d day

Supply

PLUTO which was placed at cherbourg in august 1944.

11th June

The allies had linked up and moved inland. 326,000 landed and 54,000 vechiles they came across the bocage where they met German panzer armies which held them up at Caen, there was a lot more pressure on GB as they had the bulk of the german army as Germany felt that they were the main threat not America. This meant it took them nearly 3 months to liberate caen.

Goodwood

Aimed to exhaust the germans with would prevent them from moving west to stop the USA however, it ended in a stalemate as both had heavy losses.

End of August

Allies liberated Brussels and Antwerp but 3/4 of their supplies were coming into Cherbourg still which meant that there was a to ar stretch in the line so had to halt at the french border. Hitler was trying to alter the result of the war by sending V1 and V2 rockets. They could be shot down and this meant only 1/3 of rockets actually reached london. Between may 1944-march 1945- 3 a day were fired.

Planning

1943_ Quebec conference to make a large scale invasion (overlord) by landing on Normandy rather than pals de calais as this was more heavily fortified which was decided by Eisenhower to invade in 1944 . gave the allies an advantage as the German troops were thinly spread along the coast as were unsure where they were going to land and using the code breakers at bretchly park they were able to identify where they were distributed - They had aircraft which went over the atlantic wall to see where the defences were so they could plan the attact without getting thrown by the Atlantic wall.

Mid July

3rd US army seized the whole of Brittany and started advancing to paris. Hitler carried on fighting, with a counter attack which did nothing leading to German forces being subjectived to a possible Falaise pocket where the Germans would be trapped and lost 60,000 men.

Beaches

British and canadian troops: landed at Gold, Juno and Sword USA: Omaha and Utah. The USA troops had to capture the port at Cherbourg in order for the landings at UTAH so they had to go through cotentin peninsula in order to do this.

7th July

British launched the Battle of Caen. Took the city after it had been carpet bombed but because of the delay between air attack and ground invasion, the germans grew stronger.

November 1944

Capture of Scheldt which meant supplies could arrive through port at Antwerp

Operation fortitude

Deceptiving the Germans about the date and where they would land. Information leaked purposely. They sent fake air craft over with them believing they were going to go from kent to pals de calais when actually dover to normandy. Even once the troops had been landed at normandy he felt that it was a distractor and the main invasion would happen at P D C so left 15th division army there to help defend.

September

Eisenhower took over months role

operation neptune

Landing at normandy beaches

Operation Market garden

Monty's idea. To capture the bridges and rivers in the netherlands including those in lower rhine at Arnhem so they could then capture the Ruhr. However this failed as 2 panzer divisions were on the bridge at the time which meant even if they got there in time it would not have been sustained. 2, GB advance was slow. 1/4 evacuated out of the 9,000 landed there.

Result

Normandy was won as Germany now had no troops.

Winter offensive- Battle of the bulge

Planned by Hitler, attack through ardennes, aiming to recapture Antwerp, spilt the allies and throw them back into the sea. They were surprise but because of bad weather they were unable to do an air attack leaving he Americans being pushed back however when the weather cleared on the 23rd of December the attack from the air began. The germans failed to get the vital oil lines which GB and USA were holding so the supplies became outstretched and were forced to stop. By Mid Jan the budge of the Germans had been pushed back and they had lost 100,000 men which was the last of their reserves.

Omaha

This was the bloodiest landing. They had to land 1 mile away from the beach and be taken in smaller boats to their target, many boats sunk because of the weight before they reached and the first ships were off target as it was dark so was hard to see where they were landing. 2000 lives lost 40000 landed.

Landings

it was for the 5th June but because of bad weather it was possessed to the 6th june. Paratroopers landed in the hope they would seize bridges and road to prevent the germans from coming into Normandy and shotting the Allies back into the sea. The paratroopers were landed at night and were separated out. They managed to capture the vital bridge pegasus and shot the first tank which left the Germans turning back to base giving time for the allies to successfully go onto the beaches.