The Allies failed to accomplish their objectives for the first day, but gained a tenuous foothold that they gradually expanded when they captured the port at Cherbourg on 26 June and the city of Caen on 21 July. Adolf Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in charge of developing fortifications all along Hitler's proclaimed Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an invasion of France. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted Operation Bodyguard, a substantial military deception that used electronic and visual misinformation to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. To meet the conditions expected on the Normandy beachhead, special technology was developed, including two artificial ports called Mulberry harbours and an array of specialised tanks nicknamed Hobart's Funnies. The coast of Normandy of northwestern France was chosen as the site of the invasion, with the Americans assigned to land at sectors codenamed Utah and Omaha, the British at Sword and Gold, and the Canadians at Juno. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, and General Bernard Montgomery was named commander of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all the land forces involved in the invasion. For a comprehensive list of World War 2 facts, including the primary actors in the war, causes, a comprehensive timeline, and bibliography, click here.The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion in 1944 was taken at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943. This article is part of our larger educational resource on World War Two. On 15 August, South France was invaded during Operation Dragoon and France was liberated by 25 August. The Germans made a counterattack on 8 August, which failed miserably and left 50,000 Nazi soldiers trapped in the Falaise pocket. By the end of August, over three million allied troops were stationed in France. ResultĪlthough the Allies didn’t exactly reach their goals on the first day, Operation Overlord was a great success. There were also not enough ships in England to carry all the men, which meant they had to be built, along with the artificial harbors and amphibious tanks used to make the landing. Equipment and aeroplanes were a large headache, as such a large scale operation they needed enough air support and most aeroplanes were already in use in other WW2 conflicts. Normandy did have large enough beaches to receive a mass landing of soldiers and equipment, but the building of artificial harbors would be required.Įisenhower faced many challenges when planning this invasion. The trick was to keep reinforcing that belief to keep them focussing on Pays de Calais and to carry out such a large-scale operation without the Germans getting word of it via spies or interception. Because the Germans were expecting an attack at Pays de Calais, that area was very well defended and the Nazis concentrated their forces there. Pays de Calais, which is where France and Britain are closest to one another, was the most obvious choice for an invasion, but the Allies under command of General Dwight Eisenhower decided on Normandy instead. The invasion started with air support, of 1,200 planes, followed by an amphibious assault of close to 6,000 vessels. Moving around 160,000 troops was quite a feat and required a lot of planning and preparation. To get a foothold in Europe, they needed to find a way to get a large amount of men to the other side of the English Channel. By 1944 Nazi Germany was controlling France and most of Western Europe, making it very hard for the Allies to launch attacks. Operation Overlord was the code name of what is known today as D-Day, the invasion of Europe via Normandy in June 1944, which ended up a great success.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |