The invasion of Normandy in June 1944 was the culmination of three years of planning and preparation gathering by Allied forces in Britain. Landing in the face of determined German resistance, units of the British Commonwealth and U.S. armies established a beachhead, defeated German counter-attacks, and eventually broke out into a fast-moving campaign in France. By September 1944, Allied forces had liberated most of France and were poised to cross the Rhine river into Germany itself. In conjunction with Allied forces in northern Italy, and Soviet armies moving into Poland and the Balkans, the total defeat of Nazi Germany was in sight.
Instrumental to Allied success was the American, British, and Allied naval and amphibious contingents at Normandy. In the year before D-Day, U.S. and Commonwealth forces trained and prepared for amphibious operations out of ports in southern England. In the weeks leading up to the invasion, minesweepers cleared the channel of mines while escorts and patrol aircraft attacked any German submarines that tried to operate in the English Channel. Battleships, cruisers and destroyers provided crucial bombardment of enemy fortifications both on the Normandy shore and, with the aid of Navy spotter teams, further inland. During the actual invasion, navy-manned landing craft shuttled troops ashore in the face of fierce enemy resistance. Once there, Navy beach battalions served under fire to facilitate the orderly flow of men, vehicles, and supplies from cargo and amphibious ships offshore. Navy field hospitals also provided aid to the wounded and transported them to ships for the voyage to hospitals in England.
Through all phases of the operation Navy combat artists Dwight Shepler, Mitchell Jamieson and Alexander Russo observed and recorded different aspects of this vast and complicated campaign. Though it was also filmed and photographed, the artwork they created helps convey a sense of the feelings and emotions behind the events. This exhibit presents all the art work produced before, during, and after the invasion by these three men.
Pre-invasion: Planning and Preparation
Preparations for the Allied invasion of Normandy were unprecedented in scale and complexity. In addition to accumulating hundreds of thousands of soldiers and millions of tons of material in Britain, the Allies gathered hundreds of specialized landing craft in ports across southern England. These would play a critical role in delivering the Allied assault troops to the French beaches. Given the presumed difficulties in seizing French habors from their German garrisons, the Allies designed and built huge metal and concrete artificial harbors--later called "mulberries"--for tow to the Normandy beaches. Once the American and Commonwealth assault troops had secured beachheads in France, the mulberries would make unloading cargo ships easier and faster than carrying supplies over the beach.
Crossing the Channel
The training was finished, although the invasion troops did not know that until they were on their ships headed across the English Channel on the night of June 5-6, 1944. Once on board, they received their first briefings as to what their missions would be. After that they were left to make such preparations as were needed or to be alone with their inner thoughts. In the pre-dawn hours of June 6, the invasion troops would receive the traditional pre-invasion breakfast of steak and eggs, after which they would take up personal weapons and equipment and stand by, waiting for the order, "Land the landing force!"
D-Day, 6 June 1944
The Allied navies had several roles in the invasion. Underwater demolition swimmers ("frogmen") swam ashore to destroy underwater obstacles to the landing craft. Minesweeping ships combed the offshore waters for anti-ship mines. A fleet of transports carried the invasion troops across the channels, while squadrons of landing craft, skippered by Navy coxswains took them the final distance to the beaches. Divisions of battleships, cruisers and destroyers fired pre-landing bombardments to destroy German beach fortifications and "soften up" the enemy. And naval beach battalions went ashore under fire to take charge of logistical traffic on the beaches and to care for and evacuate the wounded.
The Wounded
The German defenses on the Normandy beaches were formidable and well designed, while the troops manning them were efficient and well-disciplined veterans. They imposed a terrible toll on the Allies. Every battle has its wounded and dead – Normandy was no different.
The Dead
Unlike later wars, where combat fatalities were airlifted back to the United States for burial in family or national military cemeteries, the Allied dead of the Normandy invasion were buried close to where they fell. The decomposing bodies represented a health risk to the living, so it was important to bury them as soon as it could be done safely. Rather than use Allied troops for this purpose, the Allies put German prisoners of war to work laying out the cemeteries, digging graves, and interring the combat slain. This simultaneously freed Allied soldiers for more vital tasks elsewhere in the combat zone, while preventing the Germans from sitting idle. The cemetery contains both German and Allied casualties.
The Prisoners
The advancing allied troops took numerous German prisoners of war during their advance from the beach into the hinterland. After being segregated into groups of officers and enlisted men and assembled on the beach, the captured Germans would be transported to prisoner of war camps in Britain. The war was over for them.
Wreckage
The flotsam and jetsam of battle lay strewed about the battlefield. During the Normandy landings, German beach obstacles and defenses destroyed numerous Allied landing craft and vehicles in the approaches or on the beaches themselves. These twisted hulks were prominent reminders of the price paid for the successful invasion.
Beyond the Beach
Soon after the Allied invasion troops fought their way off the landing beaches, they encountered the communities of those they had come to liberate. Although the price in devastation was high as the fighting swirled through their streets, the liberating result to the inhabitants was much preferable to the continued presence of their Nazi occupiers.
Cherbourg
One of the Allied objectives after landing in Normandy was the capture of the port city of Cherbourg, with its facilities that could be used for landing reinforcements and materiel. Cherbourg was also a target because it was a great base for Nazi U-boats, protected from Allied bombing and gunnery by massive concrete "pens." Although war's destruction was evident, the Allies captured Cherbourg with its port relatively intact.
Mulberry
One of the singular logistical achievements associated with the Normandy invasion was the gigantic artificial harbors, or "mulberries," that were designed, built, and transported to the landing beaches, which lacked the natural harbor facilities that would be vital to continued support of the invasion. Prefabricated in English ports, these "mulberries" and the artificial breakwaters (designed to prevent pounding by the sea) were laboriously towed across the Channel immediately after the invasion and assembled. They allowed deep-water Allied cargo ships to unload their cargoes quickly and efficiently. Also the LST's could do a quick turn around because they did not have to wait 12 hours for the tide to come in. A far larger amount of cargo moved ashore on artificial causeways.
The Storm of 19-20 June, 1944
The weather was always an unknown factor. Storms in the English Channel have always been violent, with the wind whipping the waves in the confined area between Normandy and England. The great storm of June 19-20 succeeded in doing what the Germans had not been able to do - destroy the great "mulberry" artificial harbors.
Beach Activity
As the fighting moved inland from the invasion beaches, they became hives of activity. Reinforcements arrived across the English Channel from Britain and thousands of tons of supplies came over on transport ships to increase the Allies' might. All was not quiet for the troops on the beaches or the ships awaiting their turns to unload - German warplanes swooped in to bomb and strafe, while German artillery (until it was driven out of range) continued to shell the beaches, making them places of continued danger.