For this research paper I will be writing about the Battle of the Bulge/ Bastogne, and how this is was a keep point in the Second World War to lead the allied forces to victory. On June 6th, 1944, most commonly known as D-day, 160,000 allied troops left England to go to the coast of France, in Normandy. The area where the Allied forces were landing was a 50 mile stretch of coast which the Nazi Germans had heavily fortified. More than 5000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion. Upon arriving at the in Normandy the allied forced were bombarded by mass of gun fired and shells where the objective was to reach the side of the hill on the beaches and to climb and destroy the enemy above.
This led Hitler to pull back his heavy armor divisions from Normandy which allowed the beaches to be conquered. Also, the Army Rangers were the ones responsible for the entire invasion on D-Day. They stormed the beaches and conquered them with great difficulty. Without the Rangers, World War II never would have been won
Fighting during August, German forces reached the city. In November, Soviet forces repelled a modernized German offensive. Not until January 1944, however, Red Army successes in other front sectors enable the Soviets to raise the siege. By this time, besieging German forces were so weak that Soviet attacks drove them away from the city and from Soviet soil. * Leyte Gulf: The Battle of Leyte Gulf raged from October 23 through 26, 1944.
They also had to invade a daunting stretch of beach at Omaha. Lastly, the German defenses and the Atlantic wall proved to be formidable obstacles. Operation Overlord or more commonly known as “D-Day” was the invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. It was the largest amphibious assault in the history of war with numbers reaching
To attack on their own border would take longer and there would be much more resistance from the French so it was decided that they would march through Belgium and take Paris within a couple of weeks. They calculated that the Russian Army would below in their advances giving them enough time to take Paris and crush the French resistance, so they could then prepare for a war on the eastern front. Germany had decided to put some men in Prussia, so they would not be confined to Germany, if the Russians responded more quickly to the attack. So on August 1st, Germany declared war on Russia and 2 days later on August 3rd, on France. What actually happened: The Schlieffen Plan was a big gamble by the Germans, and it could have well resulted in defeat for France and Russia, however the plan backfired on the Germans.
As the war drew on, other weapons such as gas and tanks were used by the Germans for the first time at the First Battle of Ypres in 1915, and became a major tool of warfare on the Western Front. Tanks were used by the British for the first time at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 to little effect, but following technological innovation were crucial tot e success of the Allied counter offensive in 1918. The stalemate was eventually broken by a shift in tactics and strategies. Unlike preceding campaigns, the Ludendorff offensive was able to retain the element of surprise by not employing pre-emptive artillery barrage. This, coupled with the use of highly trained storm troopers meant that the Germans were able to make significant gains in
Period 7 Sadman Samin Military History The Last Days of World War II - Volume 12[6 - 12 May] In the last days of World War II, the war in Europe was finally coming to a stop. In May 7th, 1945 the unconditional surrender documents were signed by Generals of the Allied and Axis forces. On May 8th after President Truman publicly announced the victory of the Allies, wild celebrations erupted all across the world. But in Germany, celebrations were scarce as people were trying to recover from the devastating war. Many Germans lost their families and houses and had very little food to survive.
Since the successful invasions of 1942 to 1943 in North Africa and Italy, the Allies had been pressured to open up a new front in northwest Europe. On June 6, 1944, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Marshall led a great marine assault against the Germans in Normandy. The goal of this offensive was to gain control over France, which had been taken over and occupied by Nazi Germany. This operation was to be known as Operation Overlord. The Americans also had to keep the invasion a secret from their enemies.
The Last Stand As the Allies paved their way through German territory in mid-1944, Hitler desperately tried to push the Allies back by putting to action a surprise attack that failed. After the victory in Normandy, the Allies quickly advanced on toward France (Cayton 442). At this point of time, war with Europe was clearly coming to an end and the Allies were regaining land. Hitler had to do something and he did. The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Campaign, was Hitler’s last counterattack on December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945 which became the largest battle the U.S. had ever fought and caught U.S. troops by surprise, killing nearly 80,000 soldiers (Bulge).
First paratroopers dropped in behind enemy lines to capture and secure strategic roads and bridges. This event was then followed by 2000 bombers and began pounding German defenses in preparations for thousands of Allied troops to storm the beaches of Normandy (Quinlan, Baldwin, Mahoney and Reed 2008, 122). D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion in history as it involved 700 warships and 4000 land craft supported by 11 000 planes providing air cover (Quinlan, Baldwin, Mahoney and reed 2008, 122). It was the ships that had to bring most of the troops to the beaches by sea as planes provided cover from above (Murray-Kelley). The approach of air, sea and land was significant during the invasion, leaving a lasting