...World War II happened from 1939 to 1945. The Battle of Normandy lasted from June 1944 to August 1944. On June 6th a.k.a. D-Day Operation Overlord began. Operation Overlord was an operation that had about 156,000 American, British, and Canadian forces landed on multiple beaches along a stretch of 50 miles. “Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target.” (http://www.history.com/) “In January 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) was appointed commander of Operation Overlord. In the months and weeks before D-Day, the Allies carried out a massive deception operation intended to make the Germans think the main invasion target was Pas-de-Calais (the...
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...By Xavier Ng, June 6, LONDON – Since 1943, the great nations have been discussing how an attack to the Nazi occupied lands would occur. But finally, this morning, the invasion happened. Over 20,000 air troops from the United States of America, Canada and Britain were witnessed heading to the evil Nazi occupied areas and armed ground forces confirmed its landing onto northern France. Codenamed Operation Overlord, it was successful due to the pretend leakage of misleading information the Americans sent to Germans in regard to dates and locations where the first invasion would happen, redirecting most of its forces somewhere else. During the invasion, parts of northern France were divided into five sections: Juno, Sword Beach, Utah, Gold and...
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...in an office.”Over 11 countries were involved in the Operation Overlord.Even though was it a move to win the war, or a huge risk, because it was the bloodiest invasion, also taking 24 days to successfully complete, It was the largest invasion in WWII history. Storming the beaches of Normandy put fear into the eyes of the allies.("D-Day Overview.1.") Blanketed by small-arms fire and bracketed by artillery, they found themselves in hell(“D-Day Overview.1”). The boat ramp goes down, then jump, swim, run, and crawl to the beaches(“D-Day...
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...I just finished watching the movie Overlord which was filmed and released in 1975. The film was about the movie a young British soldier, Tommy Beddows, and his way to becoming a soldier to fight in one of the biggest battles of World War II, D-Day. So the movie Overlord is a movie that is based on D-Day on June 6, 1944. The codename that was for this battle was Operation Overlord, which helps you know why the movie is named Overlord. However, the movie didn’t take place starting from June 6. The movie started before June and ended on June 6. Tommy Beddows, the main character, is drafted into the army and leaves home to train and prepare for Operation Overlord. You also get to experience how Beddows feels during training and preparing for the invasion. From watching the movie, I cannot see any traces of bias or a one-sided story line. As this movie was about the invasion of Normandy, the time period was mainly focused on the soldiers preparing for the invasion. Hitler was aware of the possibility of an invasion and so was the Allied forces. With this knowledge, Hitler had Erwin Rommel in charge of getting their defenses ready for the invasion. They worked on building the Atlantic Wall which was a 2,400 mile long fortification filled with bunkers, water and beach obstacles, and landmines. In the movie,...
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...The year was 1944 and Hitler’s Nazi Germany controlled all of Europe except for the British Islands and the neutral countries of Spain Switzerland, and parts of Italy. The British had held out long enough for the United States to enter the war and now things were starting to look up. Everyone, including Hitler, knew that an invasion of Europe was imminent, what they did not know was when or where the invasion would take place. The Allied supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower and his staff had decided on a plan code named Operation Overlord. The invasion was scheduled to take place on June 5th 1944; weather would push the date back to June 6th 1944, on the beaches of Normandy. The British and Canadian forces would hit Juno, Sword, and Gold while the American forces hit Utah and Omaha. Of all the beaches one would stand out among the rest as the bloodiest, hardest, and most remembered of them all, Omaha beach also know as “bloody Omaha”(Visions from A T.C. abroad pg online). Omaha beach was the beach second from the right in the proposed landing places. (Omaha beach June 6th 1944 pg online) Omaha was the only place to land in a 20 mile stretch of land between Utah and British beaches”(The Second Front WWII ). It was a 6 miles stretch of beach that had an inward curve making it even easier to defend as positions on either end could cover more of the beach and concentrate fire towards the center. Overlooking the entire beach was a cliff one hundred feet high (Visions from A...
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...Before the start of this invasion the US and their allies felt very confident in their plan. Yet some of the generals weren't as confident such as Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke Chief of the Imperial General Staff, but that didn't stop them from putting Operation Overlord into effect. The US and British troops were accompanied by French,Canadian,Norwegian, and Polish troops. The US was assigned to attack Utah and Omaha Beach. While the British we assigned to attack Omaha,Juno,Gold, and Sword Beach. During the Omaha,Juno,and Sword Beach attacks the US and the British were helped by their other...
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...The allied forces were made up of American, British, Polish, Canadian, and Free French Armies all under the command of General Eisenhower. General Eisenhower was named the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces by President Roosevelt in December 1943. At which point he dedicated all his available time to planning the invasion of France. (Williams, 2000) Several years of meticulous planning went into every detail of the climactic battle of World War II. (Ambrose, 1995) Operation Overlord was the code name used by allied forces when referring to the invasion of Normandy. This invasion involved more than 150,000 men and 5,000 ships. Alongside General Eisenhower were the Deputy Supreme Commander; British Air Chief Marshal Arthur W. Tedder, British Admiral Bertram H. Ramsay who was appointed naval commander, and Trafford L. Leigh-Mallory who was appointed commander of the air forces. Part of the successful outcome of the invasion came from elaborate plans to deceive the German Army. Operation Fortitude was the name of the plan that had Germans thinking that massive Allied forces were concentrated in Kent. A fake army led by General George S. Patton was put in place to keep the German High Command guessing as to where the real invasion would come from. To offer more validity to the fake army (which was called the US 1st Army Group) radio transmissions were faked, buildings were constructed out of plywood and canvas, and inflatable tanks and vehicles were set up. This...
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...Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight D. Eisenhower is arguably the most recognizable military commander of the 20th century. His success in WWII played a huge role in the United States victory in Europe. It is extremely remarkable that Eisenhower actually had no field command experience before WWII (Chen). He clearly possessed naturally leadership qualities that complimented his strategic knowledge. From the beaches of Normandy, to the western front of Germany, General Eisenhower commanded the Allies. If it a lesser man was in charge the outcome of the war and the world we live in today could have been very different. Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas on October 14th, 1890. He grew up in Kansas in a poor family. Eisenhower was known as a good athlete and a hard worker. In 1915 he graduated from West Point and was stationed in San Antonio as a second lieutenant. The First World War ended right before Eisenhower was scheduled to go, which greatly upset him. He then went on the graduate first in his class from the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Next, the future president served under General John J. Pershing as a military aid. He later served as an aid to General Douglas MacArthur for seven years in the Philippines. In 1939 he returned home just at the outbreak of the Second World War. In September 1941, Eisenhower was promoted to brigadier general. Just three months later Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Eisenhower was then called to Washington...
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...General Eisenhower’s involvement in D-Day has been widely debated as Stephen E. Ambrose once said “the operation will forever be linked to one name, Dwight Eisenhower ”. Eisenhower will always be linked with the success of D-Day as a result of him being the Supreme Allied Commander; however he was not the only general or even individual who played a part in its success. The main factors for consideration are Eisenhower’s leadership and Eisenhower’s strategy and tactics. Many historians argue that Eisenhower’s personal leadership was the reason for the success of D-Day. Anthony Beevor says that “Eisenhower’s ability to keep such a disparate team together was an extraordinary achievement ” Stephen E. Ambrose wrote “Eisenhower tended to seek out words and phrases that would appease .” These historians agree that Eisenhower’s political awareness in regards to the handling of his generals was the reason for success; Eisenhower was plagued by generals who did not respect him due to his lack of experience. Eisenhower however was experienced, he was the Commanding General of the European Theatre of Operations and he was the SCAEF of the North African Theatre of Operations. For example Dr Andrew Gordon wrote “Eisenhower, and his chief of staff General Bedell Smith, had worked and won with these officers from as far back as TORCH ” Professor Samuel J Newland agrees “D-Day is the prime example of the power and synergy that can be created by a strong alliance. ” Eisenhower recognised this...
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...What were the normandy landings on D-day and why are they important? They were the turning point of world war 2. The Germans had taken over most of europe and controlled france at the time. The allies had to make a move if they wanted to win the war,so they came up with operation overlord or D-day. The 5 beaches of normandy gave the allies the foot hold they needed to take back europe,even though it was hard and costly.Three of them were much worse than the other two. Omaha was the most costly of all the Normandy landings. According to Greenspan,”nearly 2,400 U.S. troops were dead or missing”. From the beginning it wasn’t going well because the Army intelligence had underestimated the number of german forces (greenspan). What’s worse is the aerial bombardment didn’t do as much damage as it needed to ,without the extra...
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...The invasion of D-Day The invasion of D-Day was a very important battle during World War II. It was the battle in which the Allies landed on German-controlled beaches in an attempt to gain the upper hand on Hitler and the Axis powers. For me, I learned about the Axis and Allies through playing old WWII video games a s a kid, but not many people actually know what these two words mean or consist of. The Axis powers were the bad guys and consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Oddly enough, Italy switched over to the Allied powers later in the war. The Allies were the supporters of the U.S., the good guys. They consisted of Poland, Britain, and Russia, formerly known as the USSR. The United States was also a part of the Allies but they didn’t join into the fighting until later in the war. A big portion of the credit of the victory on D-Day has to go to the 101st airborne division. They parachuted in and fought from behind enemy lines to flank the Germans from the rear. They had a huge impact on this very crucial battle. D-Day was the beginning of many Allied victories that led to the end of Hitler’s reign. The 101st airborne were a very big asset to the Allies. They were an elite force of skilled paratroopers that were the best of their kind. These highly trained killers were dropped in during the invasion. They actually had a lot of miscommunications on the landing zones and drop sites for these men because of the poor weather conditions. They had planned the invasion to...
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...What role did the Ghost Army play in the Allied success at/following D-Day – why were their battlefield deceptions necessary? During World War II, both the Allies and the Axis used the most modern technology available at the time to give them an advantage in the war. One way the United States employed their new technology was through the Ghost Army, a group of battlefield performers. First, students (artists, designers, and architects) were selected from New York and Philadelphia art schools. In Europe, these 1,100 members engaged in a series of twenty operations meant to ultimately deceive the Germans about the war the Allies were fighting. From shortly before D-Day to the crossing of the Rhine River, the Ghost Army, officially known...
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...The efforts of the French Resistance also helped make D-Day successful. They cut railroad tracks, sabotaged train engines, targeted supply trains (Normandy), cut phone lines, assassinated German officers, (Koeller 47), and bombed roads, bridges, and rail junctions. This work practically destroyed the French transportation system, disallowing the Germans the ability to send reinforcements for the attack (Normandy). The night before D-Day, three airborne units, the 101st and 82nd American Airborne Divisions and the 6th British Airborne Division were meant to be deployed to areas south of the beach (Kemp). Their mission was to clear the way for the troops by eliminating various obstacles. However, due to the weather the mission was not fully successful. The 82nd, to be dropped near the town of Sainte-Mère-Eglise, were scattered throughout the countryside. The 101st suffered equally badly. Their mission was to drop south of Utah Beach to secure roads and bridges at Carentan, a town near the center of the Peninsula. Unfortunately, many of the paratroopers were dropped into the water and drowned (Koeller 60). If it were not for their utter determination, there would have been practically no purpose for the paratroopers. After the drops, small skirmishes erupted everywhere. However, the troops rallied and were able to regroup to complete most of their objectives, thanks to the efforts of the French Resistance. Because the Resistance had cut phone lines, the German chain of command...
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...To reduce the number of German troops guarding the beaches of Omaha and Utah, as well as to make sure the Nazi Army didn’t know the exact time and location of the amphibious attacks, a fake army was implemented to trick Hitler’s plans into thinking that there was a powerful Army, under the command of a well known General being amassed away from the landing sights of Normandy (Hastings, 1985). Operation Bodyguard, as the entirety of the deception Operations were called, was designed to mislead the German Army away from the landing and the time in which the attack was to happen (Hesketh, 2000).Fictionally located at Kent and Sussex, Under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, a fake Army Unit named The first United States Army...
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...Omaha beach was the biggest D-Day invasion site at six miles wide. The attack began on June 6, 1944. The German forces protecting the beach were the 352nd division. They were under the command Erwin Rommel. Omaha Beach was divided into sections. The 116th Regiment of the 29th Division attacked the three Dog sections and the Easy Green section of the beach. The 16th Regiment of the 1st Division attacked the Fox Green and Easy Red sections of the beach. The U.S. forces were commanded by Omar Bradley. They were trying to take over the beach and then the towns to the south and west of the beach. When it came time to attack, it seemed to go off the rails. The Sherman Tanks that were sent to accompany the troops failed to cross the Channel. The strong winds that day blew the landing ships offcourse. Around 8:30 the U.S. stopped sending in troops and started bombarded the Germans. At the end of the day, the U.S. had sustained 2,400 casualties, and the Germans had sustained 1,200 casualties. The U.S. had managed to bring in 34,000 troops as reinforcements, but the Germans had no one else coming to help. (Britannica) Omaha Beach was remembered as the beach that saw the fiercest fighting. It was the largest beach and has cliffs separating the beach from the nearby towns. The Germans had set up ‘Dragon’s Teeth’, devices that would take out the landing boats. They also had tranches connecting all their defenses. The U.S. forces planned to start the attack at 06:30 hours. But fate didn’t...
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