Seventy years ago, more than 6000 Allied ships carried more than a
million soldiers across the English Channel to a 50-mile-wide strip of
the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest
sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches
where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno,
Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable
human tragedy. The sea of crosses in the cemetery sitting today atop a
bluff overlooking the beaches recalls to us its cost. Most accounts of
this epic story begin with the landings on the morning of June 6, 1944.
In fact, however, D-Day was the culmination of months and years of
planning and intense debate. In the dark days after the evacuation of
Dunkirk in the summer of 1940, British officials and, soon enough, their
American counterparts, began to consider how, and, where, and especially
when, they could re-enter the European Continent in force. The
Americans, led by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall,
wanted to invade as soon as possible; the British, personified by their
redoubtable prime minister, Winston Churchill, were convinced that a
premature landing would be disastrous. The often-sharp negotiations
between the English-speaking allies led them first to North Africa, then
into Sicily, then Italy. Only in the spring of 1943, did the Combined
Chiefs of Staff commit themselves to an invasion of northern France. The
code name for this invasion was Overlord, but everything that came
before, including the landings themselves and the supply system that
made it possible for the invaders to stay there, was code-named Neptune.
Craig L. Symonds now offers the complete story of this Olympian effort,
involving transports, escorts, gunfire support ships, and landing craft
of every possible size and function. The obstacles to success were many.
