German Air Force Enigma Message example essay topic

During the 1930's, isolationism and the depression swept through the United States. But before the fall of France in 1940, the United States was starting to pull away from being neutral, which they claimed at the beginning of the European war. Americans and the British would hold conversations between themselves known as the ABC talks. It was there that they both targeted Germany as their prime enemy. Even though there was tension in the Pacific in 1941, American leaders had agreed that any war that was going to occur between Japan and the United States had to be secondary. Our prime target was Germany, and that's what we would focus on defeating.

Roosevelt soon concluded that America should be in support of the British in order to help defeat the Germans. It was the Germans who posed to the greatest threat. Americans preferred a brief, but violent war, with all of their resources brought to them in which would enable them to have continuous combat until the enemy was defeated. Geography was yet another factor.

The vast oceans gave the Americans security of their homeland so which they wouldn't be attacked, but had also isolated them from the battlefields. During the spring and summer of 1941, the United States had come to a closure of their peace talks. The War Department had already began selling surplus war material to the British and other allied nations against Hitler. The United States was also trying to figure out how to meet up with the incredible demands formed by the Lend-Lease Bill. The Lend-Lease Bill stated that the United States had to ship out massive amounts of war materials to all nations combating against the Axis Powers. The United States had attempted to develop a manageable production plan, but had first needed to inquire an estimate of what would be needed in order to defeat the Axis, if America were to be involved.

The U. S had handed that estimate over to Albert C. Wedemeyer who was an infantry major assigned to the War Plans Division of the general staff. Wedemeyer rationalized that he wouldn't be able to properly estimate the nation's military production total unless he had some idea of the size of the missions of the Army, in the event of war. The Army had to define its mission. The U.S. 'demanded that the Army strictly limited energies away in attractive, but in decisive, side issues. If the defeat of Germany was the objective, then the mission was to attack at the heart of German power as early and as forcefully as possible.

' With this, 'careful consideration of Army mobilization and training, military construction, naval and merchant shipbuilding revealed that the Army could expect to go over to the offensive no earlier than July 1, 1943. Achieving the necessary military conditions for attack, though simple to state, was more an uncertain proposition. Wedemeyer suggested in his plan that no invasion of Europe could succeed until the navies defeated the Axis fleets and secured the Atlantic lines of communication. ' The Allies however, had managed to take control of the air. They would bomb Germany on a regular basis, this way Germany could keep down on their production of war materials, and disrupt their economy. Before the U. S had officially entered the war, plans existed for the defeat of Germany.

The plan heavily relied on an invasion of the continent of Europe, in order to strike the heart of Germany. The U.S. sought to weaken their military buildup, and heighten ours in Britain. For a period of time, there was much contemplation of attacking Germany from the Mediterranean, where the British had already been succeeding in defeating the Germans. Americans had to reject the idea of the Mediterranean approach due to the fact it was impossible to concentrate full Allied strength, and because the supply lines were simply too long. Britain had to lay on the shortest of all the transatlantic routes possible from the United States. 'Convoys had to be dedicated to feeding and supplying the British Isles, while others tried to sustain the Soviet ally, whose continued resistance was an essential element in all American war planning.

' Furthermore, the British Isles were large enough to support the buildup and were seemingly good enough to sustain landings of the short-ranged Royal Air Force fighters. Operation Bolero was the massive movement of troops, supplies and weapons to Britain. The first wave was stationed in Ireland in January of 1942. It lasted for two years, and had gradually changed into Operation Overlord.

Both the British and American troops were being trained for invasion, and the building of arms. 'By the beginning of June, 1.1 million American soldiers, 427,000 airmen, and 124,000 sailors were massed in Britain or offshore in the fleet. In all, 2, 87 million Allied troops, in 39 divisions plus air and support units, were poised for the invasion. ' With D-Day drawing near, Churchill had grown more weary of the cross-Channel invasion. He was more comfortable with invading from Italy and the Balkans.

Churchill even said to Eisenhower how he had doubts about the invasion. If indeed casualties were to be kept minimal, and the invasion a success, espionage and deception would have to be involved. The people who had helped plan the invasion of the beaches had gone to inconceivable lengths to learn of the Normandy beaches, the lands behind the beaches, and where the German troops focused on mainly. The major means of access to deciphering the Germans messages, was the use of the Ultra. The Ultra would intercept messages and decode them.

In order for the invasion to go undetected, the Allies had to keep the Germans contemplating where the Allies would actually attack from. 'The Allied goal: to convince the Nazis that the main thrust would come in Norway or, more likely, at Calais, thereby keeping German divisions uselessly on guard far from Normandy. ' The Allies came up with a fictitious British Fourth Army, simulated in Scotland, and was supposedly planning an invasion in Norway. This simulation of a fictitious army was called Fortitude North. There was also a Fortitude South, which had the first U.S. Army group. The Americans had 250,000 men under the command of General Patton Jr..

' FUSAN was actually a handful of radio trucks driving back and forth along the roads of Kent and East Anglia- across the Channel from Calais- sending out wireless communications mimicking what might be produced by a huge force. Mowers were killing off grass in open fields to simulate tank tracks for the photos to be taken by German reconnaissance flights. And some 250 dummy landing craft dotted ports in Dover and nearby piers... As an added flourish, agents were dispatched to Geneva to openly buy up every available map and guide for Calais. German spies would soon be tipped off and would draw the appropriate-but wrong- conclusions. ' It was soon learned that German spies had infiltrated some of the 'Top Secret' plans, and were reporting them to their headquarters.

A physics teacher in London by the name of Leonard Dawe, had been under surveillance for his crossword puzzles in the newspaper. It gave out such hints as to Omaha, Overlord and Neptune. Due to this, he was interrogated along with his associate Melville Jones. The very first military plans for Overlord and Normandy had been drawn up in March and July of 1943 by British Lt. General Morgan, also known as COSSAC (Chief Of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander). Morgan had devised a plan to land on the beaches in only two main, concentrated areas.

One would be the shortest route across the Straits of Dover to the Pas de Calais, or landing in the Bay of the Seine in Normandy. When SHAEF had control of COSSAC in 1944, Montgomery had modified Morgan's plan. 'Montgomery extended the landing area from three beaches to five, including a site on the Content in Peninsula. Montgomery's plan called for five divisions (instead of COSSAC's three) to land with the first wave on a 61-mile front, supported by four more divisions and divisional airborne landings on both flanks.

The Americans would take the westernmost beaches code-named Utah and Omaha, and the British and Canadians the eastern beaches, code-named Gold, Juno, and Sword. ' Other military operations composed their own 'D-Day,' but this would become the most memorable of all. Once D-Day was over, Montgomery's plans depended heavily on Ramsay's sea-borne supply-line, which was to reinforce their position in Normandy. It was important, because they would have to capture a port very early due to the fact that it was vital.

'Coming straight off the beaches, British Second Army would capture the regional capital of Caen, the only major city in the landing area, on D-Day itself, and carry deep inland. At the same time, U.S. First Army would move across the Cotentin and capture Cherbourg as a supply port within a week. Montgomery would then threaten a direct advance eastward towards the River Seine with his British forces. ' As part of the D-Day plans, attempts were made to coordinate the various French resistance groups, known as the 'Secret Army.

' The main function of the Resistance was to provide information for the landings, and other groups had been given specific sabotage targets in order to help slow down the German pace. Up until 1944, there was never an assault from the sea. Normally, in order to take sea fortresses, capturing it from the land in was the way to go. But, D-Day was created to assault a heavily defended area, the German Atlantic Wall, from the sea to the land. In order to perform, special equipment was needed to overcome the beach defenses, to clear the minefields, and move inland rapidly. The airborne forces had gadgets galore.

The British designed, and American manufactured 'Eureka' was a radar beacon, which was carried by the paratrooper pathfinders, and to help the aircraft approaching to find the drop zone with a little more ease. Another invention which was cheaply made was the 'cricket. ' This little piece of metal helped the paratroopers to recognize who was a part of their division. Rupert, were dummy parachutists which were dropped in thousands all over the Northern part of France, to coincide with the real men.

Other inventions consisted of the bridge-laying tank known as the 'Great Eastern. ' The 'Great Panjandrum' was a failure, but was created to clear all the mines on the beach. The 'tank dozer' and the Crab helped to explode mines successfully. On June 6th at dawn, eighteen thousand British and American parachutists were on the ground in Normandy seizing essential bridges and ruining German lines of communication.

At 6: 30 a. m., the first American troops landed ashore at Utah beach with the amphibious tanks. At 7: 25 a. m., the first British soldiers came ashore at Gold and Sword beaches, and then the Canadians followed and landed at Juno. At 10: 15 a. m., Rommel, who had flown back to Germany a few days before, becomes aware of the attack and flies back to France. At midnight, more than 155,000 Allied troops had come ashore.

Omaha had been the only beach where the Germans assaulted 35,000 American soldiers within a mile perimeter. German naval units were informed to be on guard in case of any other surprise attacks. The message that was sent out was intercepted by the British, which helped them to know that June 7th wouldn't have the full force of the German defense. On June 7th, the Allies had begun to consolidate their positions in Normandy, and had sought to just enlarge them even more. 'The British Intelligence decrypted the German Air Force Enigma message, sent to the First Parachute Army at Nancy, about the growing shortage of fuel. That same day, the head of the American bomber forces, General Spaatz, directed that the German oil plants should be first priority targets for the United States Strategic Air Forces.

' June 8th, British troops from Gold met up with the American troops on Omaha beach at Colleyville-sur-Mer. As for the Germans, they had less than a hundred operational aircraft. Aside from that, significant secret orders were being intercepted and decrypted. Due to the British receiving the German orders, they were able to pinpoint the German headquarters of Panza r Group West and bomb them in La Caine. On June 9th at 10: 30 p. m., German Intelligence chiefs had informed Hitler that a message from their trusted secret agent 'Arabe l,' that the Normandy landings were diversions and that the Allies were going to really attack in another area. 'That same day, the German Admiral commanding in the Atlantic suggested to Admiral Doenitz that the 'hesitant and slow' progress of the Allied landings in Normandy might indicate 'an intended second landing at another point'.

This message was decrypted in Britain on June 10th. Not only was deception continuing to keep a protective shield over the Allied armies, but the fact that the deception was working was known to the Allied commanders. ' During June 10th, there was fighting going on six different battlefronts: Normandy, Italy, Leningrad front in Finland, New Guinea, Burma, and in China where the Japanese had launched overland offensive along the Liu yang River, going towards Changsha. Rommel, on June 10th, had sought to focus on attacking against the American bridgehead in the Caren tan-Monte bourg area. It could have prevented the cut off of German supplies. Hitler however, vetoed the idea and had intentions of attacking the British bridgehead from Caen.

The British however, were able to reinforce faster than the Germans, and therefore advanced faster than Rommel. By the night of June 10th, over 325,000 Allied soldiers had come ashore on the Normandy beaches. German motor torpedo boats had broken into the Utah beach anchorage, and began to sink the American destroyer, Nelson during the night. In Normandy on June 11th, the British had been pushed up against the wall after being captured and then were shot.

On the Indian border during June 12th, a Gurkha soldier who was sent on a tank-hunting mission against the Japanese forces, knocked out two tanks with his anti-tank gun. ' In the early hours of June 13, the Germans at last launched their long-awaited and - by those who knew that it was in preparation - much-feared 'secret weapon', a small, pioletless, jet-propelled plane, carrying a ton of explosives that detonated on contact. Know to the Germans as the V-1, 'Vergeltung' or 'Reprisal' I, and by the British as the 'flying bomb,' its first efforts were dismal. Only one cause casualties. ' In Italy, Italian partisans had blown up bridges and roads by using German military traffic between La Spezia and Reggio Emilia. ' June 14th, that the Germans still feared 'subsidiary operations' not only in the South of France, but in the Pas de Calais, south-west France and Norway, with the Dutch-Belgian coast, to the east of the Pas-de-Calais, still seen as the intended landing place of the main invasion force.

Determined to forestall the planned German motor torpedo boat attacks on Allied supply ships crossing the English Channel to the Normandy beaches, the British air raid was carried out on June 14th against the torpedo boats pens at Le Havre. The raid was led by Leonard Cheshire, who had already received the Victoria Cross for his outstanding leadership in many earlier raids. ' On June 15th, German Colonel Wachter had launched a second flying bomb raid on Britain. Overall, 244 missiles were fired from Watten. Forty-five had crash landed, which had wound up destroying nine launch sites and killed ten French civilians. The missiles that had reached Britain had killed more than fifty civilians in London.

Only twelve had been shot down by the British a nit-aircraft fire and eight by fighters. Unfortunately, seventy-three bombs had hit London. In the Pacific, the Americans had begun Operation Forager on the Marianas Islands. On Saipan Island alone, over twenty thousand American soldiers had come ashore, and meeting the Japanese.

June 16th, behind the German lines, the Jews who were working in German war production in the Lodz ghetto had to volunteer to help clear the debris in the cities that had been bombed severely. Supposedly, the first 3,000 were to head to Munich, but instead, were sent to concentration camps in Chelmno. During this day, the German Naval Group West had beliefs that there was to be a strong Allied invasion against Holland and Belgium. They had come to this conclusion due to all of the jamming of radar, and aircraft activity. That had been part of the Fortitude deception. June 17th, Hitler traveled to Soissons go see his commanders.

Also, the Free French Forces had begun to carry out their Operation Brassard which would lead to the capture of the Italian island of Elba. In Poland on June 18th, the Germans launch their second Operation Hurricane which was against the Polish partisans. It had killed seven hundred partisans in six days in the region of Osu chy, which is near Lublin. Meanwhile in China, Japanese forces had captured Changsha, which was their first success of Operation Ichigo. ' On June 19th, off the north-western coast of New Guinea, General Eichelberger launched an American attack against the defenders of Biak Island, who, since the American landings three weeks earlier, had resisted all attempts to dislodge them. The Japanese, defeated in open battle, retreated to caves, where they could only be destroyed by flame-throwers.

' During this same day, British bombing on Watten destroyed a numerous amount of flying bomb as they were being prepared to be launched. American bombers were just as equally effective three days later against a suspecting flying bomb supply at Nu court. The flying bombs had started to reach Britain everyday. 'By midnight on June 20th, half a million Allied soldiers were ashore in Normandy; in the first two weeks of fighting, four thousand had been killed. From German-occupied France, news reached London that the French Resistance forces had declared a 'general uprising'; Churchill at once instructed the Special Operations Executive to fly in whatever was needed in the way of arms and ammunition 'to prevent the collapse of the movement and extend it'.

' During the next two nights, railway lines had been blown apart between Vitebsk and Orsha, and Polotsky and Molodechno. They were Germany's essential lines for transportation of reinforcements. 'All of this was but a prelude to the morning of June 22nd, when the Red Army opened its summer offensive. Code-named Operation Bagration, after the tsarist General, it began on the third anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Russia, with a force larger than that of Hitler's in 1941.

In all, 1,700,000 Soviet troops took part, supported by 2,715 tanks, 1,355 self-propelled guns, 24,000 artillery pieces and 2,306 rocket launchers, sustained in the air by six thousand aircraft, and on the ground by 70,000 lorries and up to a hundred supply trains a day. In one week, the two-hundred -mile-long German front was broken, and the Germans driven back towards Bobruisk, Stolbtsy, Minsk, and Grodno, their hold on western Russia broken for ever. In one week, 38,000 German troops had been killed and 116,000 taken prisoner. The Germans also lost two thousand tanks, ten thousand heavy guns, and 57,000 vehicles. German Army Group North, on which so much depended, was broken into two segments, one retreating towards the Baltic States, the other toward East Prussia. ' During June 24th behind the German lines in Italy near Arezzo, Italian partisans had began to raid the German forces which were on their way further south.

Meanwhile in Britain, the flying bombs continued to fill the air and caused 51 soldiers to die. Some were shot down by the anti-aircraft guns at Newlands in Kent while they were headed for London. The bombs had landed in barracks and began to explode. General Karl Wilhelm von Schlieren who was the German commander in Cherbourg, France on June 25th, had appealed to Rommel asking to be allowed to surrender.

Unfortunately, Rommel didn't agree and said to hold out until the last round. Field Marshall von Rundstedt was still not convinced that Normandy was more than a diversion. He believed that the American Fortitude was ready to embark in Britain. The German naval commander at Cherbourg, Admiral Henne cke, had ordered the total destruction of all port facilities on June 26th.

For doing this, Hitler had honored the Admiral with a Knight's Cross, in addition to his Iron Cross. During this day, the Red Army entered Vitebsk. Aware of this, Hitler ordered to fight to the end, but the fight had ended in defeat for the Germans. In addition, revelations of the mass murders of the Jews at the concentration camps was being studied in London and in Washington. Aside from that, in Burma, the British, Indian, Gurkha and American troops captured Mog aung. 'Eight days later, Myitkyina was also captured.

On every front- in Burma, in the Pacific, in Italy, in Normandy, and most dramatically of all, in White Russia- the Axis powers were now firmly in retreat. ' D-Day was the greatest amphibious operation to ever take place in history.

Bibliography

1. Churchill, Winston (Foreword). D-Day: Operation Overlord, Smith mark Publishing, New York, NY, 1993 2.
Gilbert, Martin. The Second World War, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, NY copyright 1989 3.
Goldstein, Richard. America at D-Day, Dell Publishing, New York, NY copyright 1994.