I was reading about the paratroopers flying into Normandy, and recounting all of the battleships and transports crossing the channel, and I began to wonder if they bombarded the beaches with the battleships before they landed the transports.
It seems like a waste of a lot of lives if they could have destroyed many of the defenses on the beaches before the soldiers landed on shore.
Anyone have any information on this?
The beaches and their immediate defences were bombarded by warships; however, they were not bombarded by battleships. The battleships (and to a certain extent the cruisers) were engaged with the German shore batteries behind and on the flanks of the landing beaches. Had these not been suppressed, then the transports would have made easy targets. The beach defences were engaged mainly by the destroyers and gun-armed landing craft. For these ships, firing began up to 40 minutes before the first troops landed, though they would stop as the troops landed. For more information, see this comment and this one.