For nearly four years Hitler has held an ironclad grip on Europe. To maintain that grip, he's
poured a vast wealth of Germany's resources into building the Atlantic wall, the greatest defensive
fortification in history to that point. On June 6th, 1944, American and British troops leading
an international contingent of free nations will smash through that defense in just one single day.
Operation Overlord, the greatest amphibious assault in history,
starts well before that fateful day however.
The first step in freeing Europe takes place months before the actual attack. The allies
desperately need to mislead the Nazis as to the true location of the invasion so that the German
army will move defensive maneuver units out of position. To accomplish this, the British and
American intelligence services conduct a carefully orchestrated, two-pronged campaign of deception
and subterfuge. Operation Fortitude was designed to convince the Germans that the Allies would
send an attack into Norway in order to deny Hitler much-needed coal and iron resources.
Fortitude South meanwhile worked to fool the Germans into believing that the Allies’ assault
in France would come in Pas de Calais, which geographically was the preferable site anyways.
For their part, the Germans were confident that they would see through
any allied deception thanks to a large ring of spies and informants operating inside Britain.
What the Germans didn't realize was that the British had thoroughly penetrated this network,
and most importantly, the head of it- a spaniard by the name of Juan Pujol Garcia-
was actually working as a double agent. Garcia carefully worked to convince the
Germans that the Allies were indeed planning on assaulting Pas De Calais.
Juan Pujol Garcia's deception would save tens of thousands of allied lives.
The Germans move large amounts of manpower and equipment to Pas De Calais and to Norway,
where coastal fortifications are tripled. In charge of the coastal defenses is the infamous
Field Marshal Rommel, whom despite his defeat in Africa is still one of Hitler's most respected
generals. However, Rommel and General Leo Geyr Von Schweppenburg, commander of Panzer Group West,
are at odds over how to deploy the critical German armored reserves. Rommel believes the tanks should
be kept as close to the beaches as possible in order to crush an allied landing on sight.
Schweppenburg instead believes that tanks should be kept around Paris, and dispatched only when the
main Allied beachhead was officially identified. With overwhelming allied air superiority,
Rommel believes this to be a critical mistake, as tanks and infantry will not be able to easily
move long distances once the fighting starts. In the end, Hitler makes a fateful decision:
he grants Rommel command over three tank divisions and another three are left under Schweppenburg.
Hitler will himself command the remaining four divisions making up the strategic reserve.
Without realizing it, Hitler has just made
one of the greatest strategic blunders in military history.
At zero-hundred hours on June 6th, Operation Overlord begins.
An air armada of 1200 transports and towed gliders fly low over the waters of the English
channel to avoid detection before pulling up for altitude. A few miles behind the coastal defenses,
thousands of paratroopers jump from their planes, others are brought in to rough landings on
gliders. The Germans have identified places gliders could be used for a landing though,
and have booby trapped them thoroughly with giant bits of metal meant to tear gliders
apart on landing. Many gliders are shredded on impact, sending men tumbling across
landing fields. Those that manage to land safely face mine fields and razor wire booby traps.
The men in the gliders may have been the lucky ones however,
as the paratroopers are faring much worse. American pilots inexperienced in paradrops and
nervous from German anti-aircraft fire don't slow their planes down enough for a safe drop. As men
leap out of the plane they are buffeted by the incredible wind, many have equipment torn from
their bodies. Some land behind enemy lines with nothing more than a knife or sidearm.
Yet despite the difficulties and German defenses, shortly after landing British paratroopers capture
the first critical objective- a bridge over the Caen Canal. Now they and thousands of allied
paratroopers must hold their positions for six hours with no hope of reinforcements. They are
alone and behind enemy lines, fully aware that an entire division of German tanks is nearby
and having little more than a few handheld anti-tank weapons to defend themselves with.
The paratrooper assault manages to cut off German supply and reinforcement routes,
but more importantly the paratroopers will ensure that the landing forces have secure
and quick routes out of the beaches once the coastal defenses are neutralized.
If they are not dislodged, the German plan to bottle the allies up on the beaches will fail,
and yet no major assault against the paratroopers is ordered. Just a few miles
from American positions, an entire division of German troops have started their tanks and sit,
waiting for the order to attack. The order however never comes, as aides back in Berlin are
too scared to wake Hitler up in the middle of the night. This will prove disastrous for the Germans.
At six am, a flotilla of landing ships make their way to shore.
The German positions have been thoroughly pounded by preparatory naval and aerial bombardment,
delivering untold devastation on the German positions. However, in some sectors- such
as Omaha beach- the aerial bombardment has largely missed its intended targets.
Omaha beach will soon become the bloodiest front in the battle to take Europe.
The weather is not optimal for a landing, with high winds and rough seas working
against the invasion force. This same weather has granted the allies the element of surprise,
yet proves to be a formidable foe in itself. Allied landing craft struggle
against the currents and waves, with many forced hundreds of meters off-course.
At Gold beach, the aerial attack has failed to neutralize one of the main German defensive
positions, leaving infantry assaulting the beach exposed to withering machine gun and
cannon fire. Some landing craft see only a single survivor out of the thirty men assigned.
At sword beach specially built amphibious tanks prove to be lifesavers for the men on the beach,
their heavy firepower silencing enemy fortifications. The infantry is able to
break out of the beach relatively quickly, though a lack of armor support forces them
to limit their advance into the enemy lines until more tanks can be safely offloaded.
Located in between the American beaches of Utah and Omaha, Pointe Du Hoc is a hilltop fortified
position that must be neutralized before the Americans can move on their beaches.
This requires a steep climb up a cliff a hundred feet high, all while under withering enemy fire
from above. The task falls to the 2nd Ranger Battalion, and against all odds the men manage
to climb up the cliffs and reach the top- only to discover that the enemy guns they were sent
to destroy have already been moved. Knowing the devastation that they would cause if left intact,
the American Rangers frantically search the countryside, discovering the guns and finally
silencing them. Out of 200 men that scaled the cliffs, only 90 were combat capable by the end
of the day. Yet by succeeding in their objective, the Rangers have saved countless American lives.
At Utah beach the men are pushed off course by the strong current,
but manage to come ashore in one piece. This stretch of the beach is being guarded
mostly be eastern European conscripts who have little will to fight for Hitler. The veteran,
battle hardened Germans who would normally be in these positions have been moved to Pas De Calais,
nearly a hundred miles away. Suffering fewer than 200 casualties,
the Americans at Utah beach capture many of the surrendering Eastern European conscripts.
The story couldn't be more different for the troops assaulting Omaha beach,
the bloodiest front on D-day.
Omaha holds the strongest fortifications, and while the allies expected only a single regiment
to be defending the sector, the Axis have moved an entire division there. To complicate matters
even further, strong currents either delay the landing craft or push them far off course,
completely eliminating the element of surprise. As the ramps on the first landing craft drop
into the water, a storm of bullets meets the infantry trying desperately to disembark.
Many men drown before even getting to the beach, weighed down by their heavy equipment.
The tide has begun to come in faster than expected, and in large stretches of the beach
huge, deep lagoons await the men a few dozen meters from the shoreline. The troops here
must cross these, and a further three to four hundred meters of barren beach,
giving the German machine gunners a perfectly unobstructed field of fire from the cliffs above.
The casualties are horrendous, and it becomes clear that if something is not done immediately,
Omaha beach and all the men on it will be lost.
Out at sea, American destroyers are desperately trying to assist the infantry on Omaha,
but thick clouds of smoke make it completely impossible to fire accurately. The German
fortifications are so well built that even if a shell finds its target, the thick concrete roof
will render it almost completely ineffective. One destroyer captain makes a fateful decision:
he orders his ship to head closer to the beach, he'll get close enough to see through the smoke
and be able to target the German bunkers. The action threatens to force the ship aground in
the dangerously shallow waters, but at last the destroyer is able to see through the thick smoke.
Leveling its guns, the destroyer unleashes a devastating volley onto a German fortification,
striking it head-on rather than top-down. Moments later all that's left is a smoking ruin.
Following suit, other destroyers risk running themselves aground and steam in
close to the beach in order to support the infantry. The move turns out to be
a lifesaver for the men on the beach, and many of the German positions are silenced.
As the Allied troops begin to break out of the beachheads, the expected German counter-attack
never comes. Hitler has been so convinced that the real allied assault will come
in Pas de Calais that he refuses to allow most of the mobile reserves to be committed to the fight.
This seals Germany's fate, as after three days of fierce fighting,
nearly 200,000 Allied troops have now penetrated Hitler's impenetrable Fortress Europe.
For his part, Hitler remains so convinced that the assault on Normandy is a feint,
that he keeps the majority of his reserves around Pas De Calais for a whopping seven weeks.
Now it’s time to do your part to defeat Hitler
by watching The Ghost of World War II, or click this other video instead!