D-DAY: The Great Assault 60th ANNIVERSARY

Sea Classics, Jun 2004 by Burton, Earl

Sixty years ago the Allies mustered the largest invasion force the world had ever assembled to gain a precious foothold on the French mainland at Normandy - final step in the long road to Berlin and the defeat of Hitler's Nazi Germany

Though plans for the invasion of Germany through France first took shape in Winston Churchill's mind shortly after the last Tommy waded off the bloody beaches of Dunkirk, it wasn't until the United States entered the war that there was any hope of making a "Second Front" in France a reality.

Early on in the global conflict that came to be known as World War Two it was painfully apparent ultimate victory would be granted not to the bravest warrior, nor even the most resolute participant, but to the nation or nations who could out produce their enemies. Simply put, the highly mobile manner of modern warfare dictated that logistical abundance would nominate the victor. Those who had the most in the way of tanks, guns, planes and ships would win. Such a nation - rich in natural resources and pregnant with industrial might - was the US. When the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 knocked the US off of its delicate perch as a quasineutral nation, America went to war. And it went to war to win.

Though two vast oceans separated America from its enemies the country faced many grim months after Pearl Harbor before victory seemed even a remote reality. Yet even in the pits of despair as headlines blared the impotence of the US Navy, the fall of the Philippines and Nazi Germany's vicious grip on most of the European continent, planning for the invasion of Western Europe was well under way by the time the Allies convened at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. By then the US had already established through Reverse Lend-Lease a number of Naval bases in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain to aid in the bitter battle of the Atlantic. Indeed, it was from these ever-expanding bases that the invasion of North Africa was mounted in October 1942. Aware that the invasion of Europe would be a Herculean task requiring an immense amount of pre-planning, a target date for the invasion was set as early in 1944 as possible - a bare 15 months to put an end to the dynasty Hitler boasted would last "a thousand years."

THE BUILD-UP BEGINS

Sir Bertram Ramsey, Royal Navy, appointed CIC of the Allied joint Expeditionary Force, immediately set plans in motion by surveying every port in the UK for satisfactory sites for the mammoth build-up in amphibious operations. By December 1942 the British Admiralty informed Adm. Ernest J. King, USN, in Washington that the southwest corner of the UK had been selected as the American training ground. Within weeks it was obvious there would be an invasion within an invasion, as hotels, piers, docks, warehouses, farms, schools, homes, roads, airfields and rites of way were made available for the amiable Yanks.

As America's factories spun into high gear and mountains of brand new equipment began arriving in England, portions of Great Britain began to resemble industrialized Detroit rather than tranquil Yorkshire. In April 1943, Prime Minister Churchill and his staff met with President Roosevelt to discuss more detailed plans for what was fast taking shape as the greatest invasion ever attempted. Now codenamed Operation Overlord, the Naval phase was appropriately named Operation Neptune. With Admiral Harold R. Stark, USN appointed Commander Naval Forces Europe, R/Adm. Alan Kirk, USN, was placed in charge of all US Naval forces and R/Adm. John H. Hall in charge of landing craft and their European bases. Though the US Navy's role was to be secondary to that of the Royal Navy history would record that the sector of the invasion beaches assigned to the Americans would become the bloodiest and most hard-fought of the entire Normandy campaign.

As the weeks sped by the unparalleled complexity of the undertaking took shape with unprecedented teamwork on both sides of the Atlantic. Day by day whole convoys of newly-built ships off-loaded hundreds of thousands of fresh-faced American GIs along with their endless parade of trucks, tanks, artillery and supplies. Inland, British airfields swelled with the arrival of thousands of silver-winged American fighters, transports and bombers while shore side armadas of American-built landing craft of every size and description overflowed into the sea from rivers and estuaries. With each passing day, training intensified. Guns were readied, cleaned, greased and test fired. Mountains of munitions were secretly moved to ports and docks to be swiftly loaded into the gaping mouths of landing craft and ships' holds. Everything from the twinengined C-47 transports and their troop-laden gliders to the smallest 36-ft landing craft had to work properly. And work it did with amazing precision. Of the 4126 landing craft under Adm. Wilkes command, 4105 got under way when the order to move out came down - 99.5 percent readiness!

DEADLY MINEFIELDS WHERE CHILDREN ONCE PLAYED