This infographic provides an overview of the Normandy Invasion, also called Operation Overlord or D-Day, which was launched on June 6, 1944, during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion ever, the operation involved the simultaneous landing of U.S., British, and Canadian forces on five separate beaches in Normandy, France, which was defended by German forces. The infographic includes a timeline of actions that the Allies carried out early on the morning of June 6 to prepare the way for the landings that followed. It also provides a chart to aid in visualizing the relative sizes of the Allies’ national infantry contingents and the proportion of each that became casualties. Finally, the infographic presents a map showing the Allies’ embarkation areas, invasion routes, and landing areas and the dispositions of German forces in northern France.
Operational phases
As the infographic notes, the Normandy Invasion was implemented under the overall direction of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the Anglo-American Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The landings were originally to take place on May 1, but they were postponed until June 5 because of difficulties in assembling landing craft. As the new D-Day (the projected first day of the invasion) approached and troops began to embark for the crossing, bad weather set in, threatening dangerous landing conditions. After tense debate, Eisenhower decided on a 24-hour delay, which required the recall of ships already at sea. Finally, on the morning of June 5, Eisenhower, having been assured by his chief meteorologist of a break in the weather, announced, “O.K. We’ll go.” Within hours an armada of vessels began to leave English ports. The infographic divides the Allied operation early on D-Day into five phases.
Phase 1: At midnight some 23,400 British and U.S. airborne troops, flown from airfields in southern England, begin to be dropped behind the westernmost and easternmost landing areas in Normandy to secure the exits from the beaches and otherwise prepare the way for the seaborne forces to come.
Phase 2: At 1:00 the Allies, having created an entire phantom army through spurious radio transmissions, begin a fake invasion of the Pas-de-Calais, an area of France about 150 miles (250 km) northeast of the Normandy landing areas. Airborne deception measures present German radar stations with the illusion of an invasion fleet crossing the Channel narrows while radar blackout measures disguise the real transit to Normandy.
Phase 3: At 3:00 Allied aircraft begin bombing German defenses in the landing areas.
Phase 4: At 5:00 Allied cruisers and battleships begin bombarding German defenses in the landing areas.
Phase 5: At about 6:30 seaborne Allied troops begin hitting the beaches in Normandy.
Number of Allied troops and vehicles
The infographic provides a chart to aid in visualizing the relative sizes of the Allies’ national landing contingents and of the Allied airborne forces on D-Day. The chart displays four blocks of soldier icons, one block each for the U.S., British, and Canadian landing contingents and one for the airborne forces. Each icon represents 500 men.
According to the chart, a total of some 129,400 Allied troops landed in Normandy on D-Day. Of that number, the U.S. and Britain each contributed some 54,000 men and Canada some 21,400. Britain and the U.S. together provided the 23,400 airborne troops, 4,000 of whom rode in on gliders while the rest parachuted in. The total number of casualties suffered by the Allies on the beaches that day was 4,930, of which 2,700 casualties were American, 1,030 British, and 1,200 Canadian. Proportionately, the airborne troops suffered the most casualties—about 4,000.
In addition, the infographic tallies the buildup of Allied forces in Normandy after D-Day. By June 11 approximately 326,000 troops, 54,000 vehicles, and 104,000 tons of supplies had landed. By the end of the month some 858,000 troops and 150,000 vehicles had landed. In a box beside those figures, the infographic gives the approximate number of vehicles used on D-Day: 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other watercraft, 500 naval vessels, 20,000 land vehicles, and 13,000 aircraft.
Significant places
The infographic provides a map of the Normandy Invasion on June 6, 1944. Inset is a second, smaller map situating northern France within western Europe. The main map shows the English Channel, which divides the United Kingdom, to the north, from northern France, to the south and southeast.
Embarkation areas and landing beaches
The Allied embarkation areas in southern England are shaded orange. Within those areas, the map labels ports whence Allied troops were ferried across the Channel to the landing beaches in Normandy. Those beaches, southeast of Cherbourg on the Cotentin Peninsula in the west and north of Bayeux and Caen farther east, are also shaded orange. Altogether, according to the infographic, the invasion area was about 50 miles (80 km) wide.
Routes of airborne forces
Dashed dark orange arrows show the routes that Allied airborne troops took from England to Normandy to secure the flanks of the invasion area. Each arrow is labeled with an infantry unit’s name and objective. Those troops were carried in C-47 transport planes or towed behind the planes in CG-4 or Horsa assault gliders. On the right flank, at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, the U.S. 82nd and 101st airborne divisions were dropped to secure the exits from, and block German access to, the beach code-named Utah. A separate dashed arrow points from England, across the Channel, to an area on the Norman coast just east of the easternmost landing beach, code-named Sword. This was the route the British 6th Airborne Division took to secure the left flank, which involved seizing key bridges over the Caen Canal and Orne River northeast of Caen.
Routes of seaborne forces
A series of solid dark orange arrows on the map shows the routes that various U.S., British, and Canadian infantry divisions took from English ports, primarily along the English Channel, to their assigned landing beaches. From west to east, those beaches were code-named Utah, assigned to the U.S. 4th Division (embarked at Plymouth, Dartmouth, and Torquay); Omaha, to the U.S. 1st and 29th divisions (embarked at Falmouth, Fowey, Plymouth, Portland, and Poole); Gold, to the British 50th Division (embarked at Southampton); Juno, to the Canadian 3rd Division (embarked at Portsmouth); and Sword, to the British 3rd Division (embarked at Newhaven). The Americans constituted the U.S. First Army, the British and Canadians the British Second Army. Together the two armies formed the 21st Army Group.
German defenders
In addition, the map locates the German army units defending northern France. All of those forces came under the direction of OB West, or Oberbefehlshaber West (Commander in Chief West; with headquarters at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, northeast of Paris). OB West oversaw Army Group C, in southern France (not shown), and Army Group B (with headquarters at La Roche Guyon, on the Seine River between Paris and Rouen), which defended northern France and the Low Countries. Army Group B included the Seventh and Fifteenth armies.
The Seventh Army (with headquarters at Le Mans) included the 77th Division, between Saint-Malo and Avranches, and most of the German divisions in or near the Allies’ invasion area in Normandy—the 709th, 243rd, 91st, and 352nd, between Cherbourg and Caen, as well as the 21st Panzer, southwest of Caen. The Fifteenth Army (with headquarters at Tourcoing, near Lille) was spread between the invasion area’s left flank, at the Orne River, and the Netherlands. Its divisions closest to the invasion area included the 716th, between Caen and the Orne estuary, and the 346th and 84th, between Le Havre and Dieppe, as well as the 12th SS Panzer, between the Orne and the Seine, and the Panzer Lehr, northeast of Alençon. Other divisions of the Fifteenth Army included the 245th, 348th, and 2nd Panzer, between Dieppe and Amiens, and the 85th, 344th, 49th, 47th, and 18th, between the mouth of the Somme River and Dunkirk. The latter three divisions were concentrated in Pas-de-Calais, which the Allies had led the Germans to believe would be the likeliest invasion area.