Normandy Invasion :: essays research papers

As they prepared for a cross-Channel assault on France, the westerly Allies built up on British soil single of the largest and most powerful invasion forces in history. For 2 months before the priming coating, turn troop, equipment, and supplies poured into Britain, the Allied air forces bombed railroads, bridges, airfields, and fortifications in France and Belgium and continued their attacks on German industrial centers.Postponed by delays in gathering the necessary land equipment and by last and tidal conditions, Operation Overlord, with Eisenhower in command, began on June 6, 1944, afterward known as D-Day. Throughout the preceding night, paratroopers were dropped behind German coastal defenses to sever communication theory and seize spot defense posts.Hundreds of warships and innumerable small craft support the invasion. Between 630 and 730 A.M., waves of Allied army moved ashore between Cherbourg and Le Havre in historys largest amphibious operation, involving about 5,000 ships of all kinds. About 11,000 Allied aircraft operated over the invasion area. More than 150,000 troopsdisembarked at Normandy on D-Day. Because all major French ports in the pairing were mined and fortified, the Allies improvised two artificial harbors, with pontoons, breakwaters, and sunken ships. one(a) of the harbors was destroyed by a severe Atlantic gale, but the early(a) worked perfectly. Twenty pipelines below the Channel were used to bring in tiny supplies of gasoline for the tanks.The Germans had anticipated an Allied invasion of western Europe at about this time but were surprised by its location. Gen. Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of German forces in the West, had expected the Allies to take the shortest water route and land at Pas de Calais. A British intelligence operation called Ultra, having broken key German ciphers, learned of his misapprehension. To capitalize on the situation, the Allies stationed a ghost army in Kent that reinforced Rundstedts mist aken opinion. It may also affirm influenced Hitler to decide against sending reserve panzer divisions to Normandy, a decision that greatly facilitated the landing and the establishment of beachheads.