- The D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, was a massive and complex military operation involving hundreds of thousands of military personnel.
- Allied war planners spent months preparing the attack, devising numerous plans for a spearhead advance into German-occupied northwestern Europe.
- One of the commanders, British General Bernard Montgomery, simply compiled the largest land, air and sea battle plan in military history on a single sheet of paper.
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The D-Day Allied invasion of the Nazi-occupied beaches of Normandy, France, was one of the most complex military operations ever undertaken, but amidst the meticulous preparations and planning for the largest combined land, sea, and air operation in history, one commander kept it simple and wrote his war plan down on a piece of paper.
Starting on June 6, 1944, some 160,000 Allied soldiers, supported by thousands of ships and aircraft, parachuted into France or stormed its beaches. Allied war planners spent months planning the invasion, which would mark the beginning of the Allied spearhead operation into German-occupied Europe known as Operation Overlord.
read more: D-Day by the Numbers: What it took to pull off the largest amphibious invasion in history 75 years ago
British General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery served as the British and American ground commander under the command of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
His pencilled D-Day battle plan consisted of just one sheet of paper and included the note, “The key to it all is simplicity.”
Montgomery’s D-Day plans. Imperial War Museum
Montgomery’s plans, which were labelled “top secret”, were first published by the Imperial War Museum in 2016 to mark the 72nd anniversary of the invasion.
The museum also unveiled a handwritten draft of the general’s speech to Allied soldiers, which officers read to the invading forces just before the attack began.
“The time has come to deliver a terrible blow to the enemy in Western Europe,” the speech stated, and “this blow will be delivered by the combined naval, land, and air forces of the Allied Powers.”
“I wish you all the best,” Montgomery said. Conclusion His message was: “Have good hunting in mainland Europe.”