D Day

Operation Overlord: What Happened And How Successful Everything Was

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Operation Overlord, best know as D-Day, occurred on 6th June 1944. On that day, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France, and Allies managed to foothold the French coastline.

Operation Overlord In Numbers

132,000 Allied forces had landed in France, and more than 2 million were shipped there, including a total of 39 divisions. 139 major warships, 221 smaller combat vessels, more than 1000 minesweepers and auxiliary vessels, 4,000 landing craft, 805 merchant ships, 59 blockships and 300 miscellaneous small cratf, took part in this important operation. The operation also included 350,000 members of the French Resistance, and Eleven thousand aircraft, such as fighters, bombers, transports and gliders.

Img source: wikipedia.com

How The D-Day Unwinded

As it is known, the operation began somewhere around midnight. The US 82nd and 101st of the American forces, and Britain’s 6th Airbone, attacked enemies. Also, five of Normandy beaches with their codenames Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah, were overflowed by seaborne forces. Sword was landed by British 3rd Infantry Division, while the British 50th Infantry Division took Gold beach. Juno was landed by the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, and Utah and Omaha by American forces, including the US 4th and 1st Infantry Divisions.

Img source: wikipedia.com

How Successful The Operation Overlord Was

The operation had mixed results. Utah was taken by US troops, but Ohama was where they failed. British and Canadian troops managed to play a successful operation, and then they moved toward Bayeun and Caen. Similar was on Sword.
Operation Overlord was the beginning of the liberation of western Europe from Nazi control, but the price for it was big. Around 10.500 Allied troops died, were wounded or reported missing in the operation. Yet, D-day is considered to be ultimately successful.

D-Day Definition: What Is the Meaning of D-Day?

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June 6, 1944, was D-Day, a moment when allied and American troops started their invasion of Nazi-controlled France. Many wonder why the Normandy beach invasion was called D-Day and what that “D” stands for. If you think that it is there for “disembark” then you are wrong.

In military terminology, and this was obviously one of the biggest military operations in the history, D-Day points out to the day when one operation started. It is clear that pretty much any military intervention has its D-Day, but since the “Operation Overlord” was the most famous ever, it is also often related to that name.

That “D” that we have is not for anything else, it just points out to the day when something started. If someone says D+1 it indicates to one day after the operation started. There are also other variations where hours are used. It comes in this format H-Hour and tels you how many hours went from the beginning.

Over the course of time, we had different combinations, and we had everything from A-Day to Z-Day, only B-Day was skipped, probably because it points out to a birthday. Anyway, there is a military meaning behind all this pointing to day or hour of one operation.

After the war started, Germany soon managed to overcome France troops and take the full control of the country. D-Day that started on June 6, 1944, was the first operation in a row that marked the beginning of the end of the biggest conflict in the history. Allied troops heavily supported by the U.S. army managed to take the beach and push forward to liberate France and ultimately defeat Nazi Germany.

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D-Day quotes – Best Quotes & Sayings

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D-Day or the Normandy beach invasion is the biggest seaborne invasion in history, and it was staged exactly 74 years ago. During the World War II, Nazi Germany seized control of France and most of Europe, but after few successful years at the beginning of the biggest conflict known to the world, the tides have changed.

The main goal of the invasion that was done by American and allied troops was to free France and later on to defeat Germany. Today is the 74th anniversary and we are bringing you some of the most famous quotes that were said by great people on June 6, 1944, when the landings started.

1. “This operation is not being planned with any alternatives. This operation is planned as a victory, and that’s the way it’s going to be. We’re going down there, and we’re throwing everything we have into it, and we’re going to make it a success.” — General Dwight D. Eisenhower

2. “God almighty, in a few short hours we will be in battle with the enemy. We do not join battle afraid. We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that, if You will, use us as Your instrument for the right and an aid in returning peace to the world.” — Lt. Col Robert L. Wolverton, commanding officer of 3rd battalion, 506th PIR.

3. “The waiting for history to be made was the most difficult. I spent much time in prayer. Being cooped up made it worse. Like everyone else, I was seasick and the stench of vomit permeated our craft.” — Pvt Clair Galdonik, 359th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 90th Division

4. “They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.” — President Franklin D. Roosevelt

5. “There’s a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn’t a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.” — Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist, essayist and poet

6. “Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that ‘they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn’t come here to fear. They hadn’t come to die. They had come to win.” — Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest

7. “There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, ‘Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.’” ― General George S. Patton, Jr. to his troops on June 5, 1944

8. “It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only 6 miles long and 2 miles wide.” — President Barack Obama

9. “And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred.” — Winston Churchill

10. “Men, I am not a religious man and I don’t know your feelings in this matter, but I am going to ask you to pray with me for the success of the mission before us. And while we pray, let us get on our knees and not look down but up with faces raised to the sky so that we can see God and ask his blessing in what we are about to do.”

“God almighty, in a few short hours we will be in battle with the enemy. We do not join battle afraid. We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that, if You will, use us as Your instrument for the right and an aid in returning peace to the world.”

“We do not know or seek what our fate will be. We ask only this, that if die we must, that we die as men would die, without complaining, without pleading and safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right.”

“Oh Lord, protect our loved ones and be near us in the fire ahead and with us now as we pray to you.”

All were silent for two minutes as the men were left, each with his individual thoughts. Then the Colonel ordered, “Move out.” — Lt. Col. Robert L. Wolverton, commanding officer of 3rd battalion, 506th PIR.

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Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor.

—British Broadcasting Corporation message for French Resistance fighters, informing them that the invasion was on.

I am prepared to lose the whole group.

—Col. Donald Blakeslee, commanding the Fourth Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force, briefing his P-51 Mustang pilots on 5 June.

They’re murdering us here. Let’s move inland and get murdered.

—Col. Charles D. Canham, commanding the 116th Infantry Regiment, First Infantry Division, on Omaha Beach.

This is a very serious business.

—Photographer Robert Capa on Omaha Beach.

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory!

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.

We will accept nothing less than full victory!

Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

—Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, 6 June 1944.

Four years ago our nation and empire stood alone against an overwhelming enemy, with our backs to the wall. . . . Now once more a supreme test has to be faced. This time the challenge is not to fight to survive but to fight to win the final victory for the good cause. . . .

At this historic moment surely not one of us is too busy, too young, or too old to play a part in a nation-wide, perchance a world-wide vigil of prayer as the great crusade sets forth.

—King George VI, radio address, 6 June 1944.

You get your ass on the beach. I’ll be there waiting for you and I’ll tell you what to do. There ain’t anything in this plan that is going to go right.

—Col. Paul R. Goode, addressing the 175th Infantry Regiment, Twentyninth Infantry Division, before D-Day.

Well, is it or isn’t it the invasion?

— Adolf Hitler to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel on the afternoon of 6 June.

We shall see who fights better and who dies more easily, the German soldier faced with the destruction of his homeland or the Americans and British, who don’t even know what they are fighting for in Europe.

—Gen. Alfred Jodl, operations chief of the German high command, early 1944.

I took chances on D-Day that I never would have taken later in the war.

—First Sgt. C. Carwood Lipton, 506th Parachute Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

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