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In fact, the Fuhrer was so convinced Calais was the target that he refused to send reinforcements to the Normandy area for seven weeks after the invasion had begun. Combined with false radio traffic and information fed back to the Germans via the Double-Cross System (German spies working for the Allies as double agents), Hitler re-enforced the Pas de Calais, taking the bait hook link and sinker.
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Army Group to help further sell the bluff. Read more about: Battles Operation Fortitude: the D-Day deception campaign that fooled the Nazisįamed American General George S Patton, who was well respected by German high command, was given command of the fictitious First U.S. Tactics included the creation of fake army camps in Kent, complete with inflatable tanks to give the impression to Hitler that a sizeable force was building in the South East of Britain, with the Pas de Calais (the closest French coastline to Britain) as the most likely landing point.
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Operation Fortitude, part of the wider Operation Bodyguard, aimed to confuse the Germans about when and where an Allied invasion on Europe might take place. Deception played a pivotal roleĭeception played a vital part in the build-up to D-Day. It took until midday on 6 June for someone to pluck up the courage to finally wake up Hitler, the delay proving costly since the Fuhrer had direct control over a multitude of military divisions. Those around him were under strict instructions not to wake the Fuhrer for any reason whatsoever. He didn't retire until 3 am, just three hours before the invasion was due to commence. Although an Allied invasion was something Hitler feared was about to happen, he decided to have a relaxing evening with his entourage, including Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. The night before the landings, Hitler was in The Berghof, his private residence in the Bavarian Alps. The weather was so bad in early June, that Rommel felt confident enough that no Allied invasion would be on the cards and so he returned to Germany to celebrate his wife's 50th birthday. The construction of the wall was overseen by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel aka ‘the Desert Fox’.
#WHAT DOES THE D IN D DAY STAND FOR SERIES#
So in 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile series of coastal defences that stretched from the edge of the Arctic Circle down to the France-Spain border. The Germans knew an Allied invasion on Western Europe would eventually come, they just didn’t know exactly where and when. Although the weather on the 6 June was far from ideal, if they didn’t act then their next window of opportunity wouldn’t have been until the end of June.
#WHAT DOES THE D IN D DAY STAND FOR FULL#
Ideal preparatory and landing conditions required a full moon with a spring tide, presenting the operational planners with only a limited amount of days. In fact, weather planning played a crucial role in the build-up to D-Day. Eisenhower, to postpone the invasion by 24 hours. The invasion was originally planned for 5 June, however poor weather conditions forced the Supreme Commander of Allied forces, General Dwight D. Read more about: WW2 How effective was Churchill as a war time leader?īy BP Perry It was meant to happen a day earlier It was the largest seaborne invasion in military historyĪround 7,000 Allied vessels and 160,000 troops made their way across the English Channel to Normandy on D-Day, making it the largest seaborne operation in the history of warfare. During the course of the war, there were many D-Days but the one that marked the beginning of the invasion of Western Europe was so significant that the name D-Day became synonymous with it. In military terminology, D-Day means the day that an operation will commence. The ‘D’ stands for ‘Day’, meaning the name is actually ‘Day-Day’. What does D-Day stand for?ĭ-Day kicked off Operation Neptune, the amphibious assault phase of the wider campaign known as Operation Overlord. Here are some surprising facts about one of the most defining days of WW2. The successful invasion opened up a second front in Western Europe and in doing so changed the course of the war, marking the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. On 6 June 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy and begun their assault on Hitler’s ‘Fortress Europe’.