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The invasion had been given a weather warning in that those in the military’s Met Office considered a sea crossing too dangerous. The plan was to land about 135,000 men on D-Day and about 20,000 vehicles. The Americans were to take Utah and Omaha beaches, the British were to take Gold and Sword beaches and the Canadians Juno beach. The first day’s assault targeted 5 beaches code-named Juno, Sword, Gold, Omaha and Utah. This all had to be done before any consideration could be made for the actual landings! This lead to the making of PLUTO – Pipe Line Under The Ocean – an underwater fuel pipe line from England to Normandy. A fuel line would be an obvious target for the German defenders – but not if it was under the water of the Channel. How difficult would these be to an Allied landing? Would these “dragon’s teeth” stop landing craft from doing their job?Īll the military had to be supplied with fuel. The defences planned by Field Marshall Erwin Rommell were assessed. What would happen if the sand or shingle was too fine to allow the movement of vehicles on the beaches? What would happen if the beaches got clogged up with vehicles that simply could not be moved? What if the beaches were too steep for military vehicles to operate effectively, leaving them open to German weapons? The planned landing would require a large number of tanks and armoured vehicles to be landed along with infantry. The beaches were secretly surveyed so that the Allies could find out about the sand/shingle on the beaches. Technical planning for D-Day had to start early. The length of the sea crossing made it an unlikely landing spot for the Allies – this is what the Allies hoped that the Germans would think. Why did the Allies decide to launch their invasion from Normandy? Intelligence reports suggested that the Normandy region was less well defended than the area around Calais.