It was early morning on 6 June 1944. Franz Gockel, a nineteen-year-old German machine-gunner, looked out through the slit in his concrete pillbox in Normandy. On the horizon, in the English Channel, he saw thousands of enemy ships. His stomach churned. This was what he had been dreading. This was the largest invasion force in history.  This was D-Day.
(Resource A: The Armada)

Preparations for the liberation of Western Europe had begun a long time before June 1944. By the end of 1941 Britain had been joined by the Soviet Union and the United States in the ‘Grand Alliance’ against Hitler. The Russians were desperate for a ‘Second Front’ in the west in order to take the pressure off their armed forces on the Eastern Front. In 1943 the Allies met in Tehran to plan their strategy. Britain and the United States agreed to launch an attack across the English Channel in the following spring.

The invasion would be code-named ‘Operation Overlord’. It would be very difficult and extremely dangerous. To defend coastal areas against a possible Allied invasion, the Germans had built thousands of concrete pillboxes, bunkers and gun positions. In early 1944, when Field Marshal Erwin Rommel became Hitler’s commander in North-West France, he made the defences facing the English Channel even stronger.
(Resource B: The Defences)

THE ATLANTIC WALL, 1944

_{IWM Negative Number: HU 28594
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the German anti-invasion forces, inspecting German defences on the Atlantic Wall.}

Rommel’s men buried over six million mines along the shore. Operation Overlord would require great bravery. It would also need some very clever and careful planning. 

Planning and Preparations: December 1943-June 1944

In December 1943 a command team was formed to plan and lead the air, sea, and ground attack on Normandy. The American general Dwight Eisenhower was named Supreme Commander. The British general Bernard Montgomery was chosen to command the ground forces during the landings on the beaches.
(Resource C: The Chain of Command)