D-DAY LANDINGS continued...

...Montgomery and Rommel had fought each other in the Desert of North Africa. Therefore Monty understood only too well that his enemy in Normandy was a very capable General, commenting:

“Rommel has made a world of difference since he took over... he will do his level best to ‘Dunkirk’ us.”

To maintain secrecy, selected beach landing grounds were given codenames:

Strongly dependant on the tide and weather, the night of 4-5 June was chosen as the attack date. As bad weather moved in at the last minute, the invasion was postponed for 24 hours and thousands of soldiers, many hundreds of whom had already embarked, held their breath.

The invasion had to happen between the 5th and 7th of June in order to benefit from the right conditions of the moon and tide. Darkness was needed when airbourne troops went in but moonlight once they were on the ground. If this narrow time slot was missed, there would have been a further delay of at least two weeks. The next night's forecast, though not ideal, was better. At a final meeting at 0415 hours on 5th June, Eisenhower took the final gamble, rose from his seat and announced, “OK, we'll go.” ...