D-Day Timeline
Interactive timeline focused on the
events leading up to and following
Operation OVERLORD
D-Day Timeline, 1944
January 15
January 16
May 8
June
March
June 4
May
June 6
May
June18-21
January 15, 1944
• Erwin Rommel placed in command of Army
Group B, splitting command for German
troops in the West between Rommel, Von
Rundstedt, and Hitler, who personally controls
the Panzer tank divisions
January 16, 1944
• Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower assumes duties as
Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary
Force, to oversee Operation OVERLORD, the
Allied invasion of Europe at Normandy
March 1944
• Lt. General George S. Patton placed in
command of First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG) in
and around Dover, a mostly fictitious army
and the capstone of FORTITUDE South
May 1944
• Due to success of Operation FORTITUDE,
Germans believe that there are twice as many
Allied divisions assembling in Britain as actually
were; von Rundstedt placed in command over
Rommel’s Army Group B
May 1944
• French Allied agents send to London 700 radio
reports and 3,000 written descriptions on
German military positions
May 8, 1944
• Eisenhower chooses June 5 as D-Day for the
Normandy invasion
June 1944
• By June, the Germans have fortified the “Atlantic Wall”
with 20 million cubic yards of concrete, 1.2 million tons
of steel, 6.5 million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines,
500,000 beach and underwater obstacles, and
thousands of Rommel’s Asparagus (anti-glider poles)
June 4, 1944
• D-Day postponed from June 5 to June 6 due to
bad weather; in Southern England, 175,000 men,
an armada of 5,333 ships and landing craft,
50,000 vehicles, and 11,000 planes sit poised to
attack secretly across the English Channel
June 6, 1944
• D-Day: Allies land in Normandy at five sites codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword; by
nightfall nearly all 175,000 men are ashore at a
cost of 4,900 casualties; Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic
Wall has fallen in less than one day
June 18-21 1944
• The Allies’ artificial harbor—or Mulberry—
constructed at Omaha Beach is destroyed by a
huge storm in the Channel; a second Mulberry at
Gold Beach handles 7000 tons of supplies daily
throughout the Normandy Campaign