No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces.

Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke, writing in 1871.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 434 The Longest Day, Part 3.

Today, I want to begin with the British and Canadian landings at Normandy.

These took place on three beach sites east of the two American beaches.

Their code names, reading from west to east, were gold, juno, and sword. I'm going to cover them in the opposite order, beginning with

Sword, the easternmost landing site, and then moving west. The landing force at Sword was made up of the British third infantry division, augmented with some

additional units. Facing them, and indeed facing all the invasion beaches except for Utah, which we

already talked about, was the German 352nd infantry division.

Positioned behind them and farther inland was the unit the British were most concerned about,

the 21st Panzer Division. This was one of the armored divisions Hitler assigned to Rommel.

You'll recall that Rommel believed that the battle would be won or lost on

the first day and wanted armor stationed close to the most likely invasion sites where it could be

ordered into battle as soon as the Allied landings came. The landing at Sord, as well as Gold and Juno,

began one hour later than the American landings.

This was due to the vagaries of the tides, which do not rise and fall everywhere at the same times.

The planners of this invasion were keen on the landings taking place at dawn and just after low tide.

Low tide, so the approaching landing craft could see any obstacles the Germans might have placed in the beach zone between the low and high water lines, and then as the invasion progressed, the rising tide would make it progressively easier for soldiers making the follow-up landings to arrive close to

the top of the beach.

Sword Beach received a heavy bombardment from the Royal Navy Battleships HMS Rameles and

war spite, along with four cruisers, including the Polish cruiser, ORP Dragon,

and 13 destroyers, including the Norwegian destroyer, H.N. OMS.M.S. Svener, which, as you know,

...