The response
German guns mowed down attacker after attacker at various points on the beaches of Normandy. The soldiers there had had plenty of time to get ready for an invasion; and when it came, they had plenty of targets, as Allied attackers forced their way through a maze of barbed wire, metal, and mines. The number of Germans thought to be in defensive positions at Normandy on June 6 was about 50,000. They had the element of being heavily fortified and, in the case of Omaha beach, occupiers of the high ground, from which they could fire very large guns with impunity. But the Allied force was three times that of the German force.

Allied airpower had also taken out a number of bridges that prevented counterattack measures at several key locations. As a result, German troops took sometimes long detours in order to reinforce the defenders on the beaches.

As well, the German counterattacks were not as lethal as they might have been because of a disagreement by two of Germany's top commanders, Rundstedt and Rommel that had to be mediated by Hitler himself. Rundstedt had been the commander originally in charge of constructing the Atlantic Wall; Rommel had finished the job. Rommel was firmly convinced that if the Allied force broke through on the beaches (no matter which beaches they broke through on), then the Allied advantage of airpower would neutralize any German advantage on the ground; therefore, Rommel wanted a large collection of reserves, featuring his vaunted panzer patrols, to be very near the beaches, in order to prevent this kind of breakout. Rundstedt was of the opinion that the reserves should be stationed between the beaches and the interior of France. Hitler agreed with Rundstedt.

It was Rundstedt who marshaled the initial defenses on D-Day because Rommel, thinking that the bad weather would preclude any Allied attack, was celebrating his wife's birthday far from the front. By the time he arrived on the scene, it was too late.

The next few days
It took five days, but the Allies finally secured all five beaches. Right away, troops turned to installing the pair of very large "Mulberry" temporary harbors. Those harbors would prove invaluable to supporting the beachhead in the following months. Ships from England unloaded about 2.5 million men, 4 million tons of supplies, and 500,000 vehicles at those harbors during the remainder of the war.

The Normandy landings were the largest amphibious invasion in history. By no means a sure thing, they succeeded despite considerable odds. Once Allied forces were established on the beaches of Normandy, they would not relinquish that control; rather, they were the ones doing the dictating, pushing German troops farther and farther back east. France was liberated in August 1944. What had started as a mission dependent on the whims of the tides had ended up turning the tide of the war in the Allies' favor. The pendulum would not swing back.

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