D-Day: Commonwealth Sectors

Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandie

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This tour highlights the British and Canadian sectors of Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion. A second tour covers the American sections of the Normandy invasion, to the west. To protect its western front, Nazi Germany constructed a massive defensive line, the Atlantic Wall. The battle zone stretched from Norway all the way through to the Spanish border and was fortified with gun emplacements, machine-gun nests and anti-tank pillboxes all aimed at thwarting the soldiers progress up the beaches. There were miles of barbed wire fencing, over six million mines and an array of traps and obstructions designed to prevent craft from reaching the shore. Low lying river estuaries were kept flooded and deep underground command bunkers were constructed to coordinate operations. The renowned commander of the North Afrika Corps, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, took charge of the Atlantic Wall in early 1944. He felt the defenses were inadequate and set about improving them even further. While addressing his generals about the possibility of invasion, Rommel said, "When they come, and they will come, it will be the longest day". Counter propaganda and deceptions had been spread to reinforce the belief that any invasion would come across the English Channel at Calais. However, the real battle plans were to land on five beaches in Normandy and create a beachhead from where the retaking of Western Europe could begin.