Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

Why was D-day

so successful?
By Roan Khanna

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

CONTENTS
Introduction
The Failure at Dieppe
Preparation and Planning
British Deception
American Support
German Mistakes
Conclusion

Introduction

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

Before D-day, in World War 2 (1939-45) the German

Forces (Axis) occupied most of Western Europe. But on
June 6 1944 The Allied forces initiated the most
ambitious assault to take back Europe the world had
ever seen. D-day allowed the Allies to take back
Europe and ultimately win World War 2. In this Essay,
I will be covering the Allies Preparation and
Planning; The German Mistakes; the British Deception
and the American Support. By 1944 all of northern
France had been liberated from German control, many
historians argue that this was the beginning of the
end to the Second World War.
At the time the Germans had only been fighting on
the front against Russia, Stalin needed to weaken the
Germans fighting him. The best way to do this was to
force the Germans to fight on another front. So in
the spring on 1944 Stalin met with Roosevelt and
Churchill to discuss plans of a second front. They
decided to put General Dwight D, Eisenhower as the
commander of the operation. General Eisenhower would
later become the President of the United States.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Montgomery

Bernard

The Allied forces consisted of England, America,

France, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and many more.

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

Up until this point the Allied forces had lost many

troops and a lot of ground to the Germans. Before Dday Germany had control of the whole of Europe. The
Allies needed to an offensive operation to recapture
Europe and put an end to the War. However the main
contributors to the Allied forces were the USA, UK
and Canada. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme
Allie Commander. The Commander of Ground Troops for
D-day was General Bernard Montgomery. The leaders of
the Allies in general included Winston Churchill
(British Prime minister) and Franklin Roosevelt
(American President).
The Axis troops consisted of Germany, Japan, Italy,
Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The Japanese didnt
get involved with Europe, they were focused on the
war with America. Before D-day the Germans were in
the process of fortifying the whole coast of France
forcing the Allies to make their move quickly. The
leader of the Axis was Adolf Hitler.

The Failure at Dieppe.

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

1942 was the worst year for the allies. British

and commonwealth troops were being pushed back
in North Africa, American troops were losing
ground in the Philippines. Everything was going
wrong. There was a mounting pressure for
Churchill and the other world leaders to make
an offensive move on Germany.
So the Allies attempted to make an amphibious
assault fairly similar to D-day. The place they
were attacking was Dieppe.
The attack on Dieppe was a total failure, it
resulted in 3,367 Canadian troops and 275
British Commandoes being killed, wounded or
taken prisoner. The Royal Navy lost one
destroyer and 33 landing craft, leaving 550
dead or wounded. The RAF lost 106 aircraft to
the Luftwaffes (German Air forces) 48. German
casualties were only at 591. Dieppe was a
complete failure which left the Allies hesitant
about making another land on the coasts of
France. However the mistakes that were made at
Dieppe were crucial to the success of D-day.

Preparation and Planning

In late 1943 allied troops moved into England filling
up barracks with 3 million troops. The date in which
the allies were to pick for D-day was crucial. The

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

weather had to be just right. There had to be a high

tide for the landing craft to get past the beach
obstacles. Even the brightness of the moon had to be
taken into account, a full moon would be to bright
making the landing craft too easy to see, but if
there was no moon then the allies themselves wouldnt
be able to see. This shows the level of detail the
allies put into their planning for D-day. Before the
landing craft landed on the beaches paratroopers
landed in behind enemy lines. Their job was to knock
down phone poles, destroy radars and generally cause
a havoc for the Germans, this was all in aid to
relieve pressure of the ground troops. But on the
actual day the paratroopers received heavy fire from
AA guns causing there to be a lot of miss drops.
Before the attack 138 Allied ships bombarded the
German costal defences. Solders were carrying at
least 70lb worth of equipment with them.
The allied designated 5 beaches as targets.

Utah, Gold and Sword were secured without too much

trouble. The Canadians in Juno had a rough landing
but eventually managed to secure there beach. However
Omaha was a complete disaster. The sea turned red
with all the blood that had been spilled. The

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

Americans came to a heavily fortified beach. Machine

guns spread the entire width of the beach. The
Germans troops were experienced veterans. Omaha
offered little cover adding to the negatives. Of the
34,000 troops that landed on the beach, 2,400 had
either been killed or wounded.

On June 4th 1944 Eisenhower decided to move D-day back

a day due to bad weather. This was one of the crucial
decisions that led to the victory in Normandy. If
they had decided to not move the operation back a day
then there could have been catastrophic consequences.
Half of the landing craft might not had even made it
to the beaches.
The biggest amphibious assault in the world did face
challenges when it came to vehicles. Many specialist
vehicles were created just for D-day, these were
known as Hobarts Funnies (named after the man in
charge of them). One example is the DD tank. It has a
rubber ring around it allowing for it to float in the
water.

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

DD Sherman tank with its flotation screen lowered

Here is a full list of specialist vehicles made:

British Deception

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

British Deception
The scale of the deception used in the D-day attack
was massive. The name of the Deception plan was
Operation Bodyguard. Their main goal was to trick the
Germans into thinking that the invasion were to take
place in the port city of Calais. The British used
fake radio signals to and from the fake army bases to
make it appear that there were actually training and
preparation going on in a completely different place
to where it was actually happening. A fictional army
known as the First U.S Army group was created. The
group was located in Kent and Sussex. The allies also
built dummy trucks and landing craft to further the
illusion. Canadian forces were also stationed there
to expand upon the impression. The British even
created fake tanks to fool German planes.
The Germans believed that they had a large network of
spies located in Britain but in reality they had
none. All of the German spies had either been
captured or defected to become British spies.
Britains double agents fed information the Germans
indicating that the attack were to happen in a
completely different place on top of the physical
evidence they were planting.
The British deception is what allowed the D-day
operation to go unnoticed, if the deception was not
at the level it was, then Hitler could have found
about D-day and prevented it.

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

American Support
Because of the severity of the First World War, the
USA decided that they would not fight in the Second
World War. Germany hadnt attacked them so they saw
no need to join another costly war. But on December
7th 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour therefore
forcing America to join the War. While America did
mainly focus on their fight against japan, they did
contribute a lot to the British army and they played
a major role in the victory of D-day.
The only way to beat the Axis forces would be for the
Americans to help beat the centre of the problem
which was Hitler and his army of Nazis.
But even before this massive wakeup call American had
still been supporting Britain. This picture shows how
much the Americans had been contributing in the
Second World War.

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

The Americans supplied over 1/3 of the troops that

would make up D-day, they also supplied a lot of the
vehicles used in D-day. Without the Americans the
allies wouldnt have had nearly enough man power to
make such an attack on such a large scale. The
Americans played a key factor in the stratagem of Dday, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied
Commander but he was also American.

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

German Mistakes
Because of Britains deception plans Hitler (The
leader of the German Army) had all of his troops
stationed at Calais. The main part of the German army
was stationed in Calais making a counter attack on
the allies D-day force impossible.
Because of Hitlers paranoia he deeply mistrusted his
Generals, so in turn, his Generals deeply mistrusted
him. Because the Allies paratroopers had broken up
German Communication it made it almost impossible for
the Germans to communicate with their forces. Field
Marshal Rundstedt was the only German who seemed to
catch on with the Allies plan. He requested extra
troops to be brought to reinforce the troops, but he
could not get permission from Hitler because Hitler
was sleeping. Eventually when Hitler gave the order
it was too late.
Hitler however did have one secret weapon against the
Allies- the V1 rockets. Hitler was so focused on
counter attacking that he did not defend. Instead of
using his V1 rockets to attack the beaches of
Normandy he used them in an attempt to cripple
London. However the V1 rockets are terribly
inaccurate meaning that of the ten V1s launched, four
crashed at once, two vanished without a trace, one
demolished a railway bridge in London, and three hit
open fields. It was a complete disaster.
If Hitler hadnt of made these mistakes then D-day
could have failed and completely destroyed the
Allies forces.

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

Conclusion
All of the reasons covered play important roles into
the success of D-day. But if any of those factors
were not present then D-day would not have been the
success it was.
The mistakes the Germans made really hindered them.
D-day could have been a lot worse for the Allies if
the Germans hadnt made the mistakes they made, and
if Hitler hadnt been so stubborn as to believe that
the attack was going to take place in Calais.
But the evidence suggests that the Germans Mistakes
was not the key factor in the success of D-day.
The Americans and played a significant role in D-day
not only did they provide troops, vehicles and many
other things, one out of the two generals in charge
of D-day was American. The Americans provided a key
role in the success of D-day and did provide a lot of
man power. They also suffered the most casualtys due
to the unfortunate events at Omaha beach. But if the
Americans hadnt been participating in D-day 3/5 of
the beaches would still have been captured, still
making D-day victorious but on a smaller scale.
The evidence suggests that Americas support was not
the significant factor in the success of D-day.
British deception played one of the prime roles in
the success of D-day. The British went all out making
it look like the attack was happening in Calais. In
fact they convinced Hitler so much that D-day was
going to happen in Calais he refused to move his
troops from that position until it was too late.
Without the British deception D-day would definitely
not be the success it was, but it still might have
been a victory. So the evidence suggests that
Britains deception was not the key factor in the
factor in the success of D-day.
The preparation and planning that went into D-day was
immense. There was an extreme level of detail that

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

went into the planning. General Eisenhower and

General Montgomery had to manoeuvre 3 million troops,
they had to plan the paratroopers, the air support,
the naval support, an enormous amount of logistical
planning that went into D-day. The allies had to
prepare every solder with 70lb+ of equipment. The
solders had to be trained too.
The evidence suggests that the preparation and
planning that went into D-day was the crucial part
that led to the success of the worlds biggest
amphibious assault ever, that then led to the
liberation of France and the defeat of Hitler.
D-day was the turning point in the Second World War,
the events from D-day directly impacted the result of
the war, and due to the preparation and planning, it
was a huge success.
If the preparation and planning had not been what is
was, then arguably wir wrden jetzt werden Deutsch
sprechend, nicht Englisch. (We would now be speaking
German, not English.

Bibliography

Why was D-day so Successful?

8VKE

Roan Khanna

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord
#Preparations_for_D-Day was used as a
starting point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings
- used in conjunction with the article above
this on.
http://www.combinedops.com/Dieppe.htm#The
%20Outcome used in the research of Dieppe.
http://www.historyinanhour.com/2014/06/06/dday-omaha-beach-brief-summary/ - used for the
understanding of the 5 beaches.
http://www.worldwar2history.info/DDay/Hitler.html - used in understanding the
German mistakes.
http://d-dayrevisited.co.uk/planning/americanarmed-forces.html - used for an overview of Dday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31nt2fsMORU
used for information on the 5 beaches.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/27711699 - used
for an overview of D-day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/di
eppe_raid_01.shtml - used for information on
Dieppe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuHGDnjf5G8
used for an overview on D-day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart%27s_Funnies
used for information on Hobarts Funnies