xx | Introduction
ashore. Hitler seems to have welcomed the
invasion as a chance to engage and destroy
the British and U.S. forces. In Britain, they
could not be touched; in France, the Western
Allied armies could be destroyed. Hitler was
convinced that the Allied effort would result
in another Dieppe. “Let them come,” he said.
“They will get the thrashing of their lives.”
Rommel did what he could, supervising
the construction of elaborate defenses, the
placement of half a million foreshore obsta-
cles, and the laying of some 4 million mines.
Rommel had the Fifteenth Army in northern
France and the Seventh Army in Nor-
mandy—a total of 25 static coastal divisions,
16 infantry and parachute divisions, 20 ar-
mored and mechanized divisions, and 7 re-
serve divisions. The Germans were weak in
air and naval assets, however. The Third Air
Fleet in France deployed only 329 aircraft
on D-Day, and German naval forces in the
area consisted of 4 destroyers and 39 E-
boats. Germany also deployed several dozen
U-boats, most from French ports, during the
subsequent Normandy campaign.
Meanwhile, U.S. and British aircraft
worked to soften the German defenses and
isolate the beachheads. Between April 1 and
June 5, 1944, Allied aircraft flew 200,000 sor-
ties in support of the coming invasion and
dropped 195,000 tons of bombs. The Allies
lost 2,000 aircraft in the process, but by D-
Day they had largely isolated the landing areas
and achieved virtually total air supremacy.
The Germans also greatly strengthened the
French channel port defenses, which Hitler
ordered turned into fortresses. All of this was
for naught, because as German minister of ar-
maments Albert Speer noted, the Allies came
over the beaches and “brought their own port
with them. . . . Our whole plan of defense had
proved irrelevant.” In one of the greatest mili-
tary engineering achievements in history,
thousands of men labored in Britain for
months to build two large artificial harbors
known as Mulberries A and B. Plans called
for these, after the initial Allied landings, to
be hauled across the English Channel from
Britain and sunk in place. Their importance to
the Allied cause can be seen in that by the end
of October, 25 percent of stores, 20 percent of
personnel, and 15 percent of vehicles had
passed through Mulberry B.
The Allies worked out precise and elabo-
rate plans for the mammoth cross-channel
invasion, code-named overlord, to occur on
the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy. British
admiral Bertram H. Ramsay had overall com-
mand of the naval operation, code-named
neptune, while British general Bernard Mont-
gomery exercised overall command of the
land forces. The object of the operation was
“to secure a lodgement on the continent, from
which further offensive operations can be
developed.”
The landing would be preceded by a night
drop of paratroops. General Marshall, an en-
thusiastic supporter of airborne forces, urged
the use of five airborne divisions, but Eisen-
hower had his doubts, and as it transpired,
only three were employed: the British 6th
and the U.S. 82nd and 101st. The lightly
armed paratroopers, operating in conjunc-
tion with the French Resistance, had the vital
task of securing the flanks of the lodgment
and destroying key transportation choke
points to prevent the Germans from reinforc-
ing their beach defenses. The German 21st
Panzer and 12th Schutzstaffel (SS) Panzer
Divisions were stationed just outside Caen.
If they were permitted to reach the beaches,
they could strike the amphibious forces from
the flank and roll them up.
The amphibious assault would occur early
in the morning after the airborne assault,
with five infantry divisions wading ashore
along the 50-mile stretch of coast, divided
into five sectors. The designated beaches
