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3. D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe

Article D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe

In May 1944, the Western Allies were finally prepared to deliver their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord.

June 6, 2024

Top Photo: Into the Jaws of Death — U.S. Troops wading through water and Nazi gunfire. June 6, 1944. Records of the U.S. Coast Guard (NAID 355)

In May 1944, the Western Allies were finally prepared to deliver their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was supreme commander of the operation that ultimately involved the coordinated efforts of 12 nations.

After much deliberation, it was decided that the landings would take place on the long, sloping beaches of Normandy. There, the Allies would have the element of surprise. The German high command expected the attack to come in the Pas de Calais region, north of the river Seine where the English Channel is narrowest. It was here that Adolf Hitler had put the bulk of his panzer divisions after being tipped off by Allied undercover agents posing as German sympathizers that the invasion would take place in the Pas de Calais.

Surprise was an essential element of the Allied invasion plan. If the Germans had known where and when the Allies were coming they would have hurled them back into the sea with the 55 divisions they had in France. The invaders would have been on the offensive with a 10-to-1 manpower ratio against them.

The challenges of mounting a successful landing were daunting. The English Channel was notorious for its rough seas and unpredictable weather, and the enemy had spent months constructing the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile line of obstacles. This defensive wall comprised 6.5 million mines, thousands of concrete bunkers and pillboxes containing heavy and fast-firing artillery, tens of thousands of tank ditches, and other formidable beach obstacles. And the German army would be dug in on the cliffs overlooking the American landing beaches.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Order of the Day, delivered to Allied personnel on June 6, 1944. (Image: Eisenhower Presidential Library.)

At the Tehran Conference in August 1943, Allied leaders scheduled Overlord to take no later than May 1, 1944. In the meantime, they prepared ceaselessly for the attack. Trucks, tanks, and tens of thousands of troops poured into England. “We were getting ready for one of the biggest adventures of our lives,” an American sergeant said. “We couldn’t wait.” Meanwhile, the American and British air forces in England conducted a tremendous bombing campaign that targeted railroad bridges and roadways in northern France to prevent the Germans from bringing in reserves to stop the invasion.

After General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander, he and General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery modified the plan, expanding the size of the beachhead and the number of divisions in the initial assault. This, led Allied leaders to set June 5, 1944, as the invasion’s D-Day. But on the morning of June 4, meteorologists predicted foul weather over the English Channel on the 5th, leading Eisenhower to postpone the attack for 24 hours. The delay was unnerving for soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but when meteorologists forecast a brief window of clearer weather over the channel on June 6, Eisenhower made the decision to go. It was one of the gutsiest decisions of the war.

Just after midnight on June 6, Allied airborne troops began dropping behind enemy lines. Their job was to blow up bridges, sabotage railroad lines, and take other measures to prevent the enemy from rushing reinforcements to the invasion beaches. Hours later, the largest amphibious landing force ever assembled began moving through the storm-tossed waters toward the beaches. Most of the Americans were packed into flat-bottomed Higgins boats launched from troop transports 10 miles from the French coastline. Vomit filled the bottom of the boats, and as water kept rushing in over the gunwales, the green-faced men had to bail this vile stew with their helmets. Though it was cold, the men were sweating.

Personnel and equipment arriving at Normandy by air and sea following the D-Day invasion in 1944. (National Archives and Records Administration, 26-G-2517.)

Planners had divided the landing zone into five separate beaches. The Americans landed at Utah and Omaha beaches. The British and Canadians landed at Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches.

The fiercest fighting was on Omaha Beach where the enemy was positioned on steep cliffs that commanded the long, flat shoreline. Troops leapt from their landing boats and were pinned down for hours by murderous machine-gun fire that turned the beach into a vast killing field. “If you (stayed) there you were going to die,” Lieutenant Colonel Bill Friedman said. “We just had to . . . try to get to the bottom of the cliffs on which the Germans had mounted their defenses.” By midday, the Americans had surmounted the cliffs and taken Omaha Beach at a heavy cost: over 2,400 killed, wounded, or missing out of the total of approximately 34,000 who came ashore that day, a loss rate of more than 7 percent.

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  Original caption: The Invasion Stream Floods the Beaches of France. Bulging with reinforcements from the liberation waves that struck the French beaches and beached the vaunted Atlantic Wall, Coast Guard landing barges ferry the flood of fighting men who are spreading our over Normandy. They are transferred from a Coast Guard assault transport in the English Channel. In the distance, in a rhino loaded with ambulances easing toward the beach. National Archives at College Park. NAID: 205578585

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  Commandos of 1st Special Service Brigade led by Brigadier Lord Lovat (in the water, to the right of his men) land on Queen Red beach, Sword area, c. 0840 hours, 6 June 1944. Sherman DD tanks of 13th/18th Royal Hussars and other vehicles can be seen on the beach. Lovat's piper, Bill Millin, is in the foreground about to disembark. Image: IWM (B 5103)

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  Troops of 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade disembarking with bicycles from LCI(L)s (Landing Craft Infantry Large) onto Nan White beach, Juno area, at Bernieres-sur-Mer, shortly before midday, 6 June 1944. Image: IWM (A 23938)

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  Commandos of HQ 4th Special Service Brigade, coming ashore from LCI(S) landing craft on Nan Red beach, Juno area, at St Aubin-sur-Mer, 6 June 1944. Image: IWM (B 5218)

By nightfall, about 160,000 Allied troops were ashore with nearly a million more men on the way that summer.

The Normandy invasion was one of great turning points of twentieth-century history. An immense army was placed in Nazi-occupied Europe, never to be dislodged. Germany was threatened that same month by a tremendous Soviet invasion from the east that would reach the gates of Berlin by the following April. The way to appreciate D-Day’s importance is to contemplate what would have happened if it had failed. Another landing would not have been possible for at least a year. This would have given Hitler time to strengthen the Atlantic Wall, harass England with the newly developed V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets, continue to develop jet aircraft and other so-called “miracle weapons,” and finish off his killing campaign against ethnic and sexual undesirables.

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MLA Citation:

The National WWII Museum. "D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe" https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/d-day-allies-invade-europe. Published June 6, 2024. Accessed January 25, 2026.

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APA Citation:

The National WWII Museum. (June 6, 2024). D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/d-day-allies-invade-europe

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Chicago Style Citation:

The National WWII Museum. "D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe" Published June 6, 2024. Accessed January 25, 2026. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/d-day-allies-invade-europe.

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