D-Day's Victory During World War II

World War II is labeled as the worst war the world has ever endured. The battles that occurred during WWII claimed the lives of tens of millions of people. One of the distinct battles of WWII was called D-Day, also known as operation Overlord or the invasion of Normandy. Half a million bodies dropped dead on the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944. Although the death toll was extremely high for one day, the success the battle had for the Allies changed the morale of the german forces as well as the Allied forces. D-Day’s success in Normandy by the Allied powers was successful in opening the second front in Europe during World War II.

The most important reason why D-Day was successful in opening the second front is the strong and brave troops that

The Allied fleet had crossed the channel in the night of June 5th - June 6th. “It was comprised of over 4,300 ships. This doesn’t include the 2,600 barges lowered into the water by the huge transport ships” (“The Mood of Britain,” 1984). The Allied naval forces were made up of mostly British and American ships. There were also Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Danish, Greek, and Free French vessels. The fleet was subdivided by Admiral Kirk. He was in charge of the American sector which were the beaches of Utah and Omaha. The Eastern task force was controlled by Admiral Vian who was in charge of the Anglo-Canadian sector which were the beaches of Gold, Juno, and Sword. Every beach was comprised of several hundred transport ships, small vessels, and also accompanied by a naval bombardment squadron of between fifteen and twenty warships. The goal of these ships were to destroy the german defenses at the top of the beach. The naval forces started this operation forty-five minutes before the land troops landed on the beach. They also fired aerial bombardments at night and at dawn. During the battle, the navy’s job was to provide support to the land troops by silencing most of the coastal batteries of the Atlantic Wall and giving valuable tactical support to the infantry, sometimes getting them out of tricky situations, as at Omaha. Without the support from the Allied naval forces, the

They had three goals to achieve for the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 which are the following: disable the Luftwaffe, bomb major transport routes, and provide close air support during the invasion. The Allied Air Force quickly got hard at work. They instantly started clipping the wings of German aircraft. They got in many battles with the German Air Force, or also known as the Luftwaffe. While there were many air battles, the Allied Bombers sought out the German nests and tried to destroy everything that they had in sight. The German Air Force had a hard time recovering from this and it easily showed on D-Day when they had barely any planes to support their ground troops. With the Luftwaffe in ruins, damaging the German railway system would be a lot easier. Allied planes and bombers tried to destroy every railway leading to the Normandy beaches in France. This was a huge help to the invasion as pilots claimed hundreds of railcars and locomotives loaded with munitions, supplies, and troops. In turn, the attacks demoralized German forces and caused them to have delayed reinforcements to the Overlord areas. With every bit of German support gone, the Allied Air Force had also suffered its losses. Many Allied pilots knew that it was tough exclaiming “we’re killing them as fast as they come at us, but [the Allied forces] can’t hold out much longer” (116). In the