On this anniversary of D-Day I've been looking at some pictures of the beach invasion and there seems to be some haze on the beach from sea spray and artillery which got me thinking:
Did Allied planes drop any kind of smoke screen between the waterline and the bunkers to the landing infantry? If so, did it work? If they didn't, why not?
And just for clarification (if even needed) I'm picturing a smoke screen as being similar to a napalm-ish line but of smoke not fire along the beachhead with the same obscuring effects that you'd see smoke provide in a online shooter video game, if that makes sense.
The Allied assault on Normandy did not see smoke screens deployed in front of the beaches. Pre-war planning for amphibious assaults, at least in the Royal Navy, did presume that smoke, likely deployed by shells fired by ships offshore, would be used to cloak the landing craft as they approached the beach. However, these proved to be ineffective; smoke cover was spotty, and the deployment of the screen did little to protect the assault craft. The smoke screen also made navigation more difficult for the landing craft; a major problem, given that the craft needed to travel through particular clear channels, and arrive at the right part of the beach at the same time. As such, it was dropped in real world operations. However, smoke screens were deployed by ships offshore, to protect the bombardment ships and transports from German coastal batteries on the flanks of the invasion area, and to protect them from air attack.
The simple consideration that visibility for the naval forces providing gunfire support and their airborne and shore based spotters, and the coxswains trying to navigate landing craft ashore, was more important than the temporary obscuring effects of smoke shells.
While the shells and bombs of the bombardment force continued until just before the first boats hit the beach, at least that was the plan, would still leave massive dust and smoke clouds taking some time to dispel even in the moderate wind. Combine that with the fire from the German machine gun and direct fire artillery and heavier guns and mortars behind the beach and you could obscure the beach plenty just with that. See this famous photo for reference
That is not to say that there was no role for smoke in the operation. On the US beaches smoke made by units from the Chemical Warfare Service were to land and provide smoke screens in the event of German air attacks and in England units were set up to obscure the embarkation ports. While other units landed with specially designed smoke mortars to provide signal smoke, and once off the shore or in small scale smoke screens for the infantry. These units were also tasked with potential decontamination duties should there be German gas usage of any kind.
You might give this a read, the account from Admiral Deyo USN who commanded the UTAH Bombardment force: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Normandy/Naval_Guns.html
The US Army's CWS official history about its smoke units and OVERLORD: https://history.army.mil/html/reference/Normandy/TS/CWS/CWS9.htm
