D-Day at Calais

That's effectively what Utah Beach was about, land right at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, and then race west and hopefully capture Cherbourg before the Germans had time to reinforce it.

Which worked, more or less. The resistance in the Cotentin was greater than anticipated, but the defense was not reinforced to any useful degree.

A couple years ago I stumbled across a description of a British plan, dating back to the summer of 1942, for landing a army of 11 divisions in the Cotentin. The initial landing site was the Madaline beach are that was designated Utah Beach in the Neptune plan.

There are also claims Monty briefly looked at the possibility of a landing on the west side of the Cotentin, with the object of breaking the stalemate in Normandy. The exact date was not provided, but it appears to have been in late June.
 
... the English harbors opposite the Pas-de-Calais are "only" ferryports. Limited in scope and (to a limited degree) subject to enemy intervention.

-IIRC, one thing in favour of the Normandy was also it laid opposite Southern Englands largest deep-water-harbors, that is Portsmouth and Southampton, to a lesser degree add Plymouth to the list. It was said that these were, despite the longer distance, better equipped to handle the necessities to support the invasion than Dover/Folkestone/Ramsgate...

Equally important is the capacity of the ports north from Normandy. While not trivial, collectively all but Antwerp were inadaquate to support more than a single Army Group. To support the 7-8 armies the Allied leaders thought necessary to defeat Germany the Atlantic ports were seen as essential, at least in the early months and necessary beyond that in 1945. A Calais landing implies either extended advance west away from Germany to secure the Atlantic ports, or another landing near them.
 
There are also claims Monty briefly looked at the possibility of a landing on the west side of the Cotentin, with the object of breaking the stalemate in Normandy. The exact date was not provided, but it appears to have been in late June.

IIRC Montgomery looked at the west side of the Cotentin as part of the initial revision of the COSSAC plan. Also IIRC SHAEF looked at a landing at St Malo by US 3rd Army when there were concerns about a stalemate.
 
IIRC Montgomery looked at the west side of the Cotentin as part of the initial revision of the COSSAC plan. ...

For several months, until late March or April the US 82d AB Div LZ was on the east side. Its LZ included a unused airfield. The LZ was relocated when Utah Beach was added as a amphib assualt site.
 
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