Normandy landings
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The Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, known by the codename Operation Overlord, were the largest amphibious invasion in history and the beginning of the liberation of western Europe. A planning conference in May 1943 had agreed a cross-Channel operation, and Dwight Eisenhower was appointed supreme commander in December 1943 to lead an army of more than a million men. The assault followed a long deception campaign, Operation Fortitude, which convinced the German high command that the blow would fall in the Pas-de-Calais. In the early hours of 6 June British, American and Canadian airborne divisions dropped behind five beachheads, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, while naval guns covered the landing craft. Casualties on Omaha beach were heavy, but the bridgehead was held. Through June and July the Allies fought through the bocage hedgerows, took Caen and Cherbourg, and broke out at Avranches with Operation Cobra. Paris was liberated in August, and by the end of the summer Germany had lost northern France and was again fighting on two fronts. German reinforcements were delayed by Allied air superiority, by the destruction of bridges in northern France and by sabotage from the French resistance on the night before the landing; the landings cost the Allies more than 10,000 killed and wounded on the first day.