SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- On June 6, 1944, “The eyes of the world...,” as President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote, were watching over 150,000 Allied soldiers and almost 70,000 vehicles stormed the beaches of Normandy, France.
The Allied Expeditionary Force that began the eventual liberation of Europe on “D-Day” was comprised of American, Canadian, and British forces that landed on five beaches codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.
Originally, the invasion of France (codename: Operation Neptune) was planned for June 5, 1944, by Eisenhower and other Allied Commanders.
Group Captain James Stagg, the Scotsman in charge of teams of meteorologists leading up to D-Day, had to deliberate with his forecasters between two sets of forecasted conditions for the morning of June 5.
The American forecasters, using rudimentary methods, believed that the environments across the English Channel and French Shoreline would be suitable for the invasion fleet.
Inversely, the British and Norwegian teams predicted, with newer forecasting techniques, dense fog and thunderstorms.
Stagg agreed with his own countrymen and the Norwegians, advising Ike hours in advance to delay Operation Neptune by one day to June 6.
While the Allied forces still ran into breezy and cloudy weather that caused paratroopers and ships to miss their landing zones, their soldiers and equipment fared much better than what would’ve happened the day before.
After D-Day, Stagg had written to Eisenhower that if the invasion was delayed anymore, the Allies would have run into “...the worst Channel Weather in 20 years.”
Eisenhower replied, “Thanks and thank the gods of war we went when we did.”