Operation Tonga - Background

Background

Operation Tonga originated in the planning of Operation Overlord, the plan for the eventual invasion of France and the opening of a Second Front in North-Western Europe. Planning for the invasion of Europe by the Allies had begun in May 1943 when President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had met at the Washington Conference. The two Allied leaders decided that all available Allied forces in the theatre should be concentrated in Great Britain, and that planning for the invasion of North-Western Europe should begin. A provisional target date of May 1944 was set, the code-name Overlord decided upon, and a joint Anglo-American planning staff created under Lieutenant-General Frederick E. Morgan, who was given the title of Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC). Planning then began for the invasion of Europe, and even early plans for Overlord called for the commitment of airborne forces to support the ground forces and protect their landing areas. Operation Skyscraper, for example, called for the deployment of two airborne divisions to land near Caen the east coast of the Cotentin Peninsula in support of an invasion of Normandy by five divisions, whose objective would be the capture of Cherbourg and then breaking out to the east of Normandy. One ambitious proposal, "Plan C", was put forward by General George Marshall that would have involved a large airborne drop on the Seine, aiming to cut the German forces in half during D-Day itself.

A number of plans were eventually drawn up by Morgan and his cadre of staff officers for the invasion of Normandy, finally deciding that the invasion should take place on a thirty-mile front west of the River Orne, rejecting the need to capture the Pas De Calais and the ports there by calling for the creation of prefabricated artificial ports to ferry equipment and troops ashore once the initial landings had occurred. Morgan's final plan would utilise three divisions in the first assault, with airborne forces being dropped onto the town of Caen early on the first day to seize the first breakout route.

Following the appointment of General Bernard Montgomery to the command of the 21st Army Group, the plan underwent a number of further revisions, and on 21 January 1944 a revised Overlord plan was presented to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had been chosen as the Supreme Allied Commander for the invasion. The updated and revised plan widened the landing area to include all of the coastline between the River Orne and the eastern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula, to be taken with five divisions, with airborne divisions to land either side of the landing areas to secure their flanks and protect the landing troops from counterattack. The British airborne forces were to land in the east and the American airborne forces to land to the west of Bayeux to protect the flanks of the infantry and armoured units moving inland from the beaches.