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Prior to starting your research, familiarize yourself fully with the assignment instructions and any specific guidance you have received from your instructor. Follow those instructions. The contents of this help guide are relevant to all HI 302 sections with a WR2 assignment on Operation OVERLORD, the Normandy Campaign 1944, but some instructors may have provided cadets in their section(s) with specific additional and/or modified instructions. Therefore some of the resources on this help guide may be also linked from any written guidance you received, but in many cases this guide provides additional explanatory notes, etc. for those resources as well as additional ones.
Overview of Operation Overlord - The Normandy Campaign, June-August,1944
For a considerable span of time, Allied leaders and military strategists engaged in deliberations regarding the when, where, and how of deploying troops in northern Europe. Initial groundwork for an eventual cross-Channel operation began as early as 1942, but due to resource limitations and strategic adjustments in the European theater, the Allied invasion of the continent, it wasn't until December 1943, with the appointment of General Dwight D. Eisenhower as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, that preparations for the upcoming operation, codenamed OVERLORD, kicked into high gear. While the invasion lacked a definite timetable, a significant influx of American troops to Great Britain occurred in 1943. By the close of May 1944, the United Kingdom hosted an impressive contingent of over 1.5 million US Army personnel, all primed to participate in or support the forthcoming cross-Channel action.
As a result of the remarkable success achieved by Operation FORTITUDE, the German High Command became convinced of the deceptive information it conveyed, firmly anticipating an Allied landing at Pas de Calais. However, planners had, in fact, chosen a 50-mile stretch of Normandy coastline for the operation. This grand undertaking was divided into two key components: NEPTUNE, which encompassed the naval phase and the assault operation involving the movement of tens of thousands of Allied troops across the English Channel, landing them on the designated beaches, and providing crucial gunfire support. The broader plan, encompassing the invasion and subsequent Battle of Normandy, was known as OVERLORD.
Approximately 160,000 Allied soldiers were tasked with landing across five beaches, each assigned a code name—Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, and Utah. Concurrently, British and American paratroop and glider forces were deployed inland. Over time, these forces would converge at each beach, establishing a vital beachhead from which to launch further advances into the heart of France.
