PLANNING AND PREPARATION continued...

...At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to make May 1st 1944 the target date for invasion of Europe.

The Combined Chiefs considered two main invasion sites: the Pas de Calais, at the English Channel’s narrowest point of only 26 miles, and Normandy further west.

Exploiting superior British Maritime Power, they agreed on Normandy; it was less obvious and, according to reconnaissance, less heavily defended. Work began on two huge floating sectional harbours which could be towed to France and put into use on the northern coastline after the invasion had succeeded.

Winston Churchill brought Major General Hobart back from retirement to design a new armoured division composed of ‘funnies’, specialist vehicles which would help attackers get ashore and overcome beach defences. In addition to the naval plan for the invasion (NEPTUNE) and the invasion itself (OVERLORD), a deception plan (FORTITUDE) would seek to persuade the Germans that the Pas de Calais would be attacked and that Normandy was a diversion.

Developing a series of deception operations aimed at obscuring the true place and time of D-Day the Allies did everything they could to convince the enemy that it was in Calais that the real invasion would strike. This involved the creation of fake armies, the sending of fictional radio traffic, the delivery of false spy reports and the mounting of elaborate but fabricated security plans.

To divert attention from the real troops in training, a fake army of a million men, named the First United States Army Group, was created. Tanks, trucks and armour were constructed of inflatable rubber and plywood supplied by a British film studio in order to deceive German reconnaissance planes.

By this point the Germans knew that invasion was likely. Their forces in France and the Low Countries were under the command of General Gerd Von Rundstedt, whilst Army Group B was under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the 'Desert Fox'. In December 1943 Hitler declared:

”The attack will come; there’s no doubt any more. If they attack in the West, that attack will decide the war. If this attack is repulsed the whole business is over. Then we can withdraw troops right away.” ...