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D-DAY – HISTORY.COM
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944,
resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation
Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and
Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s
Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required
extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead
the Germans about the intended invasion target. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been
liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been
called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
PREPARING FOR D-DAY
After World War II began, Germany invaded and occupied northwestern France beginning in May 1940. The
Americans entered the war in December 1941, and by 1942 they and the British (who had been evacuated
from the beaches of Dunkirk in May 1940 after being cut off by the Germans in the Battle of France) were
considering the possibility of a major Allied invasion across the English Channel. The following year, Allied
plans for a cross-Channel invasion began to ramp up. In November 1943, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), who was
aware of the threat of an invasion along France’s northern coast, put Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) in charge of
spearheading defense operations in the region, even though the Germans did not know exactly where the
Allies would strike. Hitler charged Rommel with finishing the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile fortification of bunkers,
landmines and beach and water obstacles.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Normandy American Cemetery, overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel, was established on
June 8, 1944, as the first U.S. cemetery in Europe during World War II. It holds the graves of more than 9,300
U.S. servicemen who died in the D-Day invasion or subsequent missions.
In January 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) was appointed commander of Operation Overlord.
In the months and weeks before D-Day, the Allies carried out a massive deception operation intended to make
the Germans think the main invasion target was Pas-de-Calais (the narrowest point between Britain and
France) rather than Normandy. In addition, they led the Germans to believe that Norway and other locations
were also potential invasion targets. Many tactics was used to carry out the deception, including fake
equipment; a phantom army commanded by George Patton and supposedly based in England, across from
Pas-de-Calais; double agents; and fraudulent radio transmissions.
D-DAY LANDINGS: JUNE 6, 1944
By dawn on June 6, thousands of paratroopers and glider troops were already on the ground behind enemy
lines, securing bridges and exit roads. The amphibious invasions began at 6:30 a.m. The British and
Canadians overcame light opposition to capture beaches codenamed Gold, Juno and Sword, as did the
Americans at Utah Beach. U.S. forces faced heavy resistance at Omaha Beach, where there were over 2,000
American casualties. However, by day’s end, approximately 156,000 Allied troops had successfully stormed
Normandy’s beaches.According to some estimates, more than 4,000 Allied troops lost their lives in the D-Day
invasion, with thousands more wounded or missing.
Less than a week later, on June 11, the beaches were fully secured and over 326,000 troops, more than
50,000 vehicles and some 100,000 tons of equipment had landed at Normandy.
For their part, the Germans suffered from confusion in the ranks and the absence of celebrated commander
Rommel, who was away on leave. At first, Hitler, believing the invasion was a feint designed to distract the
Germans from a coming attack north of the Seine River, refused to release nearby divisions to join the
counterattack. Reinforcements had to be called from further afield, causing delays. He also hesitated in calling
for armored divisions to help in the defense. Moreover, the Germans were hampered by effective Allied air
support, which took out many key bridges and forced the Germans to take long detours, as well as efficient
Allied naval support, which helped protect advancing Allied troops.
In the ensuing weeks, the Allies fought their way across the Normandy countryside in the face of determined
German resistance, as well as a dense landscape of marshes and hedgerows. By the end of June, the Allies
had seized the vital port of Cherbourg, landed approximately 850,000 men and 150,000 vehicles in Normandy,
and were poised to continue their march across France.
VICTORY IN NORMANDY
By the end of August 1944, the Allies had reached the Seine River, Paris was liberated and the Germans had
been removed from northwestern France, effectively concluding the Battle of Normandy. The Allied forces then
prepared to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet troops moving in from the east.
The Normandy invasion began to turn the tide against the Nazis. A significant psychological blow, it also
prevented Hitler from sending troops from France to build up his Eastern Front against the advancing Soviets.
The following spring, on May 8, 1945, the Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi
Germany. Hitler had committed suicide a week earlier, on April 30.
BATTLE OF THE BULGE
In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a
surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate
battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne. As the Germans
drove deeper into the Ardennes in an attempt to secure vital bridgeheads, the Allied line took on the
appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name. Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s
successful maneuvering of the Third Army to Bastogne proved vital to the Allied defense, leading to the
neutralization of the German counteroffensive despite heavy casualties.
Its objective was to split the Allied armies by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to
Antwerp, marking a repeat of what the Germans had done three times previously–in September 1870, August
1914, and May 1940. Despite Germany’s historical penchant for mounting counteroffensives when things
looked darkest, the Allies’ leadership miscalculated and left the Ardennes lightly defended by only two
inexperienced and two battered American divisions.
On December 16, three German armies (more than a quarter-million troops) launched the deadliest and most
desperate battle of the war in the west in the poorly roaded, rugged, heavily forested Ardennes. The once-quiet
region became bedlam as American units were caught flat-footed and fought desperate battles to stem the
German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and, later, Bastogne, which was defended by the
101st Airborne Division. The inexperienced U.S. 106th Division was nearly annihilated, but even in defeat
helped buy time for Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke’s brilliant defense of St.-Vith. As the German armies
drove deeper into the Ardennes in an attempt to secure vital bridgeheads west of the River Meuse quickly, the
line defining the Allied front took on the appearance of a large protrusion or bulge, the name by which the
battle would forever be known.
A crucial German shortage of fuel and the gallantry of American troops fighting in the frozen forests of the
Ardennes proved fatal to Hitler’s ambition to snatch, if not victory, at least a draw with the Allies in the west.
Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s remarkable feat of turning the Third Army ninety degrees from Lorraine
to relieve the besieged town of Bastogne was the key to thwarting the German counteroffensive. The Battle of
the Bulge was the costliest action ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties.
INVASION OF SICILY
After defeating Italy and Germany in the North African Campaign (November 8, 1942-May 13, 1943) of World
War II (1939-45), the United States and Great Britain, the leading Allied powers, looked ahead to the invasion
of occupied Europe and the final defeat of Nazi Germany. The Allies decided to move next against Italy, hoping
an Allied invasion would remove that fascist regime from the war, secure the central Mediterranean and divert
German divisions from the northwest coast of France where the Allies planned to attack in the near future. The
Allies’ Italian Campaign began with the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. After 38 days of fighting, the U.S. and
Great Britain successfully drove German and Italian troops from Sicily and prepared to assault the Italian
mainland.
THE ALLIES TARGET ITALY
When the Allies won the North African Campaign on May 13, 1943, a quarter-million German and Italian troops
surrendered at Tunisia, on the north coast of Africa. With the huge Allied army and navy in the southern
Mediterranean now freed for further action, British and American strategists faced two options: Transfer these
forces north for the impending invasion of Europe from the English Channel, or remain in theater to strike at
southern Italy, which British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) called “the soft underbelly of
Europe.” At this crossroads, the Allies, after some dissension, decided to press north into Italy. The stepping
stone to its mainland would be the island of Sicily, in part because the Allies could depend on fighter cover
from air bases on British Malta, 60 miles south of Sicily and recently freed from a siege by Axis forces.
The invasion was assisted by some subterfuge. In April 1943, a month before the Allied victory in North Africa,
German agents recovered the body of a British Royal Marine pilot from the waters off a Spanish beach.
Documents in an attaché case handcuffed to the officer’s wrist provided a goldmine of intelligence about the
Allies’ secret plans, and German agents quickly sent the documents up the chain of command where they
soon reached German leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Hitler studied the captured plans carefully, and, taking
full advantage of their top-secret details, directed his troops and ships to reinforce the islands of Sardinia and
Corsica, west of Italy, against an impending Allied invasion. There was only one problem: The recovered
body–which was not a Royal Marine but actually a homeless man from Wales who had committed suicide–and
its documents, were an elaborate British diversion called Operation Mincemeat. By the time Hitler redirected
his troops in the summer of 1943, a massive Allied invasion force was sailing to Sicily.
THE ALLIES LAND AT SICILY
The invasion of Sicily, code-named Operation Husky, began before dawn on July 10, 1943, with combined air
and sea landings involving 150,000 troops, 3,000 ships and 4,000 aircraft, all directed at the southern shores
of the island. This massive assault was nearly cancelled the previous day when a summer storm arose and
caused serious difficulties for paratroopers dropping behind enemy lines that night. However, the storm also
worked to the Allies’ advantage when Axis defenders along the Sicilian coast judged that no commander would
attempt amphibious landings in such wind and rain. By the afternoon of July 10, supported by shattering naval
and aerial bombardments of enemy positions, 150,000 Allied troops reached the Sicilian shores, bringing along
600 tanks.
The landings progressed with Lieutenant General George S. Patton (1885-1945) commanding American
ground forces and General Bernard L. Montgomery (1887-1976) leading British ground forces. Allied troops
encountered light resistance to their combined operations. Hitler had been so deceived by “Mincemeat” that he
had left only two German divisions in Sicily to battle Allied soldiers. Even several days into the attack he was
convinced that it was a diversionary maneuver and continued to warn his officers to expect the main landings
at Sardinia or Corsica. The Axis defense of Sicily was also weakened by losses the German and Italian armies
had suffered in North Africa, in casualties as well as the several hundred thousand troops captured at the end
of the campaign.
THE ALLIES ADVANCE
For the next five weeks, Patton’s army moved toward the northwestern shore of Sicily, then east toward
Messina, protecting the flank of Montgomery’s veteran forces as they moved up the east coast of the island.
Meanwhile, jarred by the Allied invasion, the Italian fascist regime fell rapidly into disrepute, as the Allies had
hoped. On July 24, 1943, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was deposed and arrested. A new
provisional government was set up under Marshal Pietro Badoglio (1871-1956), who had opposed Italy’s
alliance with Nazi Germany and who immediately began secret discussions with the Allies about an armistice.
On July 25, the day after Mussolini’s arrest, the first Italian troops began withdrawing from Sicily. Hitler
instructed his forces to make contingency plans for withdrawal but to continue to fight fiercely against the Allied
advance. As July turned to August, Patton and Montgomery and their armies battled against determined
German troops dug into the mountainous Sicilian terrain. The U.S. and British soldiers pushed back the Axis
forces farther and farther until most were trapped in a northeast corner of the island.
AXIS TROOPS LEAVE SICILY
As Patton and Montgomery closed in on the northeastern port of Messina, the German and Italian armies
managed (over several nights) to evacuate 100,000 men, along with vehicles, supplies and ammunition,
across the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. When his American soldiers moved into Messina on
August 17, 1943, Patton, expecting to fight one final battle, was surprised to learn that the enemy forces had
disappeared. The battle for Sicily was complete, but German losses had not been severe, and the Allies’ failure
to capture the fleeing Axis armies undermined their victory. The advance against the Italian mainland in
September would take more time and cost the Allies more troops than they anticipated.
BATTLE OF MIDWAY
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive
naval battles of World War II. Thanks in part to major advances in code breaking, the United States was able to
preempt and counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent
damage on the Japanese Navy. An important turning point in the Pacific campaign, the victory allowed the
United States and its allies to move into an offensive position.
This fleet engagement between U.S. and Japanese navies in the north-central Pacific Ocean resulted from
Japan’s desire to sink the American aircraft carriers that had escaped destruction at Pearl Harbor. Admiral
Yamamoto Isoroku, Japanese fleet commander, chose to invade a target relatively close to Pearl Harbor to
draw out the American fleet, calculating that when the United States began its counterattack, the Japanese
would be prepared to crush them. Instead, an American intelligence breakthrough–the solving of the Japanese
fleet codes–enabled Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to understand the exact Japanese
plans. Nimitz placed available U.S. carriers in position to surprise the Japanese moving up for their preparatory
air strikes on Midway Island itself.
The intelligence interplay would be critical to the outcome of the battle and began many weeks before the clash
of arms. American radio nets in the Pacific picked up various orders Yamamoto had dispatched to prepare his
forces for the operation. As early as May 2, messages that were intercepted began to indicate some
forthcoming operation, and a key fact, the planned day-of-battle position of the Japanese carriers, would be
divulged in a notice sent on May 16. By the time Nimitz had to make final decisions, the Japanese plans and
order of battle had been reconstructed in considerable detail.
American combat forces took over where intelligence efforts left off. Scouts found the Japanese early in the
morning of June 4. Although initial strikes by Midway-based planes were not successful, American carrierbased planes turned the tide. Torpedo bombers became separated from the American dive-bombers and were
slaughtered (36 of 42 shot down), but they diverted Japanese defenses just in time for the dive-bombers to
arrive; some of them had become lost, and now by luck they found the Japanese. The Japanese carriers were
caught while refueling and rearming their planes, making them especially vulnerable. The Americans sank four
fleet carriers–the entire strength of the task force–Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, with 322 aircraft and over five
thousand sailors. The Japanese also lost the heavy cruiser Mikuma. American losses included 147 aircraft and
more than three hundred seamen.
Analysts often point to Japanese aircraft losses at Midway as eliminating the power of the Imperial Navy’s air
arm, but in fact about two-thirds of air crews survived. More devastating was the loss of trained mechanics and
aircraft ground crews who went down with the ships. Some historians see Midway as the turning point in the
Pacific theater of the war, after which Americans rode straight to Tokyo; others view it as a cusp in the war,
after which initiative hung in the balance, to swing toward the Allies in the Guadalcanal campaign. Either way,
Midway ranks as a truly decisive battle.
BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL
The World War II Battle of Guadalcanal was the first major offensive and a decisive victory for the Allies in the
Pacific theater. With Japanese troops stationed in this section of the Solomon Islands, U.S. marines launched
a surprise attack in August 1942 and took control of an air base under construction. Reinforcements were
funneled to the island as a series of land and sea clashes unfolded, and both sides endured heavy losses to
their warship contingents. However, the Japanese suffered a far greater toll of casualties, forcing their
withdrawal from Guadalcanal by February 1943.
When Japanese troops arrived on Guadalcanal on June 8, 1942, to construct an air base, and then American
marines landed two months later to take it away from them, few people outside of the South Pacific had ever
heard of that 2,500-square-mile speck of jungle in the Solomon Islands. But the ensuing six-month
Guadalcanal campaign proved to be the turning point of the Pacific war.
Strategically, possession of a Guadalcanal air base was important to control of the sea lines of communication
between the United States and Australia. Operationally, the Battle of Guadalcanal was notable for the
interrelationship of a complex series of engagements on the ground, at sea, and in the air. Tactically, what
stood out was the resolve and resourcefulness of the U.S. Marines, whose tenacious defense of the air base
dubbed Henderson Field enabled the Americans to secure air superiority.
By the end of the battle on February 9, 1943, the Japanese had lost two-thirds of the 31,400 army troops
committed to the island, whereas the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Army had lost less than 2,000 soldiers of
about 60,000 deployed. The ship losses on both sides were heavy. But by far the most significant loss for the
Japanese was the decimation of their elite group of naval aviators. Japan after Guadalcanal no longer had a
realistic hope of withstanding the counteroffensive of an increasingly powerful United States.
BATTLE OF IWO JIMA
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near
the Japanese coast. Following elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment, three U.S. marine divisions
landed on the island in February 1945. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy
troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations.
Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces after a month of fighting,
and the battle earned a place in American lore with the publication of a photograph showing the U.S. flag being
raised in victory.
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima, a key island in the Bonin chain roughly 575 miles from the
Japanese coast, was sparked by the desire for a place where B-29 bombers damaged over Japan could land
without returning all the way to the Marianas, and for a base for escort fighters that would assist in the bombing
campaign. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, and it was attacked by
three marine divisions after elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment (sixty-eight hundred tons of
bombs, twenty-two thousand shells). The battle was marked by changes in Japanese defense tactics–troops
no longer defended at the beach line but rather concentrated inland; consequently, the marines experienced
initial success but then got bogged down in costly attritional warfare. The Japanese fought from an elaborate
network of caves, dugouts, tunnels, and underground installations that were difficult to find and destroy. Except
for 1,083 prisoners (two of whom did not surrender until 1951) the entire garrison was wiped out. American
losses included 5,900 dead and 17,400 wounded.
Photographer Joe Rosenthal provided the U.S. Marine Corps with one of its most enduring images with his
picture (restaged for the purpose) of Americans raising the flag over Mount Suribachi at the southwest corner
of Iwo, an image replicated on postage stamps as well as on the memorial statue at the entrance to Arlington
National Cemetery.
BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF
This World War II clash followed the Allied landing at the Philippine island of Leyte in October 1944. The
Japanese sought to converge three naval forces on Leyte Gulf, and successfully diverted the U.S. Third Fleet
with a decoy. At the Suriago Strait, the U.S. Seventh Fleet destroyed one of the Japanese forces and forced a
second one to withdraw. The third successfully traversed the San Bernadino Straight but also withdrew before
attacking the Allied forces at Leyte. With much of its surface fleet destroyed in the battle, Japan was hamstrung
in its ability to move resources from Southeast Asia to the home islands.
The aerial and naval battle conducted as Allied forces invaded the Philippines began with Leyte Island on
October 20. Expecting an invasion, the Japanese fleet command ordered its forces to sea at the very first sign
of Allied landings. Due to the effects of previous engagements and to Japan’s precarious fuel situation,
however, the Japanese fleet was deployed in a scattered fashion: carrier forces in Japan were training new
pilots; battleship units near Singapore (close to the fuel sources) and some cruiser forces, formerly in the
northern Pacific, maneuvered in the wake of the Allied carrier strikes on Taiwan (October 10-12). When Japan
ordered its fleet into Philippine waters, these forces had to sail separately and for the most part operated
independently in the battle that followed.
Headed toward the Philippines, the naval command suggested that Admiral Kurita Takeo of the battleship unit
detach an element of his fleet to enter Leyte Gulf through the Surigao Strait. He did send a force that way,
which was annihilated in surface naval combat in a classic crossing of the “T” on the night of October 24-25.
The cruiser element from the north tried to follow but recoiled before making contact. Japan’s aircraft carriers
successfully decoyed north the U.S. Third Fleet of Admiral William F. Halsey, uncovering the San Bernardino
Strait, through which Kurita’s main fleet passed after turning away momentarily under the pressure of fierce
U.S. submarine and air attacks. Kurita came closest to Leyte Gulf, in the process encountering several forces
of small U.S. escort carriers, which the Japanese mistook for regular fleet carriers. Aircraft, however, made
more and more powerful attacks on the Japanese as time went on, at length forcing Kurita to withdraw from
Philippine waters.
Leyte Gulf was decisive in that it destroyed much of the remaining Japanese surface fleet while virtually ending
Japan’s ability to move resources from Southeast Asia to the home islands. Japanese losses included four
aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy and four light cruisers, and eleven destroyers, along with several
hundred aircraft and over 10,500 sailors. Allied losses were one light carrier, two escort carriers, two
destroyers and one destroyer-escort. Despite overall failure, however, the Japanese showed that with
determination they could still press home attacks against an Allied armada with huge technical and material
advantages.
BATTLE OF OKINAWA
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign (April 1—June 22, 1945)
involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second
Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. By the end of the 82-day campaign,
Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties—including
14,000 dead.
Japanese forces changed their typical tactics of resisting at the water’s edge to a defense in depth, designed to
gain time. In conjunction with this, the Japanese navy and army mounted mass air attacks by planes on oneway “suicide” missions; the Japanese also sent their last big battleship, the Yamato, on a similar mission with a
few escorts. The “special attack” kamikaze tactics the Japanese used on these missions, although not
especially sophisticated, were so determined that Allied forces perhaps faced their most difficult Pacific
campaign. The net result made Okinawa a mass bloodletting both on land and at sea, and among both the
island’s civilian population and the military.
A series of defense lines across the island, both north and south of the American landing beaches, enabled the
Japanese to conduct a fierce defense of Okinawa over many weeks. Using pillboxes and strongpoints, caves,
and even some ancient castles, the Japanese defense positions supported one another and often resisted
even the most determined artillery fire or air strikes. Mounting few attacks themselves, the Japanese
conserved their strength for this defense. Caves or pillboxes often had to be destroyed individually with
dynamite charges. This battle took place in an environment much more heavily populated than most Pacific
islands, with civilian casualties of almost 100,000 and equally heavy losses for the Japanese army. “It was a
scene straight out of hell. There is no other way to describe it,” recalls Higa Tomiko, then a seven-year-old girl,
who survived the battle.
The commanding generals on both sides died in the course of this battle: American general Simon B. Buckner
by artillery fire, Japanese general Ushijima Mitsuru by suicide. Other U.S. losses in ground combat included
7,374 killed, 31,807 wounded, and 239 missing in action. The navy suffered 4,907 killed or missing aboard 34
ships sunk and 368 damaged; 763 aircraft were lost. At sea and in the air, the Japanese expended roughly
2,800 aircraft, plus a battleship, a light cruiser, and four destroyers, with losses that can be estimated at
upwards of 10,000.