Battleships in World War II part of Operation Neptune, in support of the D-Day landings in June 1944. D-Day also saw the deliberate sacrifice of two old dreadnoughts ( and ), which were scuttled as part of the breakwater around the Allied Mulberry harbours. The sinking of "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse" off the coast of Malaya in 1941 demonstrated that even the most modern battleships could not hold off aerial attacks without decent aerial defenses. The British HACS fire control system had been rendered inoperable by the extreme heat and humidity of the Malaya tropical climate, and the anti-aircraft artillery had managed to shoot
390th Strategic Missile Wing On 25 May 1944, a detachment of the group was directed to bomb coastal defenses in France using radar, despite weather conditions that were ideal for visual bombing. Although crewmembers were not advised why radar bombing was directed, this mission was a test to determine if pathfinder operations would succeed if the weather over Normandy was foul when the invasion took place. Thereafter, the group would frequently use pathfinder techniques when clouds obscured its assigned targets. The group bombed the coast near Caen fifteen minutes before the D-Day landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944. It attacked enemy artillery in