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It
was at the Trident Conference, held in Washington in May 1943,
that the Allies, who had already been conducting operations in the Mediterranean
for several months, adopted the principle of a landing on the western coast of
Europe. The date they initially set was May 1944. Three months after the
conference, the beaches of Lower Normandy were chosen in preference to those of
the Pas-de-Calais.
In December
1943, General Eisenhower took up his post as Supreme Commander of the
operation, codenamed Overlord. He was assisted by General Montgomery,
placed at the head of the land forces. When the two men examined the
plans drawn up by COSSAC (the headquarters, led by Major-General Morgan,
in charge of preparing the operations), they concluded that the proposed
landing zone, between Grandcamp and Courseulles, was too narrow. They
therefore decided to add two extra beaches: one further east, between
Courseulles and the Orne estuary, the other further west, on the
Cotentin coast, with a view to capturing the port of Cherbourg more
rapidly. As this alteration meant that extra resources would be
required, notably aircraft and transport and assault barges, D-Day was
postponed for a month, until June 1944.
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Poster
featuring General Eisenhower |
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It was now a
question of deciding on the precise date and time of the assault. There
were a number of parameters to be considered. Predicting that the Allies
would attack at high tide, Rommel had covered the beaches with large
numbers of obstacles. The assault would therefore have to take place at
the rising half tide, to prevent the barges from being impaled on the
traps. The airborne troops needed a full moon to carry out their
mission, while the navy, which had to bombard the German defences
forty-five minutes before H-Hour, wanted to operate at first light, in
order to pinpoint its targets more accurately. These three conditions
(half tide, at dawn, preceded by a night with a full moon) only
prevailed a few days each month. Eisenhower therefore fixed the launch
of operations for June 5th, with the possibility of
postponing them until the 6th or 7th. |
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The
need to find extra barges delayed the Landings by a month.
(IWM) |
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In the event,
bad weather in the Channel at the beginning of June forced Eisenhower to
put the landings off until the next day, when the weather reports
predicted that there would be a brief lull.
And that is how Tuesday June 6th 1944 entered the history
books!
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The men spent many long hours in their ships waiting for the
signal to leave
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