I'd like to learn how it felt to be facing the Normandy landings. As I understand operation fortitude was successful in deceving the Axis powers as to the location of the landings. So at what point would troops on the beach be aware that an invasion was coming and what could they do to prepare? Also, were defences on the atlantic wall spread so thin that no location could withstand a large allied invasion without prior knowledge?
I can speak for the fact that it was a masterpiece of illusion in that the Germans were not expecting it where it came in the end. Operation/Plan Fortitude (I've seen it referred to both ways) was a deception plan where a fake army group under General Patton was placed in South-East England, across the channel from the Pas-de-Calais. This fake army idea was supported by wooden planes and tanks near the coast as well as huge radio activity from the headquarters.
Plan Fortitude convinced the Germans, or Hitler at least, that the cross-channel attack was to happen at the Pas-de-Calais, when, of course, it actually happened on the beaches of Normandy. The men garrisoning the Atlantic Wall defences here did not have any knowledge of the invasion, and so when tje sun came up on the morning of the 6th if June, they must have been quite shocked by the fact that the biggest invasion fleet in history was assembled in front of them.