ve infantry divisions, two American, two British, and one Canadian assigned to beaches code-named, from west to east, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. On D-Day, two American airborne divisions were to land behind the western end of the assault area and one British at the eastern, while amphibious armor was to swim ashore with the leading waves. The Americans constituted the U.S. 1st Army, under Major General Omar Bradley, the British and Canadians the British 2nd Army, under General Miles Dempsey. The British divisions had been under intensive training since 1942, the American since 1943. By May 1944, intensive logistic preparations provided almost 6,500 ships and landing craft, which would land nearly 200,000 vehicles and 600,000 tons of supplies in the first three weeks of the operation. The invasion would be supported by more than 13,000 fighter, bomber, and transport aircraft, against which the Luftwaffe (the German air force) was able to deploy fewer than 400 on D-Day. Between April 1 and June 5, 1944, the British and American strategic air forces, deploying 11,000 aircraft, flew 200,000 sorties, dropping 195,000 tons of bombs on French rail centers and road networks as well as German airfields, radar installations, military bases, and coastal artillery batteries. Two thousand Allied aircraft were lost in these preliminaries, but the air campaign succeeded in destroying all the bridges across the Seine and Loire rivers and thus isolating the Normandy Invasion area from the rest of France. The Luftwaffe staff was forced to accept the fact that the outstanding factor both before and during the invasion was the overwhelming air superiority of the enemy. The air campaign was designed not only to disrupt German anti-invasion preparations but also to serve as a deception operation. Two thirds of the bombs were dropped outside the invasion area, in an attempt to persuade the enemy that the landings would be made northeast of the Seine ...
