A BLOODY
DAWN
Lieutenant Colonel Dan Harvey, now retired, served on operations at home and abroad for forty years, including tours of duty in the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans and South Caucasus, with the UN, EU, NATO PfP and OSCE. He is the author of Soldiering against Subversion: The Irish Defence Forces and Internal Security During the Troubles, 1969–1998 (2018); Into Action: Irish Peacekeepers Under Fire, 1960–2014 (2017); A Bloody Day: The Irish at Waterloo and A Bloody Night: The Irish at Rorke’s Drift (both reissued 2017); and Soldiers of the Short Grass: A History of the Curragh Camp (2016).
IN THIS SERIES
A Bloody Day: The Irish at Waterloo (2017)
A Bloody Night: The Irish at Rorke’s Drift (2017)
A Bloody Week: The Irish at Arnhem (2019)
A BLOODY
DAWN
THE IRISH AT D-DAY
DAN HARVEY
First published in 2019 by
Merrion Press
An imprint of Irish Academic Press
10 George’s Street
Newbridge
Co. Kildare
Ireland
© Dan Harvey, 2019
9781785372414 (Paper)
9781785372421 (Kindle)
9781785372438 (Epub)
9781785372445 (PDF)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Typeset in Bembo MT Std 11/15 pt
Cover front: American craft and personnel arrive at Omaha Beach, Irish amongst them, 6 June 1944. (World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo) Cover back: RAF Dakota, 6 June 1944. (Gary Eason/Flight Artworks/Alamy Stock Photo)
CONTENTS
1.Festung Europa (Fortress Europe)
7.Angriff! Angriff! (Raid! Raid!)
9.Defending Democracy on Gold Beach
Appendix 1: Second World War Operations
Appendix 2: Ireland’s British Army Generals in the Second World War
Appendix 3: A Chronology of the Second World War
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
