D-Day, 6 June 1944

4 Jun 1944 – 6 Jun 1944, 21:5954 items

invasionwar
“Into the Jaws of Death”: troops of the 1st Infantry Division wade ashore from a Coast Guard landing craft at Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944. Photo: Robert F. Sargent, U.S. Coast Guard. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
“Into the Jaws of Death”: troops of the 1st Infantry Division wade ashore from a Coast Guard landing craft at Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944. Photo: Robert F. Sargent, U.S. Coast Guard. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

From the airborne drops to nightfall

On 6 June 1944 the Western Allies landed in Normandy: three airborne divisions in the dark, then five infantry divisions across five beaches code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. This timeline follows the day hour by hour, with a short lead-in on the weather gamble of 4 and 5 June and a close at nightfall. Open the map: the drops, the bridges, the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc and each beach have a place.

The first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive… for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day. — Erwin Rommel, April 1944, as his aide Hellmuth Lang recalled it to Cornelius Ryan

By the numbers

  • about 156,000 Allied troops landed by sea and air

  • about 7,000 ships and landing craft

  • 4,436 Allied dead named by the National D-Day Memorial's Necrology Project (the long-cited figure was 4,414); more than 10,000 Allied casualties

  • 4,000 to 9,000 German casualties: nobody counted, and the estimates run that wide

Reading it

Bands mark the weather decision, the crossing, the night drops, the bombardment, the morning pinned down on Omaha and the German counterattack. Filter by airborne for the paratroops and gliders, beaches for the landings, maritime for the fleet, command for the decisions at the top, germany for the other side of the hill, and news for how the world heard.

All times are UTC. Both armies kept clocks two hours ahead (British Double Summer Time and German summer time), so H-Hour on Utah and Omaha, 06:30 in every account, is 04:30 here. The notes give the clock time the sources use. H-Hour came later the farther east the beach, because the tide rose from west to east.

Items

  1. The weather gamble

    1 day

  2. Invasion postponed a day

    Southwick House, near Portsmouth

  3. Rommel leaves for Germany

    Château de La Roche-Guyon

  4. Stagg forecasts a break in the weather

    Southwick House, near Portsmouth

  5. The crossing

    ≈ 16 hours, 30 minutes · Area Z (“Piccadilly Circus”) to the Bay of the Seine

  6. Eisenhower: “OK, let's go”

    Southwick House, near Portsmouth

  7. Eisenhower's Order of the Day

  8. The “In case of failure” note

  9. Eisenhower visits the 101st at Greenham Common

    RAF Greenham Common, near Newbury

  10. Verlaine on the BBC

  11. Phantom fleets

    5 hours · Off Cap d'Antifer

  12. The night drops

    ≈ 5 hours, 14 minutes

  13. Pathfinders jump

    Drop zones A, C and D of the 101st Airborne

  14. Gliders take Pegasus Bridge

    Bénouville bridge (Pegasus Bridge), Caen Canal

  15. 101st Airborne scattered behind Utah

    Drop zones A, C and D of the 101st Airborne

  16. 6th Airborne drops east of the Orne

    Drop zones N, V and K of the 6th Airborne, east of the Orne

  17. 82nd Airborne drops astride the Merderet

    Drop zones N, O and T of the 82nd Airborne, astride the Merderet

  18. Gliders crash at Hiesville

    Landing Zone E, near Hiesville

  19. Merville Battery stormed

    Merville Battery

  20. Sainte-Mère-Église taken

    Church of Sainte-Mère-Église

  21. Bombardment

    1 hour, 55 minutes

  22. Svenner torpedoed

    Off Sword Beach

  23. Amphibious tanks sink off Omaha

    Easy Red, below Colleville

  24. Omaha: pinned on the beach

    7 hours · Omaha Beach, Vierville to Colleville

  25. Utah Beach: H-Hour

    Utah Beach at La Madeleine, exit 2

  26. Company A at Dog Green

    Dog Green, below the Vierville draw

  27. Rangers climb Pointe du Hoc

    Pointe du Hoc

  28. Gold Beach: H-Hour

    King sector, La Rivière, Gold Beach

  29. Sword Beach: H-Hour

    Queen sector, La Brèche d'Hermanville, Sword Beach

  30. Juno Beach: H-Hour

    Courseulles-sur-Mer, Juno Beach

  31. Hollis wins the day's only Victoria Cross

    Mont Fleury battery, Ver-sur-Mer

  32. “Rangers, lead the way!”

    Dog Green, below the Vierville draw

  33. “Two kinds of people are staying on this beach”

    Easy Red, below Colleville

  34. Vehicle landings halted on Omaha

    Omaha Beach, Vierville to Colleville

  35. Lovat's commandos land to the pipes

    Queen sector, La Brèche d'Hermanville, Sword Beach

  36. Guns found at Pointe du Hoc

    Pointe du Hoc

  37. French commandos take the Ouistreham casino

    Casino strongpoint, Riva-Bella, Ouistreham

  38. Brécourt Manor

    Brécourt Manor, near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont

  39. Communiqué No. 1

    Senate House, University of London

  40. Destroyers close in off Omaha

    Omaha Beach, Vierville to Colleville

  41. Rommel gets the call

    Rommel's house, Herrlingen, near Ulm

  42. Rommel's drive back

    10 hours · Herrlingen to La Roche-Guyon

  43. Utah and the 101st meet at Pouppeville

    Pouppeville, behind Utah Beach

  44. Churchill tells the Commons

    Palace of Westminster, London

  45. Commandos reach Pegasus Bridge

    Bénouville bridge (Pegasus Bridge), Caen Canal

  46. “Advancing up heights behind beaches”

    Omaha Beach, Vierville to Colleville

  47. Caen bombed

    Caen

  48. Hitler releases the panzer reserve

  49. 21st Panzer counterattacks

    5 hours

  50. Tanks stopped on the Périers ridge

    Biéville and the Périers ridge

  51. Panzergrenadiers reach the sea

    Lion-sur-Mer

  52. Mallard: the evening gliders

    Landing Zone N, Ranville

  53. The King broadcasts

    Buckingham Palace, London

  54. Nightfall

    The Allied foothold at nightfall, roughly