Otázka: The Invasion of Normandy
Jazyk: Angličtina
Přidal(a): TH
As for American history I would like to say something about The Invasion of Normandy. The Invasion of Normandy is really wide topic, therefore I would like to say something interesting about this military operation, then something about it’s importance and finally something about a role of United States of America.
The greatest one
The Invasion of Normandy was the greatest and maybe the most important seaborn invasion in history. Already the first day of invasion on 6th June, which is called the d-day, 150 000 allied soldiers got to Normandy. In the end of June number the number of soldiers reached 850 000.
But not only number of people who successfully got the inland was so high.
9000 airplanes and 5000 ships participated in this operation.
The question is – how is it possible that Germans didn’t noticed 5000 ships are approaching French cost?
The reason was allies confused Germans amazingly.
Firstly they built a fake military base in in british Kent – it was exactly on the opposite side of The Channel towards French city Calai (Kalei). And they even anchored there a small fake flotille to make Germans believed they want to attack Calei. In addition they transmitted fake radio orders for non-existent invasive army in Kent.
Not only they Germans didn’t expected the landing on the 6th June but they had also absolutely no idea the invasion should start near to a different French city – to Caen ( Kee Kaem).
It’s really crucial because the fact that operation was a surprise and shock for Germans was one of grounds why it was successful.
To prove that invasion was really surprise for them I would like to mention that although the operation started 16 minutes after midnight (first gliders, 6.30 first ships) Hitler found it out almost at noon.
And it’s very interesting it was a nice surprise for him. When he was firstly informed that D-Day was there he said, that “The news couldn’t be better. As long as they were in Britain, we couldn’t get at them. Now we have them where we can destroy them.”
Of course he was wrong…
Until now I have been talking about some interesting things, but now I would like to say something about importance of the invasion.
Importance
So, why the invasion was so crucial?
Firstly It opened another front on Nazi Germany which was another fatal strike at Third Reich because Germans had to fight on this front. And fortunately Allied forces, predominantly American and British, forced them back into their own territory, where they were finally defeated from the two Allied armies that surrounded the German Army. So the invasion of Normandy was realized really at the right time.
Moreover thanks to this invasion Europe was liberated not only by Red army but by American forces as well.
I think it’s obvious that world could be maybe different today without this military operation. It formed world history a lot and
some countries were not only historically influenced by this milestone but they also played a very important indispensable role in the invasion. For example United states of America.
The importance of Americans
United States of America were very important for Operation Overlord (code name for the Battle of Normandy),for example because the majority of soldiers were Americans. On The first day of landing there was almost 150 000 soldiers and approximately half of them were Americans. And if you consider that in the end of June there were almost 9 hundred thousand soldiers it had to be a lot of them.
Of course some of them died during the invasion. The highest number of American soldiers died on the Omaha beach, it was 1000 soldiers. Today there is The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. It was established already on 8th June, 2 days after beginning of the operation.
And what is very crucial as well, man who had the biggest responsibility for the invasion was American – I speak about Dwight David Eisenhower. He was the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe. And in this position he was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied Normandy Landings and subsequent liberation of Western Europe.
However Dwight Eisenhower played role of supreme commander fot the duration of whole invasion, he commanded fights with Germans and liberation as well. Therefore I think he maybe could be something like hero not only for Americans but for European nations as well. Fortunately Americans appreciated him a lot because he was President from 1953 till 1961.
