11/26/14
D-Day Essay
D-Day Essay On June 6, 1944, one of the most historical battles in the world took place; D-Day. Also known as Operation Overlord, it was very important because the Allies landed on Continental European soil and got a foot- hold in the ground war. Americans, British, and Canadians made up most of the invasion force, but Polish and free French armies not under control of the Germans, as well as Australians and many other countries contributed as well. The Allies had over 156,000 soldiers, while the Germans had about 50,350 soldiers. The Germans were defending the Fatherland, which made it very hard for the Allies to get on to occupied land and defeat the Nazi war machine. Although the Allies had more people, the Germans had very good artillery placement, great bunker positions, and …show more content…
General George S. Patton was in charge of this group. The invasion had to take place at low tide, but the beginning of high tide. It had to be this way so the Allied boats could see the obstacles, but once high tide came, they could get the furthest on the beach in the safety of their boat. The invasion also had to take place on the night of a full moon, so they could see at night the best and so the airborne division could see where they were bombing right before the 7,000 vessels came in to attack.
D-Day was actually scheduled for May, but because of bad weather, it was rescheduled to June 6th. June 6th had bad weather, but because of the things that had to go right, the next plausible time for attacking would be months away. It was felt that maintaining secrecy and troop moral for that period of time was not protocol. Operation Bolero was in Britain, and it was a build up or a bluff. The Germans were very smart and saw almost everything that happened with the Allies, except for D-Day. In early June, about 2 million Americans were at Bolero. About a quarter of a million Canadians were at