Instead, the Allies set their sights on Normandy, further west. Place being the Pas de Calais, the French coastline west of the Belgian border, which offered the shortest distance across the Channel, and the quickest route into Germany. The Germans knew an invasion was coming, but not when or where - the most likely Though the term was used to plan many operations, it is now most associated with the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, on 6 June 1944.įaced with such obstacles, as well as battle-hardened German forces led by the legendary General Erwin Rommel, the Allies decided that surprise would be their greatest weapon. For that reason, the term D-Day was used to refer to the day on which an attack was to begin. When planning a military operation, the specific date on which the attack would occur was not always known in advance. Strewn with layers of barbed wire, anti-tank ditches, mines and other obstacles designed to obstruct an invading army.

In fact, much of the French side of the English Channel had been turned into what was called the “Atlantic Wall” - mile after mile of concrete bunkers, machine gun nests, and other fortifications built by the Germans, overlooking beaches and tidal estuaries However, the disastrous 1942 raid on the French port of Dieppe, in which 3,369Ĭanadians were killed, wounded or captured, had convinced military planners that a seaborne assault against a well-defended port was folly ( see Dieppe Raid. The Allies needed a French harbour from which to supply and sustain a successful invasion force.

Tank force of nature tidal