America And The Normandy Invasion

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in addition to all of the other Normandy beaches. (See Appendix A) The plan was so in-depth and complex, its descriptions detailed the exact arrivals of troops, armour, and other equipment needed for the invasion, and where exactly on the beach they were to land.1
Before the landings were to begin, the coastal German defences had to be broken down by a combination of a massive battering by United States Naval ships, and by bombing from the United States Air Force. Between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. on the morning of June 6, over 1,000 aircraft dropped more than 5,000 tons of bombs on the German coastal defences. As soon as the preliminary bombing was over, the American and British naval guns opened fire on the Normandy coastline.2 A British naval officer described the incredible spectacle he witnessed that day: "Never has any coast suffered what a tortured strip of French coast suffered that morning."3 Along the fifty-mile front the land was shaken by successive explosions ...

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at Utah were the underwater demolition teams who were able to knock off many of the coastal defences awaiting the Americans. As American soldiers moved toward Utah Beach in their conveyances, the pounding the beachhead fortifications had taken from US naval artillery and rockets was clearly evident. Large gun stations, machine gun posts, and infantry positions were among many of the targets weakened or destroyed. The artillery not only aided the soon to be arriving troops in that many coastal threats had been eliminated, but in that the hundreds of shell holes created provided excellent cover for the troops coming ashore.5
The American assault on Utah was very carefully planned and ...

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