New Webpage for D-Day Records

Today’s post is written by Scott Ludwig, Archivist at the National Archives at College Park

Today marks the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, which was part of the larger Operation Overlord and the first stages of the Battle of Normandy, France (also referred to as the Invasion of Normandy) during World War II. It was a crucial event in the war and a culmination of years of Allied strategy and planning.  The success of D-Day allowed the opening of the Western Front of the War.

Here at the National Archives and Records Administration we have extensive holdings related to D-Day throughout the various archival units.  The Textual Records Division at the National Archives at College Park has created a webpage that features some of the records in our holdings and provides a link to the Online Public Access (OPA) Catalog that has a lot more.

Records Relating to D-Day at the National Archives

Records highlighted on this D-Day page were created both during and after the war and cover a wide array of topics, including the famed meteorological reports that helped decide what day the invasion would take place and Eisenhower’s “Order of the Day” message and messages related to the dissemination of it. There are also invasion planning files, naval operations files, reports communications and correspondence files from various levels of command.  Further there are also battle participation awards files and anniversary commemoration files as well as the background files for Gordon A. Harrison’s “Cross Channel Attack”, the comprehensive 1951 US Army publication on D-Day.

The webpage also includes a United News Video Clip on D-Day that is available to watch. There are also a variety of links to other National Archives resources and other US Government agencies on the page.

This new webpage is a great starting point for anyone interested in D-Day and finding out about relevant resources at the National Archives and Records Administration.