How daring innovations allowed the Allies to land on the beaches of Normandy in 1944
It’s been 80 years since D-Day, the day on which the Allied forces of World War II invaded the beaches of Normandy, France, as part of Operation Overlord. On 6 June 1944, more than 156,000 Allied soldiers fought the Nazis occupying the area, leading to the end of the German occupation of France and paving the way for the Allies’ victory in Europe.
The innovative technology that was invented during the buildup to D-Day contributed massively to the effectiveness of the landings. From mathematical machines that provided crucial pre-attack information to the silent arrival of troops and vehicles that could neutralise Germany’s defences, the D-Day landings were very strategically planned.
Specialised vehicles adopted new technological add-ons, such as the carpet-laying tank. This vehicle was deployed first onto the sandy beaches to lay down reinforced matting onto the soft sand, creating a surface that other vehicles could move easily across.
Planning for D-Day began in December 1941. Millions of men and women were trained and new equipment produced. The result was a well-executed plan, backed up by new technologies, that caught the German army off guard.
TIDE-PREDICTING MACHINE
This device helped the Allies plan a low-tide invasion, when German defence obstacles were exposed
The beaches at Normandy were covered in explosive obstacles by the Germans.
They believed that the Allies would attack at high tide, when they could sail all the way to land, with less beach to cross while under fire. However, the Allies spotted the underwater traps from the air during low tide and planned to invade when they were exposed instead. To launch their invasion as efficiently as possible, the Allied troops needed to know the precise timings of the tide, including the exact time of low tide for the day of the attack and the speed that the tide would rise.
To calculate the tides, British mathematician Arthur Thomas Doodson used two tide-predicting machines before inventing his own. The machines he used were the Kelvin machine, designed by Sir William Thomson, and the Edward Robertsdesigned machine. Tide-predicting machines used interconnected gears, each representing different gravitational forces of the Moon, Sun and the oceans. They moved at different rates based on the data inputted. By turning the knobs to adjust the settings to different times, the positions of the Sun and Moon were calculated and the tide heights deciphered. These mechanical calculators were vital tools in planning t
