Operation Overlord D Day Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Operation Overlord D Day - Essay Example alysed the Allied military planning for Operation Overlord are blessed with the gift of hindsight, they know that Operation Overlord was a success that contributed to eventual Allied victory. The Second World War was after all the conflict in which Air power came to the fore, military and naval operations launched when air superiority was held were far more likely to succeed than operations carried out whilst an enemy power held air superiority. When a combined military, naval and air operation was as large and as extensive as Operation Overlord, its planners had to consider any potential threats to its success and the Air threat could be considered to be one of the most significant single obstacle to success. It could be argued that Allied over - estimations of the Air threat posed by the Luftwaffe did have a serious effect on the Operation Overlord planning. The Allies believed that the Luftwaffe remained a formidable opponent and therefore a serious and potent Air threat to the successful execution of the plans for Operation Overlord. The Luftwaffe in numerical terms still had thousands of operational aircraft, even if before Operation Overlord was launched, the majority of those aircraft were used upon the Eastern Front and in defending the Third Reich from the Allied strategic bombing campaign.1 For the Allied military planners tasked with making Operation Overlord a successful reality it was worth ensuring that the Allied Air Forces had enough operational aircraft available to establish air superiority over the projected landing areas to avoid a disastrous repulsion of Operation Overlord. Although the warships that were tasked with protecting the troop ships would carry a large complement of anti-aircraft guns they would have found it very difficult to overcome German air strikes against the invasion fleet without their own aircraft providing cover. Besides the landing craft that were needed to ferry the Allied troops to the beaches were the parts of