Today in History—June 6: World War II’s D-Day Gets Underway
“OK, we’ll go.”
In the end, it all came down to those words, spoken by American Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 5, 1944, as he gave the green light to launch Operation Overlord the next day.
Gale force winds had nearly delayed the invasion, one of the largest military operations in history, until June 19—the next date the moon and tides would favor the Allies.
But the weather cleared, and on June 6, just after midnight, thousands of aircraft crossed the English Channel and dropped some 18,000 paratroopers to support the infantry assault to come later that day.
The beaches of Normandy, France, were about to become the site of one of the largest amphibious invasions ever, and this day would forever be known as D-Day, the military’s standard lingo for the first day of a major op.
The Allies had been planning this for years. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had been asking for help opening up another front in Europe since 1942. Britain’s Winston Churchill had been on board—for the most part—since 1940. But it was Eisenhower, appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in 1943, who was tasked with making it happen.
The logistics of a combined land, air, and naval assault were staggering: How do you land nearly 160,000 troops, from more than a dozen countries, in a single day, on five beaches along a nearly 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast?
Many of the boats used on D-Day were a type invented by a Louisiana lumber businessman who designed a boat that could carry timber in shallow swamp water.
Months earlier a strategic bombing campaign had begun to cut off the targeted part of France. The area went wide of the real target, however, to give Germany the impression the attack would come farther to the northeast. Adolf Hitler wasn’t completely fooled, and about four million mines were planted on the beaches, but the ruse worked well enough that, even as the landings got underway, some German commanders doubted Normandy was the main attack.
Still, defenses awaiting the Allies were impressive. Resistance included everything from mines to machine gunners, and the fighting was brutal. Americans suffered particularly heavy casualties at Omaha Beach.
But by the end of the day, the Allies had gained a foothold. By the end of August, northern France had been freed. The momentum generated in Normandy would carry Allied armies into Germany.
In May 1945 the Nazi Reich surrendered, and by the end of the year the war was over.
- 6,500 ships: Involved in D-Day
- 200,000 vehicles: Involved in D-Day
- 13,000 aircraft: Involved in D-Day
- 1844: The YMCA is established in London
- 1892: Chicago’s elevated train line (known as the “L”) begins operating, with a wooden coal-fired train
- 1934: U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the SEC into law
