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Show ‘Standard-Examnvar June 5, 1994 = ‘The invasion plans began immediately D-Day: A chronology ik u 6 ‘ei GsSiON Cre , r France MG J United States would not m until aths, refused. Finally, at 4 p.m., von Rundstedt re. hecame kn “October 1961: mmander ofPHMS: Ai ceived permission to commit his re- ~, One led Overlord”: Harbor on Dec. Th nited ft Carner Illustrious. is wDec. 22, 1941-Jan. 13, 1942: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill travels to Washington D.C., to meet with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They agree on an Allied war strategy Europe first Churchill tells Congress, “We shall never cease lo persevereagainst the enemy until we a them a lesson which the world will = al plans came out of the conference lero.” a build-up of U.S. forces in Great Bntian ( = ions in western Europe “Gymnast,” a Bniti sh-U.S. in yn of French North Africain 1942 “Sled geh ner,” a Major operation somewhere in western Europe in 1942 to relieve nreccure pre ssur UTC on Russia: and “Roundup,” a 1943 invasion of Europe from across the English Channel. a March 23, 1942: Hitler issues Directive No. 40, yrdering his commandersin France and Belgium to build “an Atlantic Wall” of fortifications along the channel coast. w April 8, 1942: Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s personal envoyto England and Russia, and Gen. George Marshall, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, arrive in England to support planning for a cross-English Channel invasion, to be ready by Apnl 1, 1943. Antwerp was selected as the initial objective. rier-based pla ific Fleet in Pearl 7 1941. tes, with all its truly was too late as British and Ameri- can fighters and medium bombers roared across France as far as 100 miles inland, mercilessly blasting every Ger- was now in World War s Mountbatten, summoned back to Eng to head “Combined s.” Mountb n was to direct the fa European invasion never for moving until the next day. The Germans lost vital hours trying to decide how-6 counter the invasion and, by June 7, it at three weeks — riif that serves, but it was too late to get them ¥ really began istmas-New Year's 7, 1941homer nments f zer Division and Panzer-Lehr Divisem — to attack the airborneforces thas parachuted into Normandy just after = midnight on D-Day, but Field Mar:rshat Alfred Jodl, head of operations, at first jy join Wi the Dec. serve panzer tank units — | 2th SS Pan- Surrenderea |! rd Reich, when Great Britian Training and Development Centre aminineth pe of an amphibious 1 landing. England was basicaily alone Russia was fightingfor i feaand the hy asked for permission to order two ma. Soon after Pearl Harbor, Allies had a plan for the attack { man column. 1onths after the fall of France Gen. Fritz Bayerlein, commander of Panzer-Lehr, wasa typical victim ofAllied air power. He began moving his tanks from near Le Mans late June 6 and lost more than 20 tanks bynightfall. On June 7, Bayerlein said he lost five more tanks, 130trucks, and 84 half- British nme Minister Winston Churchill spent that bleak holiday in Washington, D.C., meeting with Pri how it Franklin Roosevelt to decide the ietwo great democracies uld destroy totalitarian Germany and Japan. tracks and self-propelled cannons — a Out of their meeting came plans for a massive bu anaesof American troopsin England — called “Bolero” — and a 1943 invasion of Europe from England — initially called “Roundup” but changed 18 months later to “Overlord.” By May1943, the Allied leaders decided the cross-channel invasion could not be launched until 1944, and they set May| as thedate. In February 1944, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, commander ofthe Allied forces, said D-Day would be sometime in May. But. on May 8, he set June 5 as the invasion day. On June 4, because of intense storms, Eisenhower postponed the invasion to June 6, when the weather would break for at least 48 hours and morningtides were favorable. The monumental preparation for moving more than one million troops from England to France could not go unnoticed. In fact, nearly everyone knew The Associated Press Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, commanderofall the allied forces, briefs paratroopers on June 5, shortly before D-Day began. the invasion was coming — when and where were the secrets. For months the Allies made every attempt to convince the German High Command the main attack would come near Calais, across the narrowest point in the English Channel, 200 miles northeast of Normandy. Even after D-Day, the German High Command believed Normandywasonly a feint and kept the powerful 1Sth Army — Germany’s strongest armyin the West — immobilized in the north for more than a month, awaiting an attack that never came. On the eve of “Overlord,” the Allies mounted two fake invasions — “Glimmer” and “Taxable” — using a squadron of British bombersand a fleet of about three dozen ships to simulate assaults in the Boulogne and Le Havre’areas be- tween Calais and Normandy. Theyalso dropped dummy pdratroopers across northern France to bewilder the Germans and had hundredsof fighters circle over the channelto further confuse enemyradar. By 6 a.m., Field Marshal Gen. Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of the Germanforces in the West. victory and not to makea separate peace. w June 18, 1942: Churchill meets with Roosevelt n Washington, D.C., to discuss “Gymnast” and the drastic shortage of landing craft. a July 25, 1942: Roosevelt, acting on volved in the first day of the invasion. recommendations from Churchill. agrees to support “Gymnast” and to cancel “Sledgehammer” because t would detract from “Roundup.” wAug. 12, 1942: Churchill, with representatives f the United States and the Free French, meet with Soviet Chairman Joseph Stalin in Moscowto w 10,561: Allied aircraft involved in D-Day. That figure included 1,970 U.S. heavy bombers and 1,470 British heavy bombers, 2,300 U.S: iscuss planning a European second front. Stalin ers and the gliders used to deliver the paratroopers behind 4 mw Aug. 19, 1942: A force of 7.000 Bntish and Canadian commandos, plus a few U.S. Rangers and Free French soldiers, attack the French port city of the lines. wounded, missing or captured or D-Day. @ 12,000: Allied airmen killed aken prisoner, the raid caused Hitler to transfer seven divisions from the Russian Front. gw Nov. 8, 1942: The Allies invade North Africa, putting ashore 70,000troops at Algiers, Casablanca ministers and military leaders hold Trident Conference in Washington, D.C. Theyagree “Roundup”will not be possible in 1943 and set the European invasion date for May1, 1944, at the latest. They also commit to continuing the strategic bombing of Germanyin advance of “Roundup.” wJune 28, 1943: Twenty-eight generals and admirals meet in Largs, Scotland, in the Rattle Conference to examine the needs of a cross-channel invasion. Normandy, between Dieppe and the Cotentin Peninsula, is selected as the place for the = a July 10, 1943; The Allies invade Sicily and apture theisland in two months, but most Germans are evacuated to Italy. w Aug. 14-24, 1943: Churchill and Roosevelt and their military staffs meet in the Quadrant inference in Quebec to discuss the cross-channel nvasion, nowcalled “Overlord,” between Caen and Carentan, with the major goal of capturing the tin Peninsula andits vital port city of Cherbourg. Gen. Marshall is appointed to mand theinvasion. They ee agree to a Norway “Operat ion Jupiter,” “Overlord” mpossible to mount, and hey oie to suede:a landingin southern France, “Anvil,” to reduce German attacks against “Overlord.” w Sept. 3, 1943: The Allies invade Italy south of Naples. to draw off Germandivisions from France. TheAllies are receiving continuous air cover from North Africa, Sicily and Malta. m Nov. 28-Dec. 1, 1943: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, with their foreign ministers and chiefs of staff. The British Mediterraneanstrategy is finally shelved, but Churchill rejects Gen. Marshall as proposed Allied commander of “Overlord,” now set for May 1944. Also, Stalin agrees to attack Japan once Germany is defeated, in exchangefor guarantees of a sphere of influence over former German satellite nations in Eastern Europe w Dec. 7, 1943: Two years after Pear] Harbor, Roosevelt meets with Eisenhower in Tunis and tells the general he will be the Commander in Chief Allied Forces of Liberation — in other words commander of “Overlord.” The British and Canadian land forces will be under the direct command of General Sir Bernard Montgomery and the American invasion troops will be under Gen Omar Bradley. a Feb. 12, 1944: Eisenhower, as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, is given the following directive from the United Nations: “You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, Continued on Page 7 Unless otherwise indicated, cover photographs courtesy of the U.S. Army } 29,000: Allied men killed, Dieppe. Although 3.500 commandos are killed or w May 12-25, 1943: British and U.S. foreign |, |’ fighters and 1,530 British fight- finally accepts there will be no second front in committed to an invasion of France rather than England’s alternate plan of clearing the Mediterranean and then attacking through the Balkans. They also agree the only terms for ending the war are unconditional surrender. Bythe sixth day, the Allies had more than 326,000 men and 54,000 vehicles ' plus 104,000 tons of supplies in France. Theywere thereto stay. By June 19 the Allies would have 20 divisions in Normandyto the Nazis’ 16 From the crowded beaches, endless columns of men andvehicles moved inland on their wayto liberation of Europe. w600: Warships — battleships, destroyers and cruisers — used. w 175,000: Allied troops in- roposed European operations. Both agree a major ’blem with any major amphibious operation is Sicily next, but Roosevelt and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, commander ofAllied forces in Northwest Africa, say the United States is still day. w 1,562,000: U.S. Army troops Churchill pledging to fight Germanyuntil fina! North Africa. By May 7, 1943, when the last Axis Germans wanted them to do, walk into a trap, and that the invaders soon would be hurled back into the channel. : Overlord’s goal had been to put about 160,000 combat troops with 20,000 vehicles on the Normandybeaches * pret in Great Britain on June 1) 1944, 04,000: Ships — including tankers, tenders and landing craft — used on the day of ing invasion. second front in Europeto take the pressure off the Russian Army. Molotovsigns a treaty with forces surrender, 108,000 Germans have been captured and 72,000 have been killed or wounded. mJan. 14-24, 1943: Churchill and Roosevelt meet in Casablanca and agree the Allies will invade the Allies had done exactly what the D-Day by numbers w May 20, 1942: Soviet Foreign Minister V.M. Molotov meets with Churchill in London and emands England and the United States open up a and Oran. The Germans ship 750troops a day to bewildering defeat for a division that had not yet come face-to-face with its enemy. Neverat a loss for words, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels claitned GAR jay. ETI TRIHLS 2B The Associated Press A soldier wades ashore amid heavy machine gun andartillery fire in Robert Capa’s famous photograph of D-Day. Ike gave the words, but which? By RALPH WAKLEY Standard-Examiner staff ne of the mini-mysteries surrounding D-Daywas this: What were Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's exact words when he gave the order to proceed with the invasion during a 4:30 a.m. commanders’ conference on June 5? AY least one historian at the Eisenhower Library says he has located 56 various accounts of Ike’s precise words in that final “go” decision. Among the moreplausible and well-known are the simple, “OK, let’s go,” recorded byIke’s naval aide, Capt. Harry Butcher, and the “OK, we'll go,” by Lt. Kay Summersby, the supreme commander’s private secretary and reportedly his wartime mistress. Not Winston’s favorite The onginal code name for the Allied invasion of northwestern France was “Operation Roundup.” However, in 1943 11 was changed to “Operation Overlord” after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill complained about the was used routinely to describe the day most military combat operations would commence. And the 1943 book, “D-Day” by author John Gunther was about the Nov. 8, 1942, Allied invasion of North Africa, at Algiers, Casablanca and Oran. Naming Utah Jess McCall, Fort Douglas Military Museum curator, says he has spent years trying to find out how Utah Beach, one of five D-Dayinvasion beaches,got its name “and I never could get a definitive fusion” with an operation under wayin Italy or the Pacific, for example. However, sectors of the beaches were given those phonetic alphabet designations, such as dog, easy, fox and George for D, E, F.and G. And they were broken down even further into colors such as the Fox Green segment on Omaha Beach, where author-war correspondent Ernest Hemingwayhelped rescue woundedsoldiers from the surf. Historic date Or oaptured during April and May of 1944 as they bombed German industries and transportation systems in an effort to isolate Normandy. ; w 10,395: Tons of Allied bombs that were on German fortifications in Normandy on June 6. Between midnight at 6 a.m., 5,853 tons were dropped by the Allies. They dropped another 1,763 tons of bombs be- tween 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. in the 30 minutes prior to the assaults an Omaha and Utah beaches. uw 75,000: British and Canadjan soldiers put ashore at Gold, Juno and Sword beaches dur- ing the first 24 hours of the invasion. w 57,500: American troops put ashore on Omaha and Utah Hemingway, who was working as a beaches during the first 24 answer.” war correspondentat the time, said: “No One rumor,from British Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery’s staff, was that Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins, commanderof the U.S. VII Corps landing on Utah Beach, named the invasion site after his home state. However, Collins was a native of Louisiana. Ivan Worrell of the 101st Airborne Division Association said the U.S. targets in Normandy all were given typical American names, such as Utah and Omaha, short names that would not be confused with each other.And Worrell one remembersthe date of the Battle of Shiloh” — April 6-7, 1862, when 20,000 Confederate and Union troops were killed or wounded in the Union Army's first Civil War victory — “but the day m 22,500: British and American airborne troops dropped behind the beaches. @ 326,547: Allied troops that we took Fox Green Beach (on Omaha Beach) was 6 June.” Newsfrom the front hours. had been put ashore in France by June 11. They also landed 104,428 tons of supplies. By June 16, the figures were 557,000 men and 183,000 tons of supplies. By July 4, they numbers werB that would attack Utah and Omaha Initial report from Utah Beach, taken by the 4th Infantry Division on D-Day: “Although primary and secondary control vessels sunk, northern limit of assault beach is only 1,000 yards south of northern limit as planned and has added advantage of fewer obstacles. Heavy shelling of both (Uncle and Victor) beaches has cost increasing during the summer of 1944, after the beaches on northern France’s Normandy coast originally were set up as “Force O” casualties in personnel and equipment. Although three roads are open across Allied invasion of Normandy, it became and “Force U.” inundated area and vehicles are moving the day Paris was liberated by Allied forces. The Germans also had lost 1,300 tanks, 3,545 a part of American speech and even daily life. But the “D” referred to “Omaha and Utah probably evolved out of Force O and Force U,” said Koskimaki. “In an operation like D-Day, they wouldn't use the military phonetic inland, progress is slow. Continued bombardment with adequate air support is essential if beaches are to be protected 20,000 cannons. = 4,410: Crosses and Stars of original name. Churchill reportedly said: “Who will be rounded up, the Germans or ourselves?” said the British targets were given more English names, such as Gold, Juno and Sword. World War II author-historian George Koskimaki said the two American forces ‘D-’ asin... The term “D-Day” was so well known nothing more than the word “day,” the day a battlestarts. Prior to history’s most infamous as in D-Day in June 1944, the D-Day term alphabet, they would make up a new code word so there wouldn't be any con- and early advantages maintained.” Utah Beach was divided into two sectors, Uncle and Victor. |; |! ’ |! 1 million men and 1 million tons of supplies. By Sept. 5, it was 2,086,000 men and 3,446,000 tons of ; |, supplies. ‘ = 400,000: Germans killed, wounded, captured or missing in Northern France by Aug. 25, |' |: planes, 20,000 vehicles and David that mark the graves of |; fallen Americans at the cemé- |! tery in St. James, France. Back on the homefront: Fear and excitement = By RALPH WAKLEY Standard-Examuner staff half century ago, Riverdale’s Brent Player was among 1.5 million American soldiers in England waiting to free Europe from four years of Nazi occupation. His sister, Gwen Player Haywood, said, “Something in his letters gave me a clue that he was going to bein that invasion,” on June 6, 1944, when the Allied troops stormedashore on Normandy’s beaches “And, when | heard that D-Day was on, I cried all day, I just loved himso much,” said Haywood, who was 24 in 1944 and working in a creamery. Ogden’s Lorraine Helgesen was just 16, looking forward to her 17th birthdayin three weeks “when we heard about it. “It was like a wave of excitement. Here we'd finally broken through and now we were going to end this war.” Because she had a stepbrother — James Hawkins — in the infantry in England, Helgesen said, “We were among those who cared and who were frightened. We were concerned for him and we watched the newspaper all the time. We werefearful but excited.” James Hawkins made it through that deadly summer of 1944, but he was killed that winter during the Battle of the Bulge, Germany's last major offensive. Brenda Large Montgomery grew up in —————— Oe Liverpool and can't remember much about her childhood before World War II began. “I can remember our home was destroyed in the May (1940) Blitz,” Montgomerysaid, when she was just 5. As D-Day approached, and Montgomery was 9, “I can remember anywhere we went we saw Americans. There were so many of them, you felt safer. And they were always smiling. I think we envied them that.” When the Allies hit the Normandy beaches, she said, “I can remember |istening to the BBC” radio news reports. “We were glued to it. And mother was shushing us, tryingto find out what was going on.” When she was 20, she moved to Washington, D.C., to work in the British Embassy, where she met her future husband, Ogden native Dick Montgomery, who worked in Congress. When he retired in 1985, they moved to rm, Haywood also can remember trying find wartime news, reading the new pers and listening to the radio. Justoe D-Day, she went to a movie and saw her brother in a newsreel filmed at Norman- dy’s Omaha Beach. He was getting offa landing ship with other membersofhis field artillery unit. " “When I| saw Brent at the landing, I was $0 excited I rushed homeand told Mom and Dad. I was so glad he was safe.” |
