How confidential was D-day?

Does anyone know if allied pilots were aware of the D-day plans prior to June 6th? I'm sure they knew an invasion was imminent, but I'm pretty positive they weren't told the exact date and place. Can anyone confirm this?

Also, the black and white paint was applied in the early morning hours of June 6th, correct?

Thanks in advance!

due to weather d day got moved quite a bit. it was initially scheduled for may.

and they almost moved it again on the 6th.

it was a summer of unusual storms in the channel.

so senior officers would all know the plan, and everyone else knew the big one was coming. even the Germans.

but the big gamble on the weather was all Eisenhower's. he had to decide on when to go based on a 24hr old weather forecast..

and in the end it was a close one.

the tanks at bloody Omaha never made it ashore because of the weather. the dd tanks sank in the channel.

and storms destroyed most of the mulberry harbours, before Cherbourg was taken.

Antony Beevors book about d day, is excellent on this topic.

i think they left the painting of d day markings until they knew they were going. but I'm not sure on that one.

Does anyone know if allied pilots were aware of the D-day plans prior to June 6th? I'm sure they knew an invasion was imminent, but I'm pretty positive they weren't told the exact date and place. Can anyone confirm this?

 

Also, the black and white paint was applied in the early morning hours of June 6th, correct?

 

Thanks in advance!

The invasion strips started to be paint on some aircraft on the 1st of June, the majority being applied on the 3rd and 4th (remember that D-Day was originally planned for the 5th).

Don’t know the date of the stripes, but they were used to prevent friendly fire incidents.

Not exactly first hand knowledge, but the show "Band of Brothers" has a scene where the paratroopers use stop-watches and maps during the final days of preparation to figure out where they might be dropped, assuming that the training flights will be close to what they can expect during the actual invasion. In the show, their guess was pretty accurate. But it never explained if any of the pilots had more precise knowledge.

Something interesting on the D-Day Wikipedia:

Many of the German radar stations on the French coast were destroyed in preparation for the landings.[42] In addition, on the night before the invasion, a small group of Special Air Service (SAS) operators deployed dummy paratroopers over Le Havre and Isigny. These dummies led the Germans to believe that an additional airborne landing had occurred. On that same night, in Operation Taxable, No. 617 Squadron RAF dropped strips of "window", metal foil that caused a radar return which was mistakenly interpreted by German radar operators as a naval convoy near Le Havre. The illusion was bolstered by a group of small vessels towing barrage balloons. A similar deception was undertaken near Boulogne-sur-Mer in the Pas de Calais area by No. 218 Squadron RAF in Operation Glimmer.[43][2]

Further reading about the aerial and naval deceptions

In general, secrets are hard to keep in any large organization. This is especially true if preparations need to be made ahead of time, which they certainly did. Certainly, operational details might have been 'mostly' secret, but in a broad sense I am sure that many in the military's lower echelons knew what was coming.

From what I have read, reading the histories of Norwegian Spitfire squadrons (Under RAF) as well as "The Big Show" by french pilot Clostermann, it seems they got the heads up very, very, close to the event. Like the 4th or 5th of June. They off course knew the invasion was imminent, they trained for it extensively, but that it was june 6 and Normandy seemed to be known very late (although I suspect many had put their money on it before the announcement). If I remember correctly, Clostermann knew about it a few days before, due to some assignment, and was not allowed to fly until the the invasion was underway (So he would not get shot down and captured).

Thanks for the info! So those who knew couldn't fly before D-day, the rest was told probably that morning, although most pilots suspected this would happen soon.

As for the stripes, I read somewhere they were hastily applied that morning. Looks like some planes got the stripes a few days before?