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D-Day Timeline. Interactive timeline focused on the events leading up to and following Operation OVERLORD. D-Day Timeline, 1944. January 15. January 16. March. May. May. June. June 4. June 6. June18-21. May 8. January 15, 1944.
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D-Day Timeline Interactive timeline focused on the events leading up to and following Operation OVERLORD
D-Day Timeline, 1944 January 15 January 16 March May May June June 4 June 6 June18-21 May 8
January 15, 1944 • Erwin Rommel placed in command of Army Group B, splitting command for German troops in the West between Rommel, Von Rundstedt, and Hitler, who personally controls the Panzer tank divisions
January 16, 1944 • Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower assumes duties as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, to oversee Operation OVERLORD, the Allied invasion of Europe at Normandy
March 1944 • Lt. General George S. Patton placed in command of First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG) in and around Dover, a mostly fictitious army and the capstone of FORTITUDE South
May 1944 • Due to success of Operation FORTITUDE, Germans believe that there are twice as many Allied divisions assembling in Britain as actually were; von Rundstedt placed in command over Rommel’s Army Group B
May 1944 • French Allied agents send to London 700 radio reports and 3,000 written descriptions on German military positions
May 8, 1944 • Eisenhower chooses June 5 as D-Day for the Normandy invasion
June 1944 • By June, the Germans have fortified the “Atlantic Wall” with 20 million cubic yards of concrete, 1.2 million tons of steel, 6.5 million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, 500,000 beach and underwater obstacles, and thousands of Rommel’s Asparagus (anti-glider poles)
June 4, 1944 • D-Day postponed from June 5 to June 6 due to bad weather; in Southern England, 175,000 men, an armada of 5,333 ships and landing craft, 50,000 vehicles, and 11,000 planes sit poised to attack secretly across the English Channel
June 6, 1944 • D-Day: Allies land in Normandy at five sites code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword; by nightfall nearly all 175,000 men are ashore at a cost of 4,900 casualties; Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic Wall has fallen in less than one day
June 18-21 1944 • The Allies’ artificial harbor—or Mulberry—constructed at Omaha Beach is destroyed by a huge storm in the Channel; a second Mulberry at Gold Beach handles 7000 tons of supplies daily throughout the Normandy Campaign