The weather forecast

Eric Postles remembers 4^th June 1944:

“We were given our final briefing and told our destination was Normandy and that we would be landing about 4 hours after H hour (the time of the invasion).  Our beach code name for 50 Division was Gold and we would land between Le Hamel and La Rivière in JIG* sector following 69 and 151 Brigade**.  Later we would be part of a 7^th Armoured Division and 50 Div push with Villers Bocage as our objective.  We were given maps of the area which showed the German defences, pill-boxes, mined areas and barbed wire.  Everyone was issued with French francs, which were charged to our account.  They proved useful for the card schoolers. 

We cleaned our weapons, read old Readers Digests and slept.  We carried no identity papers.  We moved out of the Solent with ships of various kinds all around us, most of which had a barrage balloon to protect from air attack.  However we were told not to proceed as the weather was deteriorating but next day it was decided that the invasion was on.”  (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

*Gold Beach was the landing area between Port-en-Bessin to the west and La Rivière in the east, divided into sectors ‘How’, ‘Item’, ‘Jig’ and ‘King’.  High well defended cliffs at the western end restricted most of the landing to the flat beach between Le Hamel (next to ‘Jig’) and La Rivière (nearest to ‘King’). 

The plan was for the initial assault on ‘Jig’ to be led by 231 Brigade (the 1st Hampshires on the right and the 1st Dorsets on the left - the Dorsets were Dick’s original regiment - followed by the 2^nd Devons).  On ‘King’ the first wave were 69^th Brigade with the East Yorkshires on the left and Green Howards on the right with 151 Brigade (Durham Light Infantry) following up as the second wave.  47 Commando was to land on ‘Item’ and capture Port-en-Bessin, to the west of Gold beach.

"The time is at hand to strike − to break the Western Wall and into the Continent of Europe. To you, officers and men of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division, has been given the great honour of being in the vanguard of this mighty blow for freedom" — Maj-Gen Douglas Graham, Commander of 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division

 

With the weather rapidly deteriorating the Allies could not proceed with the planned invasion of France on June 5^th.  However, an improvement in the weather was forecast for 6^th June and Eisenhower took the decision that this would be D-Day.  The Allies had impeded German weather forecasting by seizing their stations in the north Atlantic and the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) concluded from their meteorological reports that there was no question of an invasion between 5th and 7th June because of bad weather.  They even cancelled their patrols in the Channel on the night of 5th June!  (See 'The Weather on D-Day' from ‘Air: The Restless Shaper of the World’ by William Bryant Logan, W. W. Norton & Company.)

On the night of 4^th June the RAF carried out heavy raids against German coastal batteries and fortifications in Normandy. They were also bombing a wide range of other targets, to maintain the deception of a potential landing at Calais and cut communication routes to Normandy. Fighter planes swept the skies to prevent the Luftwaffe from flying over the invasion force. (Only two German planes got through, flying over the invasion beaches on D-Day). (See Operation Overlord.) 

French towns were also deliberately bombed to block transport junctions, preventing the movement of German forces towards the Allies’ bridgehead.  Some 15,00 French civilians were killed and 19,000 others seriously injured in the lead-up to D-Day. 

Although Rommel's Army Group B, defending 'the Western Wall' of the Channel Coast, were expecting an invasion they did not know where or when so their forces were dispersed.  Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was Commander-in-Chief in western Europe with 41 Divisions in northern France: the Seventh Army guarding Brittany and Normandy and 15^th Army in the east (the Pas de Calais) with Panzer Group west.  Unknown to the Allies 21^st Panzer, south of Caen, was within reach of the Normandy beaches. 

On 5^th June most of 7^th Army’s Senior Officers went to Rennes for a war games exercise and Rommel, having received the weather forecast, had gone to Germany to celebrate his wife’s birthday.

(From ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings, Macmillan 2016 edition)