D- DAY and the Battle of the Bulge

Goal of Today We will learn about Operation Overlord or Dday. Know all of the code names for the beaches

Since Germany had forced the Allies out of France to Great Britain in the spring of 1940, plans were being made for a cross Channel assault to retake Europe. By spring of 1944 an elaborate plan nicknamed Operation Overlord was put into place.

Eisenhower was the leader of the Allies Gen. Eisenhower Gives the Orders for D-Day [“Operation Overlord”]

What did the Allies Face From the Germans? Determined to prevent the Allies from landing anywhere along the western European coastline, Hitler ordered Field Marshall Rommel to construct the Atlantic Wall- a 2,400 mile fortification made up of concrete bunkers, barbed wire, tank ditches, landmines, fixed gun emplacements, and beach and underwater obstacles specially designed to rip out the bottoms of landing craft or blow them up before they reached shore.

June 5th 1944 What the Allies Had- 175,000 men, an armada of 5,333 ships and landing crafts, 50,000 vehicles, and 11,000 planes Where would they attack- They would cross the English Channel and land along a 50 mile stretch of the Normandy coast of France. Largest amphibious assault in history.

In the early morning hours Allied paratroopers landed behind enemy lines securing key points on the flanks of the invasion area. D-Day (June 6, 1944)

As dawn lit the Normandy coastline the Allies began their landing on small landing crafts. The plan called for the landing at five beaches code- named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword

“Welcome to Hell”

Normandy Landing (June 6, 1944 ) German Prisoners Higgins Landing Crafts

By nightfall nearly all 175,000 men made it ashore at the cost of 4,900. Hitler’s Atlantic Wall had fallen in less than one day. Operation Overlord was a turning point of WWII in Europe. This defeat would signal the beginning of the end for Hitler and the Nazi’s. Had Hitler won he would have been able to pull troops from the Western front to the Eastern front in Russia.

After Normandy July: The Allies take control of the French port city of Cherbourg. The retreating Germans, however, have left the city badly damaged and booby-trapped. French refugees return to liberated Cherbourg

T The Liberation of Paris: August 25, 1944 De Gaulle in Triumph!

U. S. Troops in Paris, 1944

Sept 13, 1944 U.S. troops cross the Siegfried line and enter into Germany

The Battle of the Bulge: Hitler’s Last Offensive Dec. 16, 1944 to Jan. 28, 1945

Battle of the Bulge: When? – December 16, 1944 Where? – border areas near Luxembourg, France and Germany Results? – The Germans began a counterattack against the Allies as the Allies attempted to drive the Germans completely out of France. Importance? – This battle showed the desperation of the German forces. While the Germans were able to slow down the Allied advance, they could not stop it completely.

December 16: The Battle of the Bulge begins. Hitler sends a quarter million troops across an 85-mile stretch of the Allied front, from southern Belgium into Luxembourg. In deadly cold winter weather, German troops will advance some 50 miles into the Allied lines, creating a deadly "bulge" pushing into Allied defenses January 1945: By the end of the month, the Battle of the Bulge ends. Over 76,000 Americans have been killed, wounded, or captured. The Allies regain the territory they held in early December.

During the winter of , more than 500,000 troops were deployed in the Ardennes. An astonishing number -- 76, would be wounded or killed. The troops were young men -- some of them barely out of high school. Freezing cold, frostbite, death -- these were everyday facts for the soldiers at the Bulge.

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