In the last issue of MHM, in the first of two special editions to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day on 6 June 1944, we looked at some of the factors which would determine the operation’s success — from the brilliant Allied deception plan, which left Hitler unsure where an attack would come, to the flawed ‘Atlantic Wall’, which left German troops poorly placed to resist the greatest amphibious invasion force in history.
This time, we look in more detail at the landings themselves. First, we examine Allied preparations to deposit around 150,000 troops along a 50-mile stretch of Normandy coastline. David Porter reveals the mind-boggling feat of logistics required to dovetail land, sea, and air forces, and to keep an army that would soon swell to more than two million men fed, fuelled, armed, and equipped on the road to Paris.
Next, we focus in more closely, to understand what it was like for the ordinary soldiers who took part in Operation Overlord. In the second part of our special for this issue, Patrick Mercer reads diaries and personal accounts written by members of three British units — some of whom would be among the thousands to die during the initial landings or amid the meadows and hedges of northern France.
Finally, we look at what happened next. In the first of a regular new series of infographics, Calum Henderson traces the extraordinary events and hard-fought battles that would take the Allies from the beaches of Normandy to the liberation of Paris.
This is an extract from a special feature on D-Day from the June/July 2024 issue of Military History Matters magazine.
Read the full article online on The Past, or in the print magazine: find out more about subscriptions to Military History Matters here.
always a good read
I started reading this magazine in 2014 and I used to get the magazine every month
followed world war 1 and never stopped
I was surprised to see an article about the greatest military invasion in history (D-Day, 80 years on: June/July) without even a mention of the greatest coup-de-main and the first engagement of D-Day – British Airborne troops capturing two crucial bridges, over the Caen Canal and Orne River, to the east of the invasion beaches minutes after midnight on June 6? The feat had never been done before, and the odds were stacked against its being successful. Had it failed, German tanks would have crossed over the bridges and attacked British and Canadian soldiers landing at Gold, Sword and Juno beaches. Indeed, the entire Normandy invasion might have failed. The six Horsa glider pilots had to locate and land in a small field less than 50 yards from the canal bridge. Most of the gliders arrived on target. Led by Major John Howard, a mixed battalion of Oxfordshire and Bucks Light Infantry and Royal Engineers caught the German defenders by surprise. After a brief battle they took both bridges in 10 minutes, then fought off counter-attacks until relieved later in the day. Lieutenant Den Brotheridge was killed, being the first member of the Allied armies to die as a result of enemy fire on D-Day. Among the relief battalion was Lt. Richard Todd who, two decades later, would play Major Howard in the film Thee Longest Day. The first glider, piloted by Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork, ran into barbed wire and stopped abruptly, pitching Wallwork through the windscreen and marking him as the very first Allied serviceman to reach the ground on D-Day, albeit unconscious.
Re. my Feedback letter of yesterday (July 24):
I should, of course, have mentioned that the Caen Canal bridge was renamed Pegasus Bridge, in honor of that mythical horse being British Airborne’s symbol.