Major Turning Points In Wwii History Essay

One of the major turning points in World War 2 was when allied forces landed in Normandy, France on a day of great battle. About 175,000 allied troops landed on June 6th, the day that got to be known as D-day. The allied forces landed in Normandy, on Tuesday, 6 June 1944, beginning at 6:30 in the morning of British time. The two main operations on D-day were known as Operation Neptune and Operation Overlord. D-Day was the name that was used for the day of Normandy landing, which was not approved formally of.

The code name given to the famous Allied raid of France planned for June 1944, was Operation Overlord. The commander-in-chief of Operation Overlord was General Dwight Eisenhower. Other leading commanders for Overlord included Air Marshall Leigh-Mallory, Air Marshall Tedder, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery and Admiral Bertram Ramsey. Operation Overlord required the sort of logistical issues that no armed forces or military had ever had to manage. The most important preparation was for the Allies to have landed an immense amount of both men and equipment by the end of D-Day itself.

The preparation and logistics behind Operation Overlord were beyond comparison in United States history. The Allies had to guarantee that no part of the entire

plan was leaked, as it was very valuable and above all, the desire to fool the Germans was at a great height. The measly assembly of equipment required for the raid was a matter itself. The allies had a hard time figuring out where the weapons could be stored without attracting the awareness of German spies. Some of the other concerns were about how to transport them without the neighboring people discuss about them would and how a hefty sum of boats could be gathered and readied. During the actual incursion, more than 6,000 ships were needed for the invasion of Normandy and for future cross-Channel trips transporting troops and equipment. During the initial three days of the offense, Overlord intended to shift more than 100,000 men and practically 13,000 vehicles. The plan furthermore incorporated the movement of a synthetic harbor so that people and resources could be landed with extra ease once the main beaches had been held by allied forces.

Operation Neptune was the cross-Channel passage segment of the much important Operation Overlord. Operation Neptune positioned all issues related to the navy and the marines under the command of Admiral Bertram Ramsey whose command skill had already been tested in 1940 with. Admiral Ramsey played a major role in the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, which was another major operation. He knew that such an immense attack would leave huge damage on the Royal Navy merely in terms of the number of boats and ships required. The directorial and organizational issues were also immeasurable like operation Overload. About 6,000 ships were required for Operation Neptune, as this many posed major problems. They did not know where so many ships could be placed or if they could open a bombing raid on Germany or not, or how they would measure up against German U-boat attacks.

It is perhaps a platitude that the triumph of D-Day (June 6th 1944) was built upon the quality and the type of sand. If the preferred beaches in Normandy were fabricated of the wrong sand, then the Allied protective coverings and transport vehicles would not have landed successfully. If there was no support from the tanks and armored trucks, the men on the beach would have had to cover a lot more resilient to a German counter-offensive. For that reason, the Allies required to know what sort of sand was on the selected beaches in Normandy prior to any planned invasion. The true alarm was that the beaches were made up of a mixture of sand that compromises peat, which is an assortment that would approximately contain any hefty military means of transportation from moving along normally.

  So before the actual mission the allies had to risk the lives of two brave British soldiers, to help strengthen the actual D-day mission. On December 31st 1943, Sergeant Bruce Ogden-Smith and Major Logan Scott-Bowden landed in Normandy in the middle of the night. Their task was to collect sand and peat samples for scientists back in the United Kingdom, who would then come to a decision whether the potential landing beaches were competent to hold heavy military vehicles. At hand was a real concern that a great deal of troops may be submerged in the peat and be exposed to yet additional hazard. The two men that were selected for this risky task were experienced British officers. If they were caught both these men would face anguish and both would have

been instantly killed due to Hitler’s ‘Commando Order’. This order declared that any

captured commandos ought to be killed out of hand. These men succeeded the mission

and brought back samples of the sand and peat samples to the United Kingdom on New Year’s day (January 1st 1944).

The English Channel, which is nearly ninety miles wide connecting Portsmouth, England, and the Normandy beaches, was a dreadful barrier for the armed forces. Near the start of the previous century it had upset Napoleon and in the 1940s it blocked the successful conquering of the Germans. By the spring of 1944, the Allies needed many hundreds of ships and aircrafts to convey their armies transversely across the Channel and instigate the emancipation of France. A storm postponed the operation, which was initially planned for the 5th of June. Many of the invasion forces had gone from their embarkation points, forcing all the vessels to get back to the seaport, where their crew and soldiers had to wait through packed and painful circumstances. Offered with a improved forecast for the sixth of June, General Dwight D. Eisenhower concluded to a cautious judgment late in the evening of June fourth, to get the transportation on their way, and gave his final decision to go at 4 A.M. on the fifth.

Many minesweepers were defraying through transportation lanes throughout a fifteen mile wide radius. A numerous amount of vessels towed bombardment balloons, which were used as defense against German bombing attacks which didn’t appear, since their frail atmosphere exploration kept them badly informed of what was happening.

The route across was everything except smooth, particularly for infantry and tank landing vehicles, several of whose passengers had hard times, and suffered hours of seasickness throughout the nights of June 5th and 6th. As the convoys arrived at Normandy, their courses differed out to some extent, taking them to staging areas off the individual landing beaches. The majority of ships were in their ready places a long

time prior to dawn. Deeper inshore, the hectic minesweepers sustained their work, opening secure, or at least moderately safe channels and functioning areas for landing boats and firing support ships.

Above the darkness, a firm demonstration of hundreds of conveyer planes and gliders moved over Normandy, dropping U.S. paratroopers domestically, just west of the Utah beach. British parachutists came down south of the assault zone, but quickly got back into their planned locations. Following the preliminary waves of ships and planes came more, in a flood of troops that would continue to come, reinforcing the original landings and giving logistics support for the armies as they took over the beachhead, moved and battled their way across Europe.

Led by the General of the U.S. Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Normandy assault stage, with the code name Operation Neptune, as the whole maneuver itself was called Operation Overlord, which was launched after weather news predicted reasonable weather settings on the 6th of June in Normandy. Many large ships and aircrafts, supported by means of enemy warships, crossed the English Channel following dozens of minesweepers and traps. Most of the allied forces equipment, and warships arrived off the beaches prior to the crack of dawn. Three different divisions of paratroopers consisted of two American and one British, had previously been dropped locally. After a brief assault by ships and guns, soldiers of six special divisions three American, two British, and one Canadian, stormed ashore in five main beach landing areas, named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Following many tough fights, in particular the one on Omaha

Beach, by the end of the day, traction had been very well established.

As the German counterattacks did not get through as they have expected, the Allies poured men and materials into France to take an advantage. Towards the end of July, reinforcements and steady battles made it possible for a getaway from the Normandy outskirts. An additional landing, in southern France in the middle of August, helped facilitate the liberation of France. While the Soviets were coming from the east, Hitler’s army was pushed away, occasionally haltingly and constantly bloodily, back en route for their native soil. That was when the Second World War had entered its climactic stage.

The number of Allied combat casualties on D-Day is approximated at about 10,000, of whom 2,500 died. D-Day resulted in the deaths of about 2700 British troops, 950 Canadians troops, and 6,600 American troops. In total about 15,000 to 20,000 French civilians died with an unidentified amount of casualties.