12 Facts About Normandy landings

Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II.

Amphibious Normandy landings were preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault—the landing of 24, 000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight.

The target 50-mile stretch of the Normandy landings coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.

Many in the Normandy landings area were Ostlegionen—conscripts and volunteers from Russia, Mongolia, and other areas of the Soviet Union.

Normandy landings envisioned 15, 000 emplacements manned by 300, 000 troops, but shortages, particularly of concrete and manpower, meant that most of the strongpoints were never built.

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Normandy landings requested that the mobile reserves, especially tanks, be stationed as close to the coast as possible.

Normandy landings noted that in the Italian Campaign, the armoured units stationed near the coast had been damaged by naval bombardment.

Normandy landings had been responsible for the naval planning of the invasion of North Africa in 1942, and one of the two fleets carrying troops for the invasion of Sicily the following year.

Bombing of Normandy began around midnight with more than 2, 200 British, Canadian, and U S bombers attacking targets along the coast and further inland.

Success of the amphibious Normandy landings depended on the establishment of a secure lodgement from which to expand the beachhead to allow the build-up of a well-supplied force capable of breaking out.

Some of the landing craft had been modified to provide close support fire, and self-propelled amphibious Duplex-Drive tanks, specially designed for the Normandy landings, were to land shortly before the infantry to provide covering fire.

Normandy landings were the largest seaborne invasion in history, with nearly 5, 000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participating.