June 6th 1944 is a day
that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has been looking forward to for a long time:
his wife's birthday. With bad weather
making an invasion impossible and intelligence suggesting
that Eisenhower's waiting for more troops, the commander of Normandy's defences
has decided to go home and surprise his wife
with a pair of Parisian shoes. In the middle of the night, his phone rings.
The invasion's begun. This episode is sponsored by Wargaming! New players can download World of Tanks and use the code NEPTUNE
for free goodies. Link in the description! The Nazi leadership
had begun preparing for D-Day even before the Allies
held their conference at Tehran. Following a British Commando raid
at St. Nazaire and the landings at Dieppe in 1942, Hitler had realized that
even if an invasion lay years off, the Allies were already capable
of hitting ports in occupied France. His solution was the Atlantic Wall, a line of coastal defences
that originally clustered around ports, but eventually stretched
from the Spanish border to Norway. Rather than building
a continuous defensive barrier, German engineers drafted
a million forced labourers from France to create a string of machine gun
and artillery positions. These hard points had overlapping fields
of fire, with artillery intended to fire along the length of the beach,
rather than out to sea. This allowed the German army
to cover a larger amount of territory with fewer men - a consideration
that was crucially important by 1944. In late 1943, Hitler had appointed Rommel as overall commander of forces
in northern France. It was a political
as well as practical appointment, leveraging Germany's most famous general in order to reassure the troops
and the public. Rommel also had a personal relationship
with Hitler, which allowed him to operate semi-autonomously
outside the chain of command. When Rommel arrived, he was shocked
at the state of the Atlantic Wall. Command had stripped troops
for the Eastern Front, and many of the men were either new
recruits, conscripts from Eastern Europe or had gone soft garrisoning
the wine-soaked towns of France. Allied bombing had nullified the Luftwaffe.
Rommel went to work. He sent veteran units to supplement
the poorly-trained divisions. He seeded the ground around
the defensive emplacements with mines that jumped into the air before exploding. At low tide,
he sank a forest of wooden stakes tipped with anti-tank mines
that sat just below the waves. Now, any invader would have to choose
between running the gauntlet at high tide, or landing at low tide
and crossing 300 yards of open beach. He also flooded the low country,
erected poles to tear apart gliders, and stationed troops inland
to slow the Allied advance in preparation for a counter-attack. But planning around that counter-attack
was a problem. First of all, they didn't know exactly
where the Allies would land. Luckily,
German intelligence pulled off a coup: they successfully deployed
multiple agents in England. Soon, they were receiving reports
of armies marshalling to attack Pas de Calais, along with
diversionary attacks in occupied Norway and... What was the other one?
Normandy? Eh, whatever. And aerial reconnaissance confirmed
forces massing for these attacks. Of course, every single one
of those German agents was actually working for the British.
Good work, Garbo! Regardless of where
the landings took place, Rommel believed the battle
would be decided on the beaches. Should the Allies establish a beachhead,
it would be over. In his plan, the divisions defending
the coast would slow the enemy down in preparation for a decisive counter-attack. As a result, he wanted the Panzer
reserve under his own command, close to the shore in order to sweep
the Allies back into the sea. However, Hitler's leadership style
started to affect strategy. From his early days in the Nazi party, Hitler had promoted
a kind of social Darwinism among his staff, giving them overlapping responsibilities and intentionally fostering feuds
and competition. This meant that subordinates couldn't
amass enough power to challenge him, and it elevated his position
as the final arbiter of any dispute. In this case,
Rommel was opposed by officers, including the elderly Eastern Front
veteran von Rundstedt, who wanted the tank reserves held near
Paris. This would keep them flexible in case the Allies landed
somewhere unexpected, and shield them from shore bombardment.
Rommel countered that the long drive toward the coast
would make them vulnerable to air attacks. After fierce debate,
they put it to the Führer, who, ever indecisive,
created an unworkable compromise. He broke up the reserve,
giving Rommel three Panzer divisions and keeping the larger reserve
around Paris as a personal unit, which couldn't be moved
without his express permission. Only one of Rommel's divisions,
the 21st Panzer, was sent to Normandy. So, the stage is set for June 5th,
and the weather could not be uglier. With conditions so poor
for both sailing and flying, senior officers relax in the knowledge
that the Allies will not arrive anytime soon. Many take the opportunity
to rush home on leave. And that is when paratroopers start to land. At 5:30 AM on June 6th, German soldiers peer out of their bunkers
to see shapes in the morning mist: ships stretching from horizon to horizon.
Then: aircraft engines. A massive Allied bombardment
rocks the ground as bombs, naval shells, and rockets
pound French soil. But the bombers drop too far inland.
The rockets fall short. Naval guns make little headway
against the steel-reinforced bunkers. 1,745 tons of ordinance
drop on Omaha Beach without killing a single German,
but the roads inland are wrecked. Worse, Allied paratrooper and glider units land between the static units
and their reserve, with resistance elements destroying
crucial bridges and rail lines, meaning that reinforcements
and supplies can't get through. Landing craft begin to plunge
toward the shore. On Omaha Beach, the Germans see the first
Allied soldiers trudging in the surf. Machine guns open fire. Far away,
Allied soldiers lie face down, pinned, as the first wave of mortars
and artillery shells fling bodies into the air. Months of preparation mean
that German artillery crews have ranged out the beaches and know
exactly where to drop their ordinance. The initial slaughter
is monumentally one-sided. One American company at Omaha
takes 92% casualties. By 1:30 that afternoon,
German observers at Omaha report that small groups of Americans have
broken through, but the defence is holding. They're pushing the Allies back into the sea. But Omaha is the exception.
Despite fierce resistance, the British have broken through
at Sword and Gold, and the Canadians at Juno.
The botched American landing at Utah has reorganized into a chaotic opportunity. Here,
the bombardments have had more effect, and the terrain isn't as challenging,
but men still die in droves. The chaos on the beach is mirrored
at every German headquarters between Normandy and Hitler's
vacation home at Berchtesgaden. Generals argue over whether
to commit reserves, and where. Rommel is rushing to toward the battle
in a staff car, unable to issue orders. His rival von Rundstedt
quickly orders the 21st Panzer to meet the British advancing on Caen, and issues orders for the reserve units
near Paris to move out. But his orders are countermanded. That unit can only be moved
by the Führer's personal order. And Hitler is asleep. Ever since
his days as a bohemian in Vienna, Hitler has always been a late riser. Rigid procedure dictates that the Führer
should not be woken unnecessarily, and even in the face of invasion,
no one wants to break this protocol. After all, what if it's only a diversion? When Hitler eventually wakes at noon,
he is thrilled the invasion has arrived. This, he says, is his chance to decisively
crush the Allies! And yet he delays. It's 4:00 PM before he orders
the Panzer reserve to move out. By that time, the clouds have cleared,
exposing the column to Allied air power. So, instead of advancing, the unit
ends up hiding in the woods until dusk. It will take them two days and a night
to join the battle. As the Allies overwhelm German defences
and march inland, Hitler spends his day ordering
V-1 revenge strikes, not on Normandy, but on London, then holds a conference
with minor functionaries. When Goebbels shows him
the Normandy landings on a map, Hitler exclaims with delight:
"Just where we expected them!" Goebbels,
who has heard Hitler rant for months about how the Allied target would be Calais, simply nods at the Führer's
historical revisionism. After all,
Hitler is somewhat right, in a way. They all knew that a diversionary
landing would happen at Normandy. Probably best to keep
the strong units in Calais. Meanwhile,
the Atlantic Wall is crumbling. Even at Omaha, the defence has degraded. Ammunition is running out.
Artillery emplacements fall silent. Americans begin breaking through
and enveloping the casements. At Caen,
the Germans see one last opportunity: a gap between the Canadian
and British lines. A grenadier regiment rushes to exploit it, and by 8:00 PM radios
that they're on the beach. With armoured support, they can hold.
But the Allies have gotten wise. When the 21st Panzer tries to follow,
they find themselves running a gauntlet. Fire pours in from both sides.
Every minute, another tank explodes. Seeing that the window of opportunity
has closed, their commander orders them to halt
and dig in around Caen. But the defence is stiffening.
All along the battlefront, Allied units begin failing their first-day objectives
of advancing and linking up inland. By dusk, the Allies have scattered
beachheads, but not much more. Within days,
German reinforcements will arrive. And the hedgerows of Normandy
will become a killing field that will dwarf the casualties
of the landings. D-Day is over,
but Operation Overlord could still fail. To win, the Allies are gonna have
to push just as hard on D-Day +1, and D-Day +2, and every day after that. For all of these forces, American, British Commonwealth,
French, German, and Soviet, the fight would continue
for eleven murderous months. But the Allies now had a beachhead,
and in trying to throw them back, Germany would spend more men, fuel,
and equipment that they could ill-afford. Allied victory is a long way off,
but for the first time, it's in sight.
If you like this one, I recommend watching their series on Admiral Yi
Well I liked thmis and started watching their other ww2 videos. Different to the normal documentaries I watch
I think these videos are great. I look forward to when they come out, the story telling is amazing. The one on hunting the Bismark was fantastic.
Aren't these videos full of insane inaccuracies? No to mention, extra credits isn't exactly a great source for videos.