Allied Invasion Into France example essay topic

World War II ranged from 1939 through 1945 and it involved every major world power. On one side were the Allies, including Great Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union. On the other side the Axis powers included Germany, Japan and Italy. This conflict resulted from the rise of totalitarian, militaristic regimes in Germany, Japan and Italy after World War I. Partly responsible were the humiliating peace treaties forced on Germany after World War I. The Great Depression of the 1930's created world wide economic disorder and thus contributed to the war. During the 1930's Japan was very aggressive in Asia and Italy, lead by Mussolini was invading Ethiopia. French and British appeasement of Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany culminated in the Munich Pact of 1938.

This sacrificed much of Czechoslovakia to Germany. France and Britain began to rearm and to offer guarantees to other potential victims of the Nazi aggression. In August of 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union, previously bitter enemies, concluded a non-aggression pact, thus freeing Hitler to invade Poland on September 1, 1939. France and Britain immediately declared war on Germany officially beginning World War II. Germany won a quick victory in Poland and went on to occupy Norway and Denmark in 1940. In May they over ran the Low Countries and broke into France and swept into the English Channel.

On June 22, 1940 France surrendered. However a free French force continued to fight. Britain under Prime Minister Winston Churchill was left to fight alone. The Battle of Britain lasted from August to October 1940. Germany's attempt to bomb Britain into submission was the only German failure of the wars early years. Axis's land operations continued in North Africa and in the Balkans, where Greece and Yugoslavia were occupied.

On June 22, 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union bringing that nation under Premier Joseph Stalin into the war. Meanwhile the United States under President F.D. Roosevelt was drawing closer to the Allies. On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor bringing the United States into the war. The Axis successes continued.

By 1942 Japan had conquered the Philippines and many other Pacific islands and all of Southeast Asia. German forces in the Soviet Union reached Sta lingard and the Caucasus. The German General Rommel seemed ready to take Cairo, Egypt. German submarines were threatening to wipe out all Allied shipping. In late 1942 the Allies began to rally. In North Africa, British General Montgomery's rout of Rommel at Alamein in October of 1942 and the landing of U.S. troops in Algeria resulted in an Allied victory in Africa.

The Allies conquered Sicily in south Italy and Italy surrendered in 1943. In the Pacific, U.S. forces had won the naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, landed in Guadalcanal and began the island hopping strategy that by 1945 had won back the Philippines and where a striking force at Japan's doorstep. The German Surrender at Stalingrad in 1943 was followed by a Soviet offensive that by 1944 had taken Russian troops deep into Poland, Hungary and the Balkans. In the battle of the Atlantic, the German submarine fleet was virtually destroyed. The final Allied campaign began with the invasion of Normandy, on the northwestern coast of France on June 6 1944 at 12: 15 a.m. The invasion was code named "Operation Overlord".

This operation would come to be known as D-Day. D-Day is a military term designating the start date for launching an operation, but in modern history it is refers to the events of June 6, 1944. Plans for this campaign began in 1943. In January 1944 U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied forces.

Eisenhower began working with a group of high-level British and American leaders to execute Operation Overlord. Arriving in Britain on January 16, 1944 Eisenhower held his first conference on January 21 with what was called the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. January was an active month for all fronts. The Russian army crossed into Poland and in Italy the Allies were blocked by a heavily fortified Rome. The Allies began landing on the eastern coast of Italy attempting to open the road to Rome. This assault took place at Anzio beach.

The Allies took the beach but were stopped on the road by the Germans. The Allies finally reached Rome on June 4, 1944 and the Germans then regrouped in northern Italy. The planning for "Operation Overlord" included millions of details. Included in the plans were men, machines, supplies, aircraft, ships, airborne troops, weather, and the condition of the beaches. The success of D-Day depended on the three main areas. The Allies must control the air and sea and German troops would have to be dispersed through out Europe.

By spring 1944 Allied bombers were pounding Germany and the German U-Boats were no longer a threat. The major concern would be where the German troops were at the time of the invasion. If the Germans discovered that Normandy was the main site of D-Day the Allies would probably faced disaster. The Allies developed an extensive deception plan. The plan was called "Body Guard" it's first objective was to confuse the Germans on when and where the invasion would take place. The second objective was to cripple the Germans once the invasion started.

Body Guard was considered the most complicated deception plan of the whole war. In 1941 the British had figured out the Abw ehr codes these were the German secret service codes. The British knew the identities of most of the German agents many of them were captured and either executed or put in prison. However, some were successfully turned into double agents, during the rest of the war the Allies used these agents to send incorrect information to the Germans. The Allies needed to convince the Germans that the invasion would occur in an area called the Pas de Calais.

The Commander of the German armies in France was convinced that the Allied invasion would be in this area. To keep the Germans in this area U.S. General George Patton was placed in command of an army in the area of Dove. Dover is opposite the Pas de Calais. German General Rommel believed that the Allies should be destroyed at sea.

Others preferred to let the enemy come ashore and annihilate them with troops and tanks waiting on the beaches. In May 1944 the Allies began making tactical air attacks in Northern France. Their main purpose was to destroy roads, railroad tracks and bridges and to destroy German communications. The Germans thought that the invasion would take place in May. Eisenhower set the date for June 5, 1944. Because the Allies attack depended on strict landing requirements they were monitoring the weather very closely.

There were only three days the invasion could take place, June 5, 6, or 7. It was necessary that the weather be good on at least one of these days. If the invasion did not take place on one of these days it would have had to have been postponed until the end of June or early July. A delay would have allowed the Germans to become better fortified. A massive Atlantic storm began on June 4 with two million men, five thousand ships and craft of all types, and more than eight thousand air craft, bombers and fighter planes ready for the landings Eisenhower was forced to cancel because of poor weather. By the next day the weather improved, however the water in the English Channel was choppy.

If the Allies delayed further they would have to wait until the tides were again favorable. Eisenhower worried that the Germans would become more informed and the prepared Allied troops would become less determined. After weighting all factors Eisenhower set the date for June 6, 1944. Prior to May of 1943 the Germans were used their U-Boat threat to help maintain several weather stations throughout the Atlantic. After May of 1943 with the lose of their U-Boat threat the Germans were largely ignorant of the weather patterns.

They did not realize there was a break in the weather. They only saw the storm hitting the beaches along the English Channel. The invasion took place with almost total surprise to the Germans. British bombers bombed coastal batteries along the invasion area. During the night American and British paratroopers dropped from the sky. Before dawn thousands of landing craft headed for the beaches.

The Allied troops traveled to the beaches in small landing crafts lowered from the docks of larger ships waiting in the English Channel. The plan called for the landings to be at five beaches code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. By nightfall nearly 175,000 men were ashore. There were some problems, some paratroopers dropped in the wrong places, and they landed in trees or drowned in swamps. Some German troops put up heavy resistance. There was particularly hard bloody fighting on Omaha beach.

There were 4,900 Allied casualties. Over all D-Day was an over whelming success the Allies come to France to stay. By nightfall tens of thousands of Allied troops along with tons of supplies and thousands of vehicles had come ashore. The German leadership acted as if these landings were a diversion. They were still convinced the real invasion would come later at the Pas de Calais. Because they believed this they left the German 15 Th Army, their largest in Western Europe, at the Pas de Calais.

If Hitler had moved this Army to Normandy the Allies would have faced a disaster. Within three weeks nearly a million soldiers, almost two hundred thousand vehicles and about five hundred thousand tons of supplies had arrived. Germany's chance to push them back out to sea was gone. The Germans were encouraged to hold on by Hitler. On June 13, 1944 the Germans began fire ring rocket missiles into England. Although these bombs were hardly accurate the random terrorism was a cause for concern.

Allied bombers were attacking their launching sites but they were difficult to find and damage. In August of 1944 the Allies had established a headquarters in France. By the end of September 1944 the Germans had been pushed out of France. D-Day was not just a great battle but the true turning point in World War II in Europe. The invasion at Normandy struck the blow that would bring about end for Hitler and his Nazis party. If Operation Overlord had failed Hitler would have been able to move his troops from the Western front to the Eastern front and used them against the Soviet Union.

Another Allied invasion into France would have taken years to plan, supply and implement. However D-day was successful for the Allies. This success was the beginning of the end for the Axis powers. Germany was finally defeated in the spring of 1945. The Allies were now able to turn their attention to the Pacific. In August 1945 while the U.S. were preparing to invade Japan U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the dropping of the Atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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