D-Day

For John, BLUF:  A day to be thankful.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today is the 70th Anniversary of the Allied landings on the French Beaches in Normandy.  There were the Americans, the British, the Canadians, the French, and others.  The biggest Amphibious Operation in history.

D-Day is a generic term for the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated.  However 6 June 1944 is the best known D-Day, at least in the English Speaking world.

The landings themselves were Operation NEPTUNE.  The operational security efforts were Operation BODYGUARD.  The achievement of air superiority, needed to allow the landings, was via Operation POINTBLANK.  Operation OVERLORD was the battle for the beaches and the terrain beyond.  The Transportation Plan was the air effort to limit the ability of German forces to deploy and redeploy in France in response to the invasion.  A true joint effort, in that everyone played a part.

The unheralded hero of this whole operation was Group Captain James Stagg, the meteorologist for Operation OVERLORD.  From Wikipedia.

Group Captain James Stagg of the Royal Air Force (RAF) met with Eisenhower on the evening of 4 June.  He and his meteorological team predicted that the weather would improve sufficiently so that the invasion could go ahead on 6 June.

The German meteorological team in Paris got it wrong and senior German Commanders went on leave and were thus away when the landings started.  Bad luck.  Or bad science.  Or the Allies had the right weather observation stations in Greenland and Iceland.

Regards  —  Cliff