The Battle Of D-Day

The Battle of D-Day

Introduction

I. What were the events that happened before D-Day?

A. When would the invasion happen?

B. The build up of men, boats, and planes in England.

C. The invasion was postponed.

II. The invasion begins.

A. When and where did the invasion happen?

B. What happened at the five landing sites?

C. What went wrong?

III. The invasion ends.

A. How long did it take?

B. How many men were lost?

Conclusion

Final Thesis: D-Day was a prominent event in history, and there were many events

that happened on and before that day.

Have you ever been a part of something big? Maybe a it was a big game or

something very important. Well I will be telling you about the D-Day invasion.

All of the people that took part in this invasion had that feeling of being part

of something big. This battle marked the being of the end of World War II.

D-Day was a prominent event in history, and there were many events that

happened on and before that day.

The Allied nations had chosen May 1944 for the invasion. There were problems

with making the landing crafts, which forced postponement until June.

Eisenhower, on May 17, fixed June 5, as the day for the invasion. Eisenhower

and his subordinates decided on a 24-hour delay. This required the recall of

ships that had already gone to sea. Then on the morning of June 5, the Ok was

given for the invasion to start.

There were five beaches that were going to land on, each with its own code

name. The first beach on the right was code named "Utah". The second beach from

the right was "Omaha". "Gold" was the center beach. The second beach from the

left was code named "Juno". "Sword" Beach was the beach farthest on the left.

James Martin Stagg was the chief meteorological adviser to General Dwight D.

Eisenhower. Stagg was the head of the committee of meteorologists, who's job it

was to forecast weather conditions in the English Channel during the days and

weeks leading up to D-Day. The landing was to be any day between June 5 and 7.

The first day of June saw low-laying rain clouds, high winds, and stormy seas,

which would disrupt the crossing of the Channel on the morning of June 4.

Eisenhower who postponed the invasion do to weather. That night Stagg told

Eisenhower that the weather should be ok on the 6th of June. Eisenhower

listened to him and the invasion toke place on June 6,1944.

"As it happened, weather did not seriously disrupt the D-Day landings, though

the poor conditions had lulled the German defenders into thinking that an Allied

landing was impossible that Day." (Normandy 1944 p. 1)

June 6, 1944, D-Day, signaled the begin of the end of World War II. On this

day troops from America, Britain, and Canada would sail across the English

Channel from England as they attacked a fifty-mile strip of the coast of

Normandy. The Nazis held France and Hitler had tried to protect the coastline

with the "Atlantic Wall," which had mines, pillboxes, forts, gun placements, and

machine-gun nests. All contented by trenches and protected by barbed wire.

The Allied expeditionary force was more than 2,800,000 men. Only a few

thousand of these men would be leading the landings. At about two o'clock in

the morning of June 6, 1944, D-Day, they were only ten miles from France's

coast.

"The question was: could the leading assault troops break open the first holes

in Hitler's defensive line?

That was what the soldiers themselves, before the end of D-Day, would answer.

The success of the invasion depended on them." (The Story of D-Day p.7-8)

"Within hours, an armada of 3,000 landing crafts, 2,500 other ships, and 500

navel vessels - escorts and battle ships - began to leave English ports. That

night 822 aircrafts, carrying parachutists or towing gliders, roared overhead to

the Normandy landing zones. They were only a fraction of the air armada of

13,000 aircraft that would support D-Day." (Normandy 1944 p.1)

Not only did troops come from the sea, they also came from the air. The

Airborne troops landings were a very larger success. The Americans 82nd and

101st airborne divisions were dropped at the base of the Colentine Peninsula and

although they suffered many casualties due to drowning, they still succeeded in

their objective.