**This is a guest post from Ryan Sweeney, the host of the View From the Skies Podcast and friend of the show**

Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy, D-Day, whichever name you call it, as military personnel, we all know the history, the story, the planning that went into the mission. Not only operational planning, but fake armies led by famous generals, deception with fake airborne troopers at Pas-de-Calais, leaked fake documents passed by spies, using sunken ships to create harbors, making tanks floatable, the list goes on and on. This was all done with the mission to seize, control and establish a beachhead to allow follow on forces to flow into France, liberate Paris, and then push on to Germany for the eventual victory in Europe.

The options were limited and essentially the enemy knew it was coming and there were only a few options as to where. It really broke down to when and the will to use every means imaginable to either gain control or keep control of that beachhead by the opposing forces. An armada had to launch as undetected as possible, at least for a period of time to tip the balances in the favor of the allies, across a stretch of sea, land on a beachhead and hold and establish a depth enough to allow the might of follow on forces to relatively freely flow into France.