Hello everybody, I thought it only right to take a moment to remember The Invasion of Europe today. 65 years ago this very day, over 160,000 men left to attack Germany's great Atlanic wall. A cement barricade covering the entire french shoreline! This wall was more than a wall though, it had land-mines on the beach, cement pillboxes all over, atilary back-up, and much more. I am about to share a paper I wrote about the attack. O know it's long so feel free to skip to any part you want to know about.

D-Day is arguably the most important battle in modern history. In 1939, a man named Adolph Hitler had seized control of Germany and had begun to build an army in spite of a treaty signed in 1919. This treaty was signed at the end of World War I (WWI) and prohibited Germany from raising a military. Over the span of two years Hitler conquered over half of Europe including France, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. On December 11, 1941, Hitler declared war on the U.S, forcing America to join the war as Britain’s allies.In 1943, America and Britain agreed on an enormous attack against Germany.

The next year was spent planning and preparing for D-Day. The “D” in D-day does not actually mean anything, they just repeated the first letter to emphasize the day’s importance. Although almost all military operations are called D-Day at one time, this D-Day was the ultimate D-Day.

After months of planning, the Allies (Britain and America) decided the best place to attack was Normandy, a beach on the northern coast of France directly across the English Channel from England. Normandy was the best place to attack simply because it wasn’t. Normandy was not near Britain and was pretty well protected. One Normandy was selected, the beach was divided into five different landing zones; Utah, and Omaha (American), Gold, Juno, and Sword (British). The Allies knew Hitler would never expect an attack there. If Hitler was wondering where the Allies would attack, he would assume that they would attack Calais, a jut of land extremely close to England. The Allies used this to their advantage later on.

American and British scientists studied charts over 300 years old to determine when the tide would be right to attack. The tide had to be high enough so that the landing craft, carrying soldiers, could clear the spikes set up by the Germans. The soonest time the tide would meet all the requirements was June 5, 1944. Knowing this, the generals agreed to set the date of attack for that time.
The Allies decided to try and fool the Germans and made what they called “Patton’s Army.” Patton was an American general who had led a brilliant campaign against Germany in Africa. After their defeat the Germans wanted to be prepared for this “Hervorragendes Ungeheuer” or “Brilliant monster.” The Germans knew he was going to attack again but they didn’t know where. The British set up inflatable tanks and fake runways to confuse the Germans. The Germans evaluated their defenses and decided that Patton would attack at Calais, a beach only 30 or so miles from England, across the English Channel. Actually, Patton was prohibited from active duty because he had slapped a soldier during the Africa campaign, but it fooled the Germans. They sent a brigade of Panzer tanks to Calais to prepare the city. The Allies were also very careful with any information concerning D-Day. One story says an American general, who was stationed in London, got drunk and started to brag about how much he knew. The next day he was transferred to a lonely base in Nevada for the remainder of the war.

America spent the year of 1943 by building planes, weapons, tanks, and shipping men to Britain. The Allies knew that the secret to victory was not only to have better weapons and men then the enemy, but also to know more. Spy planes equipped with high speed cameras would fly, low altitude, over the German defenses, taking pictures all the while. In a short time, the Allies had a full photo map of Normandy. Pilots who would be flying during the attack could go into the room and memorize what their target looked like from the sky. Every bomber knew exactly what to hit.

The Allies also created special weapons for D-Day. The most unique of these was an amphibious tank. This tank was designed to be launched by boat and motor to the shore where it would act like a regular tank. This seemed perfect to the generals who did not want to have to take heavy tanks to shore by boat.
When June 5 finally arrived the weather was stormy and almost tipped the landing craft. After a brief meeting between the American and British generals, the landing was postponed 12 hours. The soldiers took this as bad news because the storm was rocking the ships so fiercely more than three-fourths of the soldiers were already seasick. Spending another 12 cursed hours on board these boats seemed unbearable.

After 12 hours had passed, the weather was still just as stormy. The generals met again and postponed the attack another 12 hours. After 12 hours had past the weather was still bad, but it wasn’t raining anymore. The generals knew that they had to attack now or wait another 2 weeks for the tide to be right again. Returning to England was dangerous because they couldn’t keep 160,000 men quiet for two weeks. The attack was on.
Before any soldiers landed on Normandy there were already Allies there. These Allies were paratroopers. Paratroopers are soldiers who are dropped behind enemy lines and help defeat the enemy’s support. The paratroopers were dropped at the right time but a heavy ground fog caused pilots to drop them off target. Some paratroopers landed up to 50 miles away from their drop zone. This may have seemed a disaster, but it was turned to good because the paratroopers were spread out over so much land that the Germans thought that there were more then twice the paratroopers than there really were. These paratroopers formed into groups and went around causing havoc by killing patrols and blowing up anti-aircraft guns.

Out at sea, more than 160,000 soldiers were preparing to land on Normandy. Before the landing, battleships bombarded the shore at a rate of 200 tons of bombs per minute! Bombers flew and showered the barricade with tons of 500 pound bombs. From the ships, it was like watching a caged rat get blown to bits. They thought that nothing could be left alive on the beach. They were wrong.

“What the **** are you guys waiting for! Use your **** helmets and bail!”

As the carriers neared Omaha beach, some of them got caught in sand banks and didn’t want to continue because of the fear of not being able to get back to the ships. Instead, they let the soldiers out over 100 yards from the beach. Many of the soldiers jumped from the boat into 8 ft deep water and drowned due to the 100 pounds of equipment strapped on their backs.

The soldiers that did reach the beach found that they were stuck behind a five foot sand wall. Any soldier unlucky enough to let his head show was soon dead. The soldiers were waiting for a weapon that would never come. That weapon was the amphibious tank that had seemed so perfect. All but 3 out of more than 50 had sunk because of the stormy seas. Without tanks, the soldiers seemed doomed. This feeling of doom disappeared after one sergeant asked a soldier what was going on. “We can’t get past that bunker sir.” The soldier yelled above the noise of the battle,

“****, that’s it. I’ll get you past that ***-**** bunker!”

With that, the sergeant grabbed a demolition pack (a large bag, filled with explosives that are set on a timer which can be started by anyone at the push of a button) and started running toward the bunker. In an incredible act of courage, the sergeant reached the base of the bunker and planted the demolition pack at its base. He was shot and killed as he ran back to the beach, but his courage had already helped the war. After 15 seconds, the bunker blew up and a hole 10 yards across was opened in the wall. For his act of courage, that sergeant was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. After a few hours the Americans had taken Omaha beach. The other beaches were tough, but Omaha was certainly the worst.

Patton’s army ended up working extremely well. The panzers, that were so desperately needed, were just sitting up at Calais but needed orders from Hitler to move. Hitler couldn’t give orders because he was asleep. The night before the attack Hitler had spent the night partying and drinking. The morning of the attack he slept late, and no one dared wake him for fear of stirring his wrath. The Panzers never were able to help Normandy.
After hours of carnage and gore, the Allies had a foothold in Europe. The battle was tough and the casualties high. Out of 160,000 soldiers 9,000 died, or 1 out of 17. After this battle, the war went on for more than a year, all the while the Allies gaining ground. On the 19th of April, 1945, Germany surrendered to America and ended the awful bloodshed.