Bethany Menard

Instructor: Henri Miller

AC 1700
Paper II
11/10/2014

The Twenty-Four Hours that Changed the World

World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. Prior to this
invasion, he had already defeated Czechoslovakia and Austria. After invading Poland, he quickly
defeated Norway. He eventually set his sights on conquering all of Europe.
On May 10, 1940, Hitler invaded France through the neutral countries of Holland and
Belgium. After a month of intense fighting, the French army was defeated at the Maginot Line,
which ran along the French/German border, and the German occupation of France began.
Suddenly, the British were forced to begin developing strategies for using land forces in
France. Prior to this, they had relied on their world renowned navy and the Royal Air Force for
protection. (Normandy, 6) The fall of France to Nazi Germany directly impacted the British
strategy in the war, because they relied on the French army for protection against Germany.
The fall of France to Nazi Germany marked the beginning of planning for the D-Day
invasion. The only possibility of French liberation and British protection against the Nazis would
be through a seaborne invasion.
Unfortunately, Great Britain had no allies in 1940. It wasnt until Germany declared war
on the US in December, 1941, that Great Britain and the US would become allies.
Hitler appointed General Rommel in command of Army Group B, which was stationed in
the north of France, and consisted of the Seventh Army which was stationed in Brittany and
Normandy, and the Fifteenth Army, which defended the remaining coastline up to Antwerp

(Normandy, 9). Rommel was the former commander of Hitlers bodyguard and had direct access
to Hitler. In March, 1944, Rommel succeeded in getting three armored divisions place directly
under his command, which placed Rommel was in command of the German forces against the
Allied invasion on D-Day. (Normandy, 11)
In 1943, Stalin, Eisenhower, and Churchill met in Tehran, and committed to an allied
amphibious land invasion no later than summer of 1944. It took tremendous planning and
preparation, because an invasion of this size and nature had never been attempted in the history
of mankind. Not only did they need troops, but they needed the ships, aircraft, medics, food,
supplies, engineers, weapons, and scores of other details and logistics to straighten out before
they could launch the attack.
Due to the fact that the majority of the troops and supplies would be coming from the
U.S., General Eisenhower was placed as Supreme Allied Commander of D-Day, with three
British generals reporting under him, each over a different military division. Air Chief Tafford
Leigh-Mallory was in command of the Air Force and the RAF; Admiral Bertram Ramsey was in
charge of the Naval Forces; and General Bernard Montgomery was in command of the Army and
Marines.
In order to prevent the Germans from unraveling their plans for attack, the Allies took
extensive measures to fool the Germans into thinking that there was an army stationed at Dover,
directly across the English Channel from Pas de Calais, France. This Ghost Army was headed by
General George S. Patton. Jr, and was called The First Untied States Army Group. The British
joined in, and created their own Ghost Army, called The Fourth Army (Time). Newsreels
showed Patton and other officers inspecting troops from these armies. Bombers repeatedly
bombed Calais to make it appear that the Allies were trying to soften up the ground and create

ground cover for a land invasion. The plan was so elaborate that the FBI created artificial radio
broadcasts with the intent of being overheard by the Germans (WWII), fake tanks and ships were
created and drills were staged, and a fake army of a million troops was also staged, complete
with uniformed operatives, water treatment facilities, barracks, and mess hall.
The Germans fell for the ruse, and diverted their forces away from the real landing site
Normandy Beach towards Pas de Calais and other possible landing sites.
D-Day was supposed to begin on June 5, 1944; however, it was delayed due to a violent
storm that made crossing the English Channel too dangerous. Just after midnight on June 6,
Eisenhower made the call to start the invasion.
Altogether, there were over 5000 ships off various sizes, 19,000 paratroopers who would
land the night before to attack the German forces from behind, and 150,000 ground troops
enroute to France. In preparation for the attack, Rommel transferred the entire 15th Army,
consisting of over 208,000 men, to Pas de Calais, where he thought the invasion would actually
take place.
The beach was separated into five sections, namely Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and
Sword. Things went according to plan at most of the beaches, however, Omaha Beach was
nearly a complete failure. The French Air Force was supposed to destroy the German beach
defenses before troops arrived, and then the navy was supposed to come in behind the air force
and shoot everything that was left which, when the area was scouted in 1943, wouldnt be much
since it wasnt very heavily fortified at the time(Time, 50). Once the air force and the ships were
done, a team of 32 tanks were supposed to land and commence the attack.

In 1943,Omaha Beach was almost completely undefended, but from 1943-44, General
Rommel had strengthened the defensive line up the coast, so it was far more heavily armed than
intelligence had reported it to be. When Allied troops arrived at Omaha, they were greeted by
85 machine gun nests, 38 rocket emplacements, 35 pillboxes, 18 antitank gun positions, 8
fortified gun batteries, 6 mortar pits, and 4 field artillery positions (Time, 53). Rather than
disheartened, ailing troops, the area was manned with hundreds of professionally trained
soldiers.
The weather also caused significant challenges. Due to the fog, the French air force erred
on the side of caution and released their bombs a few seconds later than planned. They missed
their mark entirely, and bombed farmers fields instead of German blockades. The company of
tanks that were supposed to clear the way for Allied troops was released from the ship too soon,
and all but 6 of them sank, taking their crews with them to the bottom of the English Channel
(Time, 53-54). The few that made landfall were immediately attacked and were nothing more
than burning wreckage by the time Allied troops arrived.
The first two waves of soldiers did not even make landfall; as soon as the gate opened,
entire companies were slaughtered. The troops who were lucky enough to actually get out of the
boat had no cover; the fox holes that were supposed to have been created by the bombings from
the French air force were not there. The only advantage they had was in their numbers. There
were so many Allied troops on shore that it was impossible to shoot everyone at once.
Once ashore, the troops attempted to run to the base of the cliff to get some semblance of
cover from the German machine guns. Without any tanks, they faced the problem of having
nowhere to go.

Despite the progress made by some of the soldiers, it simply was not enough, and
hundreds of men were being slaughtered. The crews of the naval ships witnessed this in abject
horror. Finally, the skipper of the USS McCook, Lieutenant Commander Ralph Ramey, decided
to defy orders and drove his ship towards the beach at full-speed. He opened fire on the Germans
from near point blank range, and soon, others in the water followed his lead. Hundreds of ships
opened fire directly at the Germans, and in less than a half hour, the rate of fire from the bluff
had slowed, and several German gun emplacements had been destroyed. Had Ramey followed
orders, thousands more men would have died on Omaha Beach (Time, 56).
Eventually the fighting died down, and the Germans were either killed, captured, or
pushed back. In the end, a very high price was paid for Operation Overlord: casualties totaled
nearly 10,000, with Utah at 589, Gold 1,023, Juno 1,242, Sword 1,304, and Omaha had the
highest at 3,686 (D-Day Museum).
D-Day was an incredible, multi-national effort the largest and most complicated invasion
in the history of the world. Thousands of people soldiers and civilians alike contributed to its
success. Had Operation Overlord failed, World War II could have lasted another year or more.
Without the success of this most important battle, the world would not be the same today.

Works Cited

Badsey, Stephen. Normandy 1944. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1990. Print.

How Many Troops Were Involved in D-Day?. D-Day Museum and Overlord Embroidery.
WEB. 09 November, 2014. http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battleof-normandy-your-questions-answered
Murphy, Brian John. Pattons Ghost Army. America in WW II. December, 2005. WEB. 09
November, 2014. http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/pattons-ghost-army/
Time. D-Day; 24 Hourrs That Changed the World. New York. Time Books, 2004. Print.