Operations
As the day of the invasion approached, the weather in the
English Channel became stormy. Heavy winds, a five-foot swell at sea, and
lowering skies compelled Eisenhower to postpone the assault from 5 to 6 June.
Conditions remained poor, but when weathermen predicted that the winds would
abate and the cloud cover rise enough on the scheduled day of the attack to
permit a go-ahead, Eisenhower reluctantly gave the command. Expecting casualties
of up to 80 percent among the airborne forces, he traveled to an air base at
Newbury to bid farewell to the members of the 101st Airborne Division before
their tow planes and gliders carried them off to battle. A newspaper
General Eisenhower
talks with men of Company E, 502d Parachute Infantry Regiment, at the 101st
Airborne Division's camp at Greenham Common, England, 5 June 1944.
(National Archives)
man who accompanied Eisenhower later
told friends he had seen tears in the general's eyes.
The weather actually worked to the
Allied advantage. When the BBC broadcast the lines from Verlaine's poem
indicating commencement of the attack�Blessent mon coeur d'une longueur monotone
('[The violins of autumn] wound my heart with monotonous languor')�the 15th Army
in the Pas de Calais went on alert, but Rommel's Army Group B headquarters in
Normandy did nothing. The weather was so foul that no one believed an invasion
possible. Indeed, many commanders at 7th Army had already left for Brittany to
participate in an exercise designed, ironically, to simulate an Allied landing
in Normandy. Rommel himself was in Germany celebrating his wife's birthday.
As planned, airborne units led the
invasion. Shortly after midnight the British 6th Airborne Division dropped
northeast of Caen, near the mouth of the Orne River, where it anchored the
British eastern flank by securing bridges over the river and the Caen Canal. On
the other side of the invasion area, the U.S. 101st and 82d Airborne Divisions
dropped near Ste. Mere-Eglise and Carentan to secure road junctions and beach
exits from which the VII Corps could push to capture Cherbourg.
