encrypted transmissions between the headquarters of an army that never existed and never was.

Not only was the location of the simulated force misleading, but its very “existence,” as it were, doubled the real strength of the Allies, and so, when the landing began, the Germans believed that the main force was not participating in it. That is, it would land somewhere else. In fact, the Germans believed that the Allies had the capacity to land about twenty divisions in the first wave. In reality, they only had the means to bring six to the beach… From this it is clear that when these six landed, the Germans were strengthened in their assumption that this was only a diversionary landing, and that the additional 14 divisions would land somewhere else shortly.

General Patton, who was considered by the Germans to be the chosen commander of the Allies, was removed from participation in the first phase of the landing, and sent to walk around the Dover area. Obviously. There he “commanded” the “real” landing force. And more: In the weeks and months leading up to the landing, the Allies bombed the Calais area with great intensity. They avoided bombing the real landing area in Normandy in any significant way. This came at a heavy price, of course.

The bombing of the Calais area was of no tactical value; not bombing the actual landing area meant leaving the fortifications, the bridges, the roads – for German use. Although an effort would be made in the hours before the landing to repair the damage, mainly by means of heavy naval guns, this would not achieve much.

There were other ingredients to the “Fortitude” plan. We call them “spices,” because they weren’t the main thing, but they gave the flavor. “Drunk” soldiers in bars in southern England blurted out gossip about the women of Calais waiting for them with their legs spread wide, German prisoners heard their guards “preparing” to be transferred to Calais immediately after the landing, in order to set up prisoner-of-war camps there. And on and on. It all, of course, reached German intelligence. Did we say great resources? We did.

But it was worth it. The deception was more successful than expected. It took the Germans almost a week after the Normandy landings to realize that they were not a diversion, but the real thing. Almost 3 weeks after D-Day, on June 26, the German 15th Army, the main counterattack force, remained north of the Seine River, 200 kilometers as the air approaches the landing beaches. 400 kilometers on bombed roads, over shattered bridges. By the time they arrived, if at all, the Allies would have their own armies in France.

The Normandy landings

So much for the deception. I got carried away a bit with enthusiasm, because to me it's the most brilliant thing about the Normandy landings. From there on to the landings themselves.

After a massive bombardment by over five thousand bombers, accompanied by a similar number of interceptor aircraft, the troops began to land along a stretch of coastline some eighty kilometers wide. On “Sorde” Beach, the easternmost, the British 3rd Infantry Division landed, in addition to the British 6th Airborne Division, which landed from the air.

The 3rd Canadian Infantry Division landed on Juno Beach. The 50th British Infantry Division landed on Gold Beach. Two American infantry divisions, the 1st and 29th, landed on Omaha Beach, which was initially considered the most difficult, as it turned out, and the 4th American infantry division landed on Utah Beach. In addition, the night before the landing, two American divisions, the 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne, were parachuted on the western edges of the landing beaches, to block them from the arrival of German armored reinforcements.

The battles on the landing beaches

I won't go into the details of the battles on each of the beaches. But in summary:

Sored Beach: The main objective was to capture the city of Caen and the nearby Carpice airfield. This objective was not achieved until 6 weeks later. There was immense chaos on the beach, as the additional landing waves crowded onto a strip of beach that was gradually shrinking due to the tide. However, the bridgehead stabilized, and by nightfall there were about 30,000 soldiers on it. Casualties: 630.

Juno Beach: Here too the story of the rising tide repeated itself. The objectives were not achieved, but the bridgehead was widened and deepened inland. Over twenty thousand soldiers on the beach by nightfall. About 1,000 casualties.

Gold Beach: Resistance on the coast was lighter than expected. By nightfall, the forces had advanced about 10 km inland, but were unable to take control of Baya, which was the main objective. 25,000 men held the captured territory, at the cost of about 1,000 casualties.

Omaha Beach: Inferno incarnate. Of the 32 amphibious tanks, 27 were sunk or destroyed. As a result, the infantry landed almost unaided. Many were dropped far from the shore and had to swim to it. Landing platforms were destroyed by mortar fire. Others reached the shore safely, but the soldiers disembarked in the face of machine gun fire that cut down entire platoons. Of the 34,000 men who were dropped ashore, about 4,000 were casualties. The bridgehead was consolidated, although the troops did not advance more than 2.5 kilometers in depth.

Utah Beach: The landings drifted about two kilometers south of planned. Resistance was light. By nightfall, 23,000 fighters were on the beach, at the cost of 197 casualties. The objectives were not achieved, but the bridgehead stabilized.

The end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?

Overall, despite the mess, General Eisenhower could have destroyed the retreat speech he had prepared in advance, in case the invasion failed, and read the success speech. Most of the planned objectives were not achieved, it would be two and a half months before control of Normandy was achieved. But, contrary to Churchill’s famous words “Many think this is the beginning of the end, but it is more accurate to say that it is the end of the beginning” – it really was the beginning of the end.

A-Propo Churchill: He demanded to join the landing forces. General Eisenhower threatened to resign, but Churchill insisted. Finally he was forced to give in, when he was told that if he insisted, King George would join as well.

There is no doubt that the Normandy landings were, as mentioned, the beginning of the end of the war. The Germans were forced to transfer forces from the Eastern Front, which was indeed more difficult, but very far from the German border, to the Western Front, which threatened the important mountain range. But after about two weeks, the Russians launched Operation Brigade, in which the German army was defeated and forced to retreat from most of the territory of the Soviet Union, and the Red Army penetrated Poland and approached the German border from the east. Thus, in effect, the pincers began to close on Germany.