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From
The Archives
Continuing the Overlord theme,
this issue's blast from the past first appeared in number 50 of Despatches,
back in April 1985. This was the first (and last) issue of Despatches
to be professionally printed. One hundred copies were run off at great
expense (this was before the advent of powerful home computers) to celebrate
a half century of publication.
D-Day:
June 6 1944
a
chronology
by
Joe Weiss
12:10
a.m.: 1,136 RAF bombers fill the sky between Cherbourg
and Le Havre, raining 5,853 tons of bombs on enemy coastal batteries.
The aerial offensive is directed against Hitler’s “Atlantic
Wall” - 1,800 cement blockhouses dug into the dunes at intervals of 100
yards, beginning at Cap de la Hague and running all the way to Honfleur.
The bombing prepares the way for the most ambitious amphibious
operation ever attempted.
1:30 a.m.
:
Thousands of paratroopers tumble out of waves of
U.S.
aircraft swooping low over Normandy’s coast. The
101st and 82nd airborne divisions drop down by Ste.-Mère-Eglise,
intending to connect with right-flank invaders at
Omaha
Beach
.
2:30 a.m.
:
British paratroopers, the 6th Airborne Division, float to earth
east of the Orne
River
and push for Pegasus
Bridge, preparing to join the sea borne left flank.
5:50 a.m.
:
Battleships bombard German positions;
U.S.
bombers shower shore defences, and fighter-bombers swarm
in to finish the job, knocking out individual targets.
As the sun rises, the silhouettes of 5,000 invasion craft suddenly
loom on the horizon 12 miles out. They
close steadily on the coast.
6:30 a.m.
:
The first ships of the American First Army reach shallow water; supply-laden
men spill out and make for shore under heavy supporting fire.
The 4th Infantry Division winds up at the “easy”
beach, Utah, while the
1st and 29th wash up on
“Bloody Omaha.” Thinking
that Allied bombings have cleaned out German emplacements, they plough
headlong into a lethal barrage that obliterates companies and craft alike.
7:00 a.m.
:
At Pointe du Hoc another blood bath is under way as 225 members of the U.S.
2nd and 5th Ranger battalions,
equipped with scaling ropes and extension ladders, scramble up the 100-foot
bluff of this holdout. Perched
above, the Germans slash ropes, upset ladders, shove boulders over the
cliff’s edge, and pepper the soldiers with gunfire and grenades.
Only 90 Rangers make it to the top.
7:30 a.m.
:
The British Second Army wades in at the eastern end of the Calvados coast -
the 50th Infantry Division tackles Gold
Beach, as the
3rd Division takes Sword.
8:00 a.m.
:
Canada’s 3rd Infantry Division works the wind-whipped
waters off Juno Beach. Their boats
tossing atop six-foot-high whitecaps, the troops manage to destroy most of
the enemy machine-gun nests within hours.
Although
battles on other beaches take many casualties, by evening all five sea borne
forces are firmly on French soil.
June
7: The Allies announce their troops have
“cleared all beaches of the enemy.”
Having broken through the formidable Atlantic Wall, Americans,
Britons and Canadians flood the interior fields and farmlands, storming
German defences - fewer and weaker than on the coast.
June
8: The British capture historic Bayeux, on the main Cherbourg-Paris line, the first town to be
liberated in France.
June
9: The British continue southward toward , but are repelled before they take the town by panzer
divisions poised to protect this coveted link in the German defence line.
The piecemeal enemy efforts elsewhere are less successful.
June
10: Allied liaison operations begin as
Americans work their way east to rendezvous with the Anglo-Canadian
beach-head, and west toward Carentan.
June
11: The Allied bridgehead now stretches
uninterrupted for 60 miles - from the Orne
River
to above Ste.-Mère-Eglise.
June
12: A bitterly contested Carentan falls,
capping the first phase of Supreme Commander Eisenhower’s “great
crusade”. Ten months later,
the eastward-moving Allies, having recouped
Battle
of the Bulge losses, lunge across the
Rhine
and, on May 7, force Germany’s hand to an unconditional surrender.
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