D-Day Importance

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Patrick Donnell Sharen Buyher 17 October 2011 The Importance of D-Day World War II had many key battles that set the momentum of the war. Every single battle was very valuable to the country that won it, because it made them that much closer to winning the war that involved everyone. “The invasion on June 6, 1944 [D-Day]” (Gelber & Martin, 1978). was an operation that took a lot of intricate planning had little margin for error. What took place on D-Day and how did the planning of it make D-Day sucessful? World war II started on September 1, 1939 and ended on September 2, 1945 (6 years, 1 day). It consisted of two sides. The first was the Western Allies which consisted of mainly the United Kingdom, British Commonwelth, and…show more content…
The United States entered the war after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. World War II changed the everyday life off all Americans drastically. Food, gas, and clothes had to be rationed. Women found employment as electrians, welders and riveters in defense pants. Many famous people joined the war like Ted Williams and many other professional baseball players. Elvis Presley even joined the war. Everyone that was able joined World War II so they could fight and defend the country that they loved and suppported so much. Pearl Harbor was attacked just before eight a.m. on December 7, 1941. Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack only lasted about two hours but the damage was catastrophic for our United States Navy. “The Japanese managed to destroy nearly twenty American naval vessels, including eight…show more content…
It was a major turning point in the war particularly in Europe. “After foul weather had postponed the operation for a day, forty-seven allied divisions invadedNormandy” (Boyer, 2001, p.174). By mid 1944 the early mobilization of man power and resources in America was beginning to pay off. Millions of American men and been trained and equpipped for battle. The American industial production had reached its peak by the end of 1943. “At the beginning of 1944, The United States and Great Britain had accumulated in the British Isles the largest number of men and the greatest amount of of material ever assembled to launch and sustain an amphibious attack” (Nelson, 1993, D-Day). Three months before the attack of D-Day an airstrike was planned to pave the way for invasion by restricting the enemy’s ability to shift reserves. “Despite the bad weather Dwight D. Eisenhower made the decision to attack on June 6, 1944” (Nelson, 1993, D-Day). At 0200, military time, that morning one British and two American airbourne divisions were dropped behind the beaches of Normandy in order to secure routes of regress from the beaches for the seabourne forces” (Frank, 2001, World) This enabled the Western Alllies to trap the Axis powers that guarded the beach and smash them like a sandwich, by attacking them from two sides. This also cut off any escape route for enemy forces if they tried to retreat. Although forty-five percent of the
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