D-Day clickers are small metal devices that click when you press them, the sound is quiet but recognisable. They were given to every paratrooper before they were dropped into the darkness on the beaches of Normandy on the eve of D-Day. The D-Day clicker played an important role in the dark hours before the battle commenced. British, American and Canadian forces came together and landed on five beaches in Normandy, France, where they fought the Germans to take back France and later the rest of Europe. D-Day is said to be the start to the end of the war; it is an incredibly significant series of battles that took considerable planning and preparation to pull off.
The instructions to every paratrooper were to click their D-Day clicker in the darkness if they felt someone else was around. If the close person were an ally, they would return the communication with two clicks of their D-Day clicker. If they heard nothing in response, it was either the enemy or no one there. Soldiers only used them in the first 24 hours of the landing, so Germans couldn’t replicate them and use them to their advantage to trick the British, American and Canadian soldiers.
The D-Day clickers were manufactured in Birmingham by ACME whistles; creating the clickers was a top-secret project that had to be kept under wraps at all costs. If the Germans found out about the clickers, D-Day could have gone very differently, and the plan to surprise the enemy may have failed. There were around 7,000 clickers made that were shipped to soldiers before D-Day. ACME Whistles started producing the clickers around six months before D-Day to ensure they were ready in time for the Normandy landings.
The D-Day clicker is one of the sounds associated with the D-Day landings. They were incredibly important in the effort to end the war. They helped to keep British, American, Canadian and other allied soldiers safe from friendly fire and attacks in the darkness from the German enemy.
ACME whistles launched a campaign to find the lost D-Day clickers in 2019, a few have been found, but many have been lost or are hiding in people's personal possessions. If you’d love to own a part of history, you can purchase a D-Day clicker today from ACME whistles. They make fantastic gifts for anyone interested in the war and the history that surrounds the war. They’re still made with the same original tooling and presses, so the sound will be almost identical to what was heard and used on the beaches of Normandy on the eve before D-Day. You can also get a D-Day clicker engraved with a special message, ideal as a present for a birthday, Christmas or another special occasion.
To effectively pull off France's invasion, a deception operation took place to make the Germans think that the target was Calais, not Normandy. The British, American and Canadian armies needed the Germans to discover their plans without it being too obvious; otherwise, they might have suspected deception. This deception was carefully executed; it included a fake army, double agent and even fake radio communications. This effort successfully caught the Germans off guard and allowed the British, American and Canadian troops to take hold of the beaches and then go on to take back Normandy and France successfully.
It took from the 6th June 1944, the date of the Normandy landings, until the end of August for the British, American and Canadian troops to take back France and end the battle of Normandy. This hugely significant moment in history will be forever remembered; it was an incredible but tragic story. Thousands of soldiers lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy, and many more died in the subsequent fighting to take back France. The D-Day clicker was used at the very start of this almost two-month-long battle to gain back control over France and force German soldiers to retreat. After this, the war efforts turned, and on May 8, 1945, 336 days after D-Day, the war was finally over, and celebrations broke out across the UK and USA to celebrate victory and the end of world war II.
Content, on-demand, 24/7
Copyright © Newswire. All rights reserved.