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The Battle Of D-Day Essay

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Saint-Lô was a strategic stronghold of Nazi occupied France during World War II. The town had the heaviest defenses directly from the Normandy beaches. Saint-Lô lies on an important crossroads of highways and railroads leading to the interior of France and was key to Nazi Germany and the Allies alike. Near the end of Operation Overlord on the 7 July 1944 nearly one month after the Allied forces liberated the coast of Normandy, the Americans targeted the city of Saint-Lô. The liberation of France hinged on the balance of the United States securing Saint-Lô and the bloodshed on D-Day would have been for nothing. It took countless weary days of causality-ridden fighting until Saint-Lô was captured on 18 July 1944. The United States Army sustained 40,000 killed or wounded in the campaign, 10,000 soldiers who …show more content…

The Allied landings on Normandy go down in history as the most important battles ever fought. The forgotten Battle of Saint-Lô hinged the Allies chance of defeating Nazi Germany. The city of Saint-Lô was crucial to the Allies because of its strategic connection to highways and railroads that went to the interior of France and was crucial to not only liberate France but to also win the European Theatre at large. “Take Saint-Lô and we will be in Paris within two weeks,” General George S. Patton stated showing the strategic importance the city had to liberation of France. After D-Day the Allies were in a virtual stalemate with hundreds of thousands of soldiers dug in along the thin Normandy beachhead. The grand push inward after the assault had quickly died out and had turned into a deadly war of attrition. The US Army’s 29th Infantry Division spearheaded the offensive against the entrenched II. Fallschirmkorps in a muddy battlefield that was drenched from three consecutive

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