Significance Of Operation Overlord

The Invasion of Normandy was the most decisive battle of World War II in Western Europe. The importance of the location help to diminish Nazi power. The attack was postponed several times due to weather. Was the order to “Go” given to soon based off an incorrect Weather report?

The planning of Operation Overlord was an idea that formed early in 1942. One of the key points that helped move the planning along was the idea that the German U-Bats were no longer a threat to the Allies. This now created an ocean that would be safe for the flow of supplies from the United States to Britain. November 1943 the agreement to plan an immense operation to cross the English Channel and liberate France was in effect. “ The broad outline of the attack was relatively simple: find suitable beaches, gather landing forces, isolate the battlefield by attacking bridges, tunnels, and rail networks so that German defenders could not be easily reinforced, and land the troops. Once a beachhead was established, the plan was to pour in the supplies needed to sustain an offensive and then break out into the French Countryside” (Encarta)

The attack was code named Operation overlord. The target date was spring of 1944. The weather and tides played a large role in the date that the attack would occur. Tides were the most important since the attack was amphibious both land and water. The attack was originally scheduled for May 1, 1944 on April 27th, 1944 the training exercise called Tiger occurred, during this exercise it was discovered that they didn’t have enough landing crafts to precede. The operation was pushed back to June 5 of the same year.

In an effort to throw off Hitler and keep the date a mystery the Allies used several tactics to misinform. One of ...

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...isions, one British and two American, would drop behind the landing beaches. Their job seizes beach exits, capture key transportation and communication points, and block German counterattacks.

The Americans landed on wide open beaches, far from any towns, and they didn't make use of any of the specialized armored tanks that were offered to them by the British Army, except the swimming Sherman, and many of those were sunk when they were off loaded to far out at sea, and sank in the rough water. Heavy fog and German guns proved to have challenges. The pilots were unable to drop the paratroopers as planned. Many of the US paratroopers of the 101 and the 82nd Airborne were also drowned when the USAAF dropped them in a huge swamp, about 30 miles off target. In some cases it took them 2 days to become an effective fighting force again, because they were so spread out.