Bayeux was captured on 7 June but the lodgement area was smaller than anticipated, with determined German resistance being encountered. Between 16 and 30 June, the British Second Army mounted a series of operations to capture Caen, but it remained in German hands. Finally, after a bombardment by 420 heavy bombers from
RAF Bomber Command on 7 July, Caen was taken on 9 July.
Operation Goodwood was launched on 18 July and to contain the British and Canadian forces, almost all the German armour was concentrated east of the
Orne River, paving the way for a successful advance in the American sector.
Organisation Corps and divisional administrative staffs landed on D-Day. The Second Army staffs began landing the following day, allowing it to assume administrative control on 11 June, but the restricted lodgement area made the corps headquarters reluctant to relinquish control of the depots and dumps around the beaches. The beach sub area commanders found themselves answerable to corps, army and when it arrived, 11 Line of Communications Area. On 14 June, with the lodgement area deep with a front long, Second Army assumed command of the beach sub areas, marking the end of the assault phase of Overlord. on 6 August 1944. Two army roadheads were created: No. 1 Army Roadhead for I Corps, and No. 2 Army Roadhead for XXX Corps. When the Canadian First Army assumed control of the British I Corps on 21 June, No. 1 Army Roadhead also passed to its control. Henceforth odd numbered roadheads served the Canadian First Army and even numbered ones the British Second Army. No. 2 Army Roadhead formed the nucleus of what became the Rear Maintenance Area (RMA) of the 21st Army Group. At the RMA, there was a Commander, RASC (CRASC) Supply units, who had eight BSDs, eight DIDs, 13 field bakeries and two field butcheries. There was also a CRASC Petrol Installation, whose command included 28 petrol depots and twelve mobile petrol filling centres (MPFCs). Each MPFC could refill up to 8,000 jerry cans per day. On 15 June, 151 Forward Maintenance Area was opened by XXX Corps. The FMA concept, which had been used with success in the Mediterranean theatre, was not part of British doctrine. Unlike divisions, which incorporated logistics units, a corps was a purely operational formation and not part of the logistical plan. Doctrine called for the use of pack trains, railway trains which would deliver days' supplies direct to a division. These had worked well in the Great War but had been found to be impractical in the Middle East and were never seriously considered for Overlord. The FMA was only a few miles from No. 2 Army Roadhead but the XXX Corps staff considered that it knew best, given its combat experience in the
North African Campaign and the
Allied invasion of Sicily. The other corps of Second Army followed suit and established their own FMAs. Under the FMA scheme, divisions drew maintenance from the FMA rather than the roadhead. The FMA allowed a corps to train newly arrived administrative units, to control the usage of ammunition by the divisions and alleviate the traffic congestion around Bayeux. The British Second Army gave tacit support for the practice, issuing an order that FMAs be called Field Maintenance Centres (FMCs), the original nomenclature in the Mediterranean. Henceforth, Second Army stocked the army roadhead and left the FMCs to the corps. The FMCs were manned using corps resources; each had two DIDs, a petrol depot, a transport company and two RASC composite platoons drawn from corps troops composite companies. Where possible, an MPFC was attached to each FMC. Occasionally they had to be reinforced with some additional transport platoons from Second Army. This organisation allowed an FMC to be operated while another was established. Each FMC held two days' rations and one day's maintenance stocks, two or three days' petrol, which was about and of ammunition. Corps services such as the reinforcement centre, salvage unit, tank delivery squadron and ordnance field park tended to cluster around the FMC. By 26 July, 675,000 personnel, 150,000 vehicles, of stores and of bulk petrol had been landed. There was 23 days' reserves of stores and 16 days' reserves of petrol, with a day's supply of petrol being taken as enough to drive every vehicle . Confronted by German defences in depth, the British forces relied on air and artillery firepower. Any German artillery battery, once detected, could expect of shells on average. Ammunition reserves varied from five days' supply for the
5.5-inch medium guns to 30 days' supply for the
17-pounder anti-tank guns. Usage exceeded the seventy rounds per gun per day allocation for the
25-pounder guns by six rounds per gun per day and the allocation of fifty rounds per gun per day for the 5.5-inch guns by twelve per gun per day. Fears that the crowded lodgement area would prove a tempting target for the
Luftwaffe led to an overstock of anti-aircraft ammunition. Later shipments of anti-aircraft ammunition were cancelled and other types of artillery ammunition were substituted. The requirement for tank and anti-tank ammunition was also over-estimated. While it seemed to the Germans that the British Army had an unlimited supply of ammunition, this was not the case and a reason why heavy bombers were used to augment the artillery in Operation Goodwood.
Mulberry harbour artificial harbour in September 1944.
Barrage balloons have been deployed to protect it. No major ports were expected to be captured in the early stages of Overlord except
Cherbourg. The capture was expected to take three weeks and the port was not large enough to meet the Allied needs. Until a major port could be captured, maintenance would have to be over open beaches that were at the mercy of the weather. Two artificial
Mulberry harbours were planned: Mulberry A for the American sector and Mulberry B for the British sector. Work commenced in 1942 and prototypes were tested in 1943. Mulberry A was to have a capacity of per day and Mulberry B of . Each would handle 1,200 vehicles daily, and provide shelter for small craft. Mulberry breakwaters consisted of
blockships, concrete
caissons known as
Phoenix breakwaters and floating breakwaters known as
Bombardon breakwaters. Their construction consumed tens of thousands of tons of steel and cost £25 million. Each harbour had three piers, a barge pier and an LST pier, each with one roadway, and a stores pier with two floating roadways. When the Overlord plan was expanded in 1944, it was too late to enlarge the Mulberry harbours, so additional small craft shelters known as Gooseberries were provided, one for each invasion beach. The British Gooseberries were No. 3 at
Arromanches on Gold Beach, No. 4 at
Courseulles on Juno Beach and No. 5 at
Ouistreham on Sword Beach. Construction of Mulberry B commenced near
Arromanches on Gold Beach on 9 June and coasters began discharging inside the breakwaters on 11 June. The first coaster discharged over the store pier roadway on 18 June. A severe storm—the worst recorded in June in forty years—swept over the channel between 19 and 22 June. The storm halted discharge of personnel and supplies for 24 hours, destroyed Mulberry A and severely damaged Mulberry B. Components of Mulberry A were salvaged and used to repair and complete Mulberry B. Phoenix caissons were filled with sand to give them greater stability. The second roadway to the stores pier was opened on 6 July. By this time the sheltered area designed for 16 coasters was in use by seven
Liberty ships and 23 coasters. It exceeded its designed daily capacity of , averaging . The ships discharged over their sides into DUKWs and
Rhino ferries. Ten of the eleven DUKW companies worked Mulberry B. Some 36 DUKWs were lost in the first five days. DUKWs were able to operate safely inside the harbour every day except during the storm. Due to it, the LST pier planned to service twenty LSTs per day from 18 June was not opened until 20 July and LSTs had to be dried out—beached and left stranded at low tide while unloading continued. Royal Navy misgivings about drying out store carrying LCTs had been overcome during the planning stages, but it now became necessary to dry out LSTs as well, with considerable consequent damage that was beyond the capacity of the naval repair teams, which slowed LST turnaround. Because of the storm, only of stores were landed by 29 June instead of the planned . The main effect was a shortage of ammunition, particularly for the
25-pounders and 5.5-inch guns, for which demand had been unexpectedly heavy. A high priority was given to additional shipments, with petrol, oil and lubricant (POL) shipments cut to compensate. On 20 June, the Navy agreed to allow ammunition ships to enter Mulberry B, even though this was acknowledged to be very dangerous. An additional arrived by 27 July, averting a crisis.
Minor ports brings ammunition ashore at
Arromanches on 22 June 1944. In addition to the Mulberry, small ports were used; Courseulles, which was mainly used by fishing boats, had a draught of , making it suitable only for shallow-draught vessels, such as barges. A daily average of was unloaded there in June, rising to in July and August. Operations ceased on 7 September.
Port-en-Bessin was operated as a bulk petroleum terminal, servicing both the British and American forces. Shallow-draught
oil tankers drawing up to could enter the port and larger tankers up to could discharge using Tombolas, floating ship-to-shore lines. Two ship-to-shore lines were in operation by 25 July, and six tanker berths were in operation, with pipelines connected to the bulk petroleum storage terminal, which had a capacity of of petrol and of
aviation fuel. The port was opened to store ships on 12 June, and to tankers on 24 June. Some of petrol was discharged by 31 July, and a daily average of of stores were discharged until the port was closed on 25 September. Cherbourg was captured by the Americans on 27 June but it was very badly damaged and was not opened to shipping until 16 July. Some of its daily capacity was allocated to the British. It contained the only deep-water berths in Allied hands and was useful in reducing the load on Port-en-Bessin. The railway line from Cherbourg to Caen commenced operation on 26 July, using rolling stock captured near Bayeux. The lack of deep water berths meant that a large proportion of the supplies shipped went in coasters that could discharge at the small ports rather than in large, ocean-going Liberty ships. It was hoped that Cherbourg could handle large and awkward loads, but it had been so badly damaged that it was not sufficiently rehabilitated to do so until late August. In the meantime, they were shipped already loaded on transporters, or unloaded from lighters by cranes at Courseulles or Port-en-Bessin. Although
manifests were flown across each day, there was still trouble identifying cargo. A commendable but misplaced desire to use all available cargo space often led to one type of stores overlaying another. The result was mixed loads of stores being unloaded into the DUKWs, with a slowing of their turnaround time if they had to deliver to two different inland dumps. To reduce turnaround time and wear on the DUKW tyres, which were in short supply, transshipment areas were established where the DUKWs could transfer their loads to ordinary lorries. There were timber platforms with a mobile crane at one end. DUKWs were loaded by depositing supplies on them over the side of ships in a cargo net. Each DUKW had been equipped with two of these in the UK. A control tower overlooking the port area used a
loud hailer to direct the DUKWs to numbered platforms where a crane would remove the load. The DUKW would be given a replacement cargo net and head back out to the ship. The platform was large enough to permit some sorting of the stores. They would be loaded onto lorries backed up to the other side of the platform, either by hand or using roller runways. Because the shipping plan was so detailed, with everything carefully planned and scheduled in advance, timely and frequent alterations could not be tolerated. To make up for this, a system of "express coasters" was provided, which could carry a known tonnage of whatever was required on a given day. These carried unexpected and unforeseen demands, such as
baling wire to help French farmers with their harvests. The British beaches were closed on 3 September 1944. By this time had been discharged through small ports, over open beaches, and through Mulberry B. This meant that 25 per cent of the total tonnage had been landed through Cherbourg and the small ports, 12.5 per cent through Mulberry B, and 62.5 per cent over the beaches. The tonnage handled over the beaches greatly exceeded the expectations of the planners; but it is unlikely that the invasion would have been launched in the first place without the reassurance provided by the Mulberry.
Ordnance . In the first four weeks, stores were landed in Landing Reserve packs, each made up of about 8,000 cases containing a mix of stores intended to support a brigade group or the equivalent for thirty days. After that, Beach Maintenance Packs were used. These were similar, but contained a wider variety of stores to support a division for thirty days. Each contained about 12,000 cases, weighing about . Six Ordnance Beach Detachments landed on D-Day, along with two ammunition companies, two port ammunition detachments and a port ordnance detachment. The vessel carrying the recce party of 17 Advanced Ordnance Depot was torpedoed and most of the party was lost. A new party was organised, which arrived with the advance party on 13 June. The planned site for the depot near Vaux was satisfactory but at first, the area was occupied by two infantry divisions and the depot opened on 2 July. A vehicle park was established in the vicinity by 17 Vehicle Company on 13 June, mobile baths and laundries landed on 18 June and an industrial gas unit on 24 June to produce oxygen and
acetylene for the workshops. The recce party of 14 Advanced Ordnance Depot landed on 28 June, and established the main RMA at
Audrieu. The area was drained and 200 steel framed huts were erected. On 11 June, 17 Base Ammunition Depot arrived and began co-ordinating the stores and ammunition depots. When 15 Base Ammunition Depot arrived on 18 June, it took over those in 104 Beach Sub Area, while 17 Base Ammunition Depot took over those in 101 and 102 Beach Sub Areas. The average daily tonnage handled by the two base ammunition depots in the first two months of the campaign was . Special "drowned" vehicle parks were established on the beaches for vehicles affected by water. Most swampings were caused not by faulty waterproofing but by landing craft discharging vehicles into more than of water. The recovery of vehicles on the beaches was a hazardous enterprise owing to shellfire, mines and aircraft. Some 669 vehicles were brought in for repair by XXX Corps workshops between 8 June and 19 June, of which 509 were repaired, the remainder being written off. I Corps workshops established a "help yourself" park of written off vehicles from which spare parts could be salvaged, the process being faster than obtaining them from the Beach Maintenance Packs, where correctly identifying parts was difficult. When the Americans developed the
Rhino tank attachment, the REME were asked to produce two dozen for British units. These were made in three days from steel salvaged from German beach obstacles. Seven British field artillery regiments were equipped with
M7 Priest self-propelled guns, which required scarce American ammunition and replaced them with
Sexton 25-pounder self-propelled guns, delivered from Britain by 15 Advanced Ordnance Depot. For
Operation Totalize, the Canadians converted the surplus Priests into
armoured personnel carriers, known as
Kangaroos, by removing the guns and welding over the front apertures. The conversion was carried out by Canadian and REME workshops.
Subsistence (QAIMNS) eating in the open at No. 79 General Hospital near Bayeux on 20 June 1944 In the Overlord planning, the 14-man
ration pack that had proved satisfactory in the North African Campaign was adopted for use after the initial assault until bulk rations could be issued. The problem was how to feed the troops in the first 48 hours, as the assault packs used in
Madagascar and
Operation Torch had been found to be too heavy and bulky proportional to their nutritional value. A new 24-hour ration pack was therefore devised for Overlord. Two proposed ration packs were tested under field conditions in June 1943 and a new 24-hour ration was produced that combined the merits of both. The resulting 24-hour ration pack was a ration that weighed and at could fit into the standard British Army
mess tin. The War Office then ordered 7.5 million of them, with a delivery date of 31 March 1944. Only by strenuous efforts was this achieved. The field service (FS) bulk ration was in general use by 21 July, although combat units continued using the ration packs for certain operations. The FS ration was entirely composed of preserved components but it was supplemented by shipments of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. Hospital patients began to receive fresh bread on 13 June, and it was in general issue by 5 August. The mixture of tea, sugar and powdered milk in the ration packs was widely disliked and advantage was taken of an order authorising the issue of tea, sugar and milk to troops engaged in "heavy and arduous" night work. As a result, a large proportion of the 21st Army Group became engaged in such activities, unbalancing the reserve ration stocks. There were also large unforeseen demands for
tommy cookers, compact portable stoves fuelled by
hexamine tablets that could provide men in a front line trench with a hot cup of tea.
Construction Engineering works were initially the responsibility of the Chief Engineer, Second Army. Engineer store dumps were established at Tailleville (No. 1 Roadhead), Bayeux (No. 2 Roadhead),
Ver-sur-Mer and
Luc-sur-Mer, with the engineer base workshop at Le Bergerie. Some 9,000 construction personnel and of engineer stores were earmarked for shipment to Normandy by 25 July, but owing to the Channel storm and lack of demand due to the restricted lodgement area, only 6,000 personnel and of engineer stores were landed. The main engineering tasks were the rehabilitation of the road network, the construction of airfields, the building of bridges, and the development of the bulk POL installation. By 26 July, the 21st Army Group had 152,499 vehicles in a lodgement area just wide and deep. Despite little or no maintenance during the war, the roads were found to be in better condition than expected but soon deteriorated under constant heavy military traffic. Potholes were filled in and bypasses constructed around villages with narrow streets that were suitable for one-way traffic only. Some additional bridges were erected to remove bottlenecks. A lack of timber was foreseen by the planners and was earmarked for shipment. This included 18,000 piles long and 47,000 pieces of squared timber. Five Canadian and two British forestry companies were in Normandy by the end of July, but the only sizeable source of timber in the lodgement area was the
Cerisy Forest, where there was about of
beech and
oak. As in the Great War, much trouble was experienced with trees that had been hit by shrapnel; mine detectors were used on them with mixed results. By 26 September, the forestry companies had produced of sawn timber and of firewood; five companies produced of gravel for construction purposes from ten quarries. Five Royal Engineers airfield construction groups and an RAF airfield construction wing were active by the end of June. By the end of July, they had established seventeen airfields in the lodgement area, of which eight were surfaced with square meshed steel and one with bitumised hessian runways. Thirteen of these airfields were in operation by the RAF on 26 July. Problems were encountered with dust, which caused aircraft not fitted with air intake filters to suffer from excessive engine wear. The problem was largely overcome by wet weather in July.
Salvage A field salvage unit and field collecting unit arrived on 14 June. Prior to that, small dumps of salvaged equipment were established by the beach groups under the direction of the Second Army salvage officer. By 29 June, six salvage dumps were operational and those at No. 2 Roadhead had handled over of materiel. The base salvage dump was opened in the RMA on 24 July. A major task was retrieving airborne equipment that lay strewn about the landing and drop zones, including gliders. Souvenir hunters were responsible for the loss of instruments and fittings from many gliders. Large numbers of parachutes were not recovered, owing to their being prized by soldiers and civilians alike for their silk. By 25 July, of stores had been returned to ordnance.
Casualties Field ambulances landed with the assault brigades and each beach group had a self-contained medical organisation with two field dressing stations, two field surgical units and a field transfusion unit; most were operational within 90 minutes of
H-Hour.
Casualty clearing stations and hospitals began arriving on 8 June, and these were concentrated in three medical areas, around
Hermanville-sur-Mer,
Reviers and
Ryes. On 12 June the installations in the Hermanville area moved to
Douvres-la-Délivrande to make way for an expansion of the nearby ammunition depot. In late June the area around Bayeux was developed as the main Line of Communications hospital area. When HQ Line of Communications assumed administrative command on 13 July, it took over the Bayeux and Reviers groups, while responsibility for the Délivrande group passed to the First Canadian Army. The fighting was less severe than anticipated and casualties were lower. By 26 July, 44,503 British and 13,323 Canadian reinforcements had been dispatched to the 21st Army Group. By the same date, 38,581 casualties had been evacuated by sea. Air evacuation began on 13 June and by 26 July 7,719 casualties were evacuated to the UK. Because of doubts about the availability of water in the lodgement area, large quantities of packaged potable water was shipped, particularly for the wounded on the beaches. The lower than expected casualties resulted in an accumulation of filled water containers which were not required. Casualties among the infantry were particularly severe; although infantrymen made only 20 per cent of the 21st Army Group, the infantry suffered 70 per cent of its casualties. On 16 August it was decided to disband the
59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division and the 70th Infantry Brigade of the
49th (West Riding) Infantry Division to provide infantry reinforcements for other units. The reinforcement section of the Rear HQ of 21st Army Group became overwhelmed by personnel matters unrelated to reinforcements, like transfers and psychiatric cases and the Organisation and Selection of Personnel Branches of GHQ Second Echelon were sent out, arriving on 16 September.
Provost Six POW camps were placed at the disposal of 21st Army Group. Each was staffed to cater for 200 officers and 2,000
other ranks. The first of these arrived on 7 June, and was employed as a collection and transit centre. The next arrived on 11 June, and established a POW camp near Arromanches. Camps had been established in the UK for up to 25,000 prisoners but only 12,153 were captured by 26 July. Most were German but there were also Russians, Poles and other nationalities. Most were taken to the UK, but some were retained for labour duties. POW escorts were provided by the War Office and were based at
Southampton. They crossed to Normandy on LSTs, collected the prisoners and took them back to the UK. This procedure did not work as well as planned, because the prisoners were not always ready to move when required, and the LSTs were unable to wait for them. The first CMP units to arrive landed on D-Day. These were three divisional provost companies, six beach provost companies, and two corps provost companies, which were used for traffic control. During the build-up phase, an additional company arrived with each division; four provost companies, four traffic control (TC) companies, and a vulnerable points (VP) company for each army and seven provost, seven TC and three VP companies for the Line of Communications Area. The VP companies were used to guard POWs. Delays in getting provost units ashore allowed traffic congestion to occur on the first two days, but the Line of Communications Area was established faster than planned when traffic congestion became a problem. One check point saw 18,836 vehicles pass it in a day, roughly one every four seconds. Despite all efforts, key towns like Courseulles and Bayeux soon became bottlenecks. Bypasses were built, and strict movement control was instituted. Under this regime, operational vehicles operated at night when the volume of administrative traffic was lighter. Five movement control groups, Nos 6, 17, 18, 19 and 20, were assigned to 21st Army Group. They did not operate as units, but were dispersed among the different headquarters. ==Breakout and pursuit==