by Today marks the 81st anniversary of the Normandy invasion aimed at ending the war in Europe. By the time of this post American soldiers had finally advanced beyond the beach defenses at Omaha Beach and a beachhead had been established on all invasion beaches.
Searching for new materials to post about D-Day I came across some things from the Library of Congress. First was a map of the positions of all units, Allied and German, on June 6th at 2400 hours.
The second thing I found at the Library of Congress was Gen. George S. Patton’s diaries from World War II. While Patton did not participate directly in the Normandy invasion, he played an important role in keeping the Wehrmacht and German leaders incorrectly focused on the Pas-de-Calais as the actual invasion site. This was called Operation Fortitude and involved deceptive radio transmissions along with a fictional 1st US Army Group.
Here are Patton’s entries for June 6th. I have a translation added afterwards as many would have a hard time reading his cursive handwriting.
6-5-44
(I listened to the radio at 0600 but no news in fact none by radio all day.
Called Hughes and asked him to get off radio of congrats. to Alex, Keyes and Clark.
About 0900 we got a COSITINTREP #4
A. Enemy intelligence. No change.
B. Bombarding forces still at sea. Ships and craft assault force at anchor waiting. Convoys proceeding according to plan. U. S. LCT 2498 sunk off Portland Bill 01600
4 June no casualties.
D.D.E.
I think this means that the attack has not started. Brad did not want to attack until the 6th as the tide was good later 0645 and gave more time for
Navy Bombardment.) I still believe in night
attacks.
6-6-44
[*Type*]
(The war is on. At 0700 BBC announced that the
the German radio reported allied landing boats w of Le Havre to the Cherbourg Peninsular. It is a nice bright day for a battle. I hope I get in before it is all won. I need some glory. According to all reports we have things are going very well our troops (British Para) are in CAEN and tanks (Br) are reported nearing that town. Fighting reported Cherbourg-St. LO road (103 & 82 US Air B) I have horrible feelings that fighting will be over before I get in but I know this is not so as destiny means me to be in. [*Type*] (There is a report that all bridges (23) over SEINEWest of Paris are out by our air. Of course these can be replaced rapidly with posters if the Germans want to. I feel sure that all the so called information we hear on the radio is imaginary as if I were present at the landing I would not realy know a damned thing - how can the commentators. The PM and the King both made fine speeches. We did not get in on FDR's. Started to pack a little. 6-7-44 Gen Hinds spent the night he is chief of Art 3rd Army Grp AA Radio still full of platitudes. We hear that OMAHA Beach in front of VII Corps is giving trouble it is a sad branch until it is taken Cherbourg can't be attacked. That will delay the whole operation. We will not get a good picture till tomorrow. I have just found out that the trouble is at UTAH Beach and not Omaha if they stick there it will leave a gap between us and the British. Went for a drive in a M-29 snow buggy
Reading Patton’s thoughts is interesting. You can see how desperately he wanted to be involved even it was to seek “glory”. I did appreciate his comment that if he were present he would “not realy (sic) know a damned thing”. He understood the concept of the fog of war probably better than most.
It is somewhat remarkable that even 81 years later we are learning more about the invasion and the participants. It just takes a little bit of digging.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. As more ‘secret’ data is released, history will change.