D-DAY - Operation Neptune - Normandy Invasion 31,000 Page Document Collection

D-DAY - Operation Neptune - Normandy Invasion 31,000 Page Document Collection

A 31,438-page collection made up of a compendium of 8 BACM Research document collections including:

World War II: War Department Amphibian Command Records 1942-1944 & Amphibious Warfare Documents 

World War II: D-Day President Roosevelt and War Department Planning and Operational Documents

World War II: United States Army 82nd Airborne Division Action & After-Action Reports 

World War II: Allied Air Force D-Day/Operation Overlord Planning Documents

D-Day - Invasion of Normandy Artwork (1944-1945) 

D-Day Invasion of Normandy - Operation Overlord Documents and Photos

British Foreign Office File on Assassination Priorities for Operation OVERLORD

World War II: D-Day Frontpage News 

Short Descriptions

World War II: War Department Amphibian Command Records 1942-1944 & Amphibious Warfare Documents 

This collection contains a total of 11,571 pages of Correspondences, Reports, Memoirs, Monographs, Books, After Action Reports, Maps and Photographs. They cover the inception, development, training, administration, implementation, and review of all aspects of amphibious warfare used by the United States in World War II. The materials date from 1942 to 2019.


World War II: D-Day President Roosevelt and War Department Planning and Operational Documents

6,143 pages of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Roosevelt Administration’s War Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff files related to Operation Overlord, the invasion of Northwestern Europe entering through Northern France. The invasion is commonly known today as D-Day. The material also includes information about Operation Anvil. Anvil was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence (Southern France) on 15 August 1944. The operation was initially planned to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, the Allied landing in Normandy, but the lack of available resources led to a postponement of the second landing.

Materials include: Correspondences between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, strategic studies, intelligence reports, outline plans, operational reports, minutes of FDR meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, FDR drafts of speeches with handwritten notations and changes, plans for and minutes of the meetings between President Roosevelt, Marshal Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill


World War II: United States Army 82nd Airborne Division Action & After-Action Reports 

9,313 pages of after-action material including administration papers, administration orders, journals and messages, terrain studies and, records of combat, periodic reports, narrative histories, German POW interrogation reports, operation memoranda and maps.

Normandy

The 82nd Airborne as part of Operation Neptune, conducted Mission Boston. On 5 and 6 June, the 82nd Airborne landed paratroopers, parachute artillery elements, and the 319th and 320th. During the 6 June assault, a 508th platoon leader, First Lieutenant Robert P. Mathias, would be the first U.S. Army officer killed by German fire on D-Day. On 7 June, after this first wave of attack, the 325th GIR would arrive by glider to provide a division reserve.

In addition to Normandy materials cover Sicily and Italy, The Battle of the Bulge, and the Occupation of Germany.


World War II: Allied Air Force D-Day/Operation Overlord Planning Documents

3,608 pages of material. 2,290 pages of Royal Air Force copies of original source material, Allied Air Force messages, reports, directives, and other records related to the plans and operations of Allied Air Force Units for D-DAY - Operation Overlord - Normandy Invasion. Plus 1,318 pages of related secondary source material - official military histories.

Categories of the BIGOT classified Allied Air Force Overlord documents in this collection from Royal Air Force include:

Photographic Reconnaissance and Interpretation, Antiaircraft Defense on the Continent in Connection with Overlord, Buildup of U.S. Army Air Forces in the UK, Crossbow - Current Operations and effect on Overlord, Operations Eclipse and Talisman, Operation Linnet, and Barrage Balloons.


D-Day - Invasion of Normandy Artwork (1944-1945) 

186 paintings, drawings and sketches created by U.S. Navy combat artists before, during, and after the D-Day invasion.


D-Day Invasion of Normandy - Operation Overlord Documents and Photos

192 pages of documents and 158 photographs covering D-Day, Operation Overlord


British Foreign Office File on Assassination Priorities for Operation OVERLORD

Dated twenty-one days before the D-Day launch of Operation OVERLORD, the first memo in a 40-page file designated as FO 1093/292, has the subject “Assassination Priorities for OVERLORD,” and states, "The Chief of Staff has asked me to look into this, and to advise him about suitable candidates to whom attention might be paid, prior to, on and after 'D' day. On the German side Stulpnagel, Runstedt, and Rommel look likely, but there may be some Vichy collaborators whose removal from the scene would assist."

World War II: D-Day Frontpage News 

227 Full Sheet American newspaper frontpage pages from the first week of D-Day. The news as covered by several American newspapers, starting on June 4, 1944. Newspapers from Alaska to Hawaii to St. Croix to Connecticut covering the news reported on the initial days of the allied D-Day invasion of Northern France.


The files in all collections contain a text transcript of all computer recognizable text embedded into the graphic image of each page of each document, creating a searchable finding aid. Text searches can be done across all files in the collection