D-Day Unit 8

General Eisenhower Eisenhower was in charge of a group of 3 million soldiers that would attack Normandy in Northern France Speech

The Attack by Maps

June 6, 1944 Largest land, sea, and air operation in history. Americans had to move up a beach, with the Germans shooting at them from high ground.

Utah Beach This part of Normandy was low land and swampy. The only way to move around was by road. Allies sent paratroopers to secure the roads, to keep Germans from counter-attacking It worked Strong sea currents set the landing crafts 2000 yards off course. This was actually a blessing because by luck they landed in a much less defended area, and was able to avoid most of the German defenses while landing. Fewer than 300 men died

Omaha Beach Everything went wrong at Omaha Only 2 of 29 of the amphibious tanks made it. The rest sank in choppy waters. No unit actually landed where it had planned to land. Eventually American destroyers moved in to shell German forces, and made way for more American troops to land There were 2,400 American Casualties, out of the 34,000 that landed. Germany lost 1,200 soldiers out of 6,000.

Gold Beach Invaded by the British. Original demolition team came under machine gun fire and wasn’t able to remove the German obstacles or mines British landing ships were sunk British tanks were destroyed on the beach head by mines. Luckily there was no German Armor (tanks) at Gold Beach Only 400 British Casualties

Juno Beach This invading force was about half British and half Canadian Natural Reefs and Coral offshore forced the Juno landing party to wait for high tide before landing. 30 percent of the landing craft at Juno were destroyed Juno was unable to link their line with Sword Beach, which allowed a German Panzer group to counter-attack. 1,200 Canadians died

Sword Beach 5 mile stretch of vacation homes and resorts. British forces sent Commandos in at midnight in gliders to capture and hold bridges. Sword Beach Commandos were able to drive back the German Panzers that were harassing Juno Beach 630 British Casualties

Battle of the Bulge Omar Bradley and George Patton pushed the Germans back and liberated Paris. The Battle of the Bulge was Germany’s last push into Northern France. Germany pushed the Allies back, but after a month the Germans had taken too many casualties and had to retreat

Push Towards Berlin As the Allies pushed towards Germany they started finding concentration camps Soviets liberated Majdanek in Poland. Worlds largest crematorium and a warehouse containing 800,000 pairs of shoes. Russians take Berlin on April 25, 1945 Hitler blamed the Jews for starting the war and blamed his generals for losing it.

The End of Nazi Germany On April 29th Hitler married his mistress Eva Braun Love letter from Eva to Hitler “'From our first meeting I swore to follow you anywhere, even unto death, I live only for your love.” On April 30th Hitler and his wife, for less than a day, committed suicide. May 8, 1945 – VE Day (Victory in Europe). Now the focus is on Japan.