Key battles in WW1/WW2

D-Day

One of the most important operations of the Second world war, millions of troops landing on beaches of the Normandy coast where only just beaches of machine gun pill boxes and barber wire with little to no cover from the daunting machine guns above you. Lets see what happened in this operation...

Summer 1944, Germany was having several different problems for the mainland and preferably seen on the Eastern front, the Red army had consistently been assaulting defences and now even the western Allies were now concerned about Soviet victory. They were heavy Capitalist whilst the Soviets were strong communists. And by invading German territory they would spread communism with it. They knew the Germans would fight to the end so even if the homeland falls they will continue to fight into occupied France. And then when they were defeated the USSR would implement a communist French government. Not keen to the British and American people. So they needed to land in France to make sure not all of Europe would fall to Communism.

Therefore planning began for an operation to liberate France from German occupation. There were many challenges like for example the weather and also the terrain they were dealing with. But Erwin Rommel had came to the Northern France to rebuild the defences as the Alantic wall Hitler had built was not the best equipment and troops guarding it. And Rommel had rebuilt the French part of the Alantic wall. So no matter where they landed it would be a tough and stiff competition to who will have France. As there were 3 key landing spots for the operation to take place.

1. Calais, a really good landing site with a port ready to have naval ships bombard the defences above. And also the shortest point between the British and French landing points across the water. However the Bulk of the German troops were here as it was the most likely spot to land the invasion.

2. Cherbourg peninsula, also another great landing spot for the allies also made with a port for their naval ships. And it gave the fastest way to liberate France from the German occupation however it would take a long to time to because of the German forces also being strong lead the way to liberate most of France.

Finally the Normandy coast, this was the chosen landing site for the Allies in the end and also the quickest way to liberate Paris and also had a beach where the allies could land effectively. And the German defence was the weakest here as many of the beaches were with non experienced troops. And this also had a nearby small city called Caen. Which would give a Allied advantage in the coming weeks.

However the weather scenery was not exactly the most beautiful as rain and wind rocked the Channel for days on end constantly postponing the operation constantly to later dates. However there was nearly over 1,000,000 men waiting for their orders to cross the channel. And the nations they all came from.

America
Britain
France
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Greece
Norway
Denmark
South Africa
Brazil

The operation had almost over 15 different nations to have across the operation. With the daunting thoughts of being vaporized by machine guns.
Thus the operation was a go, despite the stormy weather they needed to catch the Germans by suprise. And by doing it in the stormy weather it helped that. And the Naval ships had moved to the coast where they proceeded to bombard the pill boxes for hours before dawn to soften their positions.

Then the task forces came into play...

The Five landing sites in Normandy,

Omaha, Utah, Gold, Sword and Juno.

The British were to land at Gold and Sword whilst America was to land at Omaha and Utah. Then the Canadians land at Juno. All forces land on the beaches and the Germans bog them down for hours until they finally break through inland towards the mainland. Gold and Sword for the British was rather easy with little difficulty for them. Not much different either for Juno for the Canadians. And also for Utah but not much could be said the same for Omaha. The toughest landing point where a strong German garrison had held their positions instead of diverting. However after brief struggles they managed to escape. The Germans still had time to push them into the sea again but they were lacking the large reinforcements because they only had around 300,000 men to contain the landing. Whilst the Allies had already landed a Million men. And then they would go onto Caen a small city on the coast not far from Paris. The British gained the upper hand and took Caen but they couldn't push no further because their eastern flank was extremely strong and the attack were haulted after they took the terrain around the city aswell. Germany had lost its largest opportunity to strike them back into the sea and now it was only a matter of time before they would break out into all of France liberating it from complete German occupation.