Individual Topics

Planning and Preparation | The Landing | Airborne Assault | Air Power | Naval Support | La Fiere Bridge | Breakout and the Battle for France | Higgins Boat (LCVP) | Contemporaneous Press and Radio | Miscellaneous

Planning and Preparation

Initial plans for Operation Overlord, Written in July, 1943. From Gordon A. Harrison's The United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations (1951).

"The Greatest Deception of All Time: Britain, Ultra, and D-Day" by Joseph Sramek. Short article published on Suite 101. For more on Ultra see the author's "Too Close For Comfort: Britain, Ultra, and the Battle of the Atlantic (1941-43)"

The Landing

D-Day Invasion Sites. Detailed review of the topography and defenses of the five landing beaches. In Desperate Battle: Normandy 1944 (Canadian site).

"First Wave at Omaha Beach" by S. L. A. Marshall for Harper's. This 1960 article was one of the first to explore how catastrophic many of the landings had been:

The worst-fated companies were overlooked, the more wretched personal experiences were toned down, and disproportionate attention was paid to the little element of courageous success in a situation which was largely characterized by tragic failure.

Airborne Assault

Web Archive: Schematic drawing of the US paratrooper and his equipment.

Web Archive: Cotentin Peninsula Air Assault Zones from Britannica.com's Normandy 1944 .

101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions at Normandy by Rob. Apart from some errors and the 101st page is out of order, this site provides good information on the US airborne invasion.

The Paratrooper Experience. Details on how, where and with what equipment they were dropped. From American Experience: D-Day.

Air Power

Web Archive: Comprehensive (paper) bibliography "Air power and Operation Overlord" from Guerre, paix et securite : Collection bibliographique .

Naval Support

The USS Augusta on D-Day. Details on the flagship of the Western Task Force of Operation Neptune, the naval portion of the Normandy invasion. From the USS Augusta homepage, which includes photos, statistics, etc. Note the matter-of-fact June 6 ship's log entry.

Web Archive: "Those Wallowing Beauties: The little known documented story of 400 Thames barges used to support the Normandy Invasion" by Jim Jarman, tied to the book of the same name.

La Fiere Bridge

Four La Fiere Bridge accounts are collected on the Normandy page of the Drop Zone Virtual Museum's Oral and E-histories.

"The Forcing of the Merderet Causeway at La Fiere, France: An Action by the Third Battalion 325 Glider Infantry." by S.L.A. Marshall for the History Section, United States Army European Theater of Operations.

Breakout and the Battle for France

The Battle for Caen, Liberating Caen and The Destruction of Caen. From In Desperate Battle: Normandy 1944 (Canadian site).

Chronology from D-Day to the Liberation of Paris, intermixed with photos and short documents such as Eisenhower's "Great Crusade" and DeGaulle's speech at the Paris City Hall. Edited by Richard Doody. The author also has a page of Atlantic Wall Photos from Brittany.

After D-Day: Operation Cobra and the Normandy Breakout. links and information edited by Mr. Edward J. Krasnoborski. This large site includes book reviews, links and the (virtual) After D-Day Museum . I can't get some of the links to work.

The Ethics of Operation Cobra and the Normandy Breakout by Lieutenant Colonel James Jay Carafano, USA Executive Editor Joint Force Quarterly. Discusses Bradley's decision to bomb the area west St. Lo during the allied breakout from Normandy.

Tough Time for "Tough Hombres" by Brig. Gen. Raymond E. Bell, Jr., U.S. Army (ret.) for The History Net. How a small group of German paratroopers captured 11 officers and more than 200 men during hedgerow fighting.

Higgins Boat (LCVP)

Amazon. Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats That Won World War II by Jerry E. Strahan.

Web Archive: Higgins Boats from softwhale.com's Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6th, 1944 .

The Higgins Boat Project. Completed project to built a new LCVP, the transport vehicles that landed the men on the beaches, for display at the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans.

Contemporaneous Press and Radio

George Hicks, London Bureau Chief for the Blue Network (ABC), describes a Nazi Plane Attack on U.S.S. Ancon. Includes information on this ground-breaking report. From Radio News.

Web Archive: D-Day Press Coverage. Detroit News and Louisville Courier-Journal coverage of the landings. From the American Experience: D-Day site.

Miscellaneous

U.S. Army Divisions Participating in the D-Day Assault, pocket histories and shoulder-patch images. From Normandy Allies.