Why was D-day so Successful?Roan Khanna 8VKEWhy was D-day so successful?By Roan Khanna

CONTENTSIntroductionThe Failure at Dieppe Preparation and PlanningBritish DeceptionAmerican SupportGerman MistakesConclusion

IntroductionBefore D-day, in World War 2 (1939-45) the German Forces (Axis) occupied most of Western Europe. But on June 6 1944 The Allied forces initiated the most ambitious assault to take back Europe the world had ever seen. D-day allowed the Allies to take back Europe and ultimately win World War 2. In this Essay, I will be covering the Allies Preparation and Planning; The German Mistakes; the British Deception and the American Support. By 1944 all of northern France had been liberated from German control, many historians argue that this was the beginning of the end to the Second World War.At the time the Germans had only been fighting on the front against Russia, Stalin needed to weaken the Germans fighting him. The best way to do this was to force the Germans to fight on another front. So in the spring on 1944 Stalin met with Roosevelt and Churchill to discuss plans of a second front. They decided to put General Dwight D, Eisenhower as the commander of the operation. General Eisenhower would later become the President of the United States.

Dwight D. Eisenhower Bernard Montgomery

The Allied forces consisted of England, America, France, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and many more. Up until this point the Allied forces had lost many troops and a lot of ground to the Germans. Before D-day Germany had control of the whole of Europe. The Allies needed to an offensive operation to recapture Europe and put an end to the War. However the main contributors to the Allied forces were the USA, UK and Canada. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allie Commander. The Commander of Ground Troops for D-day was General Bernard Montgomery. The leaders of the Allies in general included Winston Churchill (British Prime minister) and Franklin Roosevelt (American President). The Axis troops consisted of Germany, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The Japanese didnt get involved with Europe, they were focused on the war with America. Before D-day the Germans were in the process of fortifying the whole coast of France forcing the Allies to make their move quickly. The leader of the Axis was Adolf Hitler.

The Failure at Dieppe.1942 was the worst year for the allies. British and commonwealth troops were being pushed back in North Africa, American troops were losing ground in the Philippines. Everything was going wrong. There was a mounting pressure for Churchill and the other world leaders to make an offensive move on Germany. So the Allies attempted to make an amphibious assault fairly similar to D-day. The place they were attacking was Dieppe. The attack on Dieppe was a total failure, it resulted in 3,367 Canadian troops and 275 British Commandoes being killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The Royal Navy lost one destroyer and 33 landing craft, leaving 550 dead or wounded. The RAF lost 106 aircraft to the Luftwaffes (German Air forces) 48. German casualties were only at 591. Dieppe was a complete failure which left the Allies hesitant about making another land on the coasts of France. However the mistakes that were made at Dieppe were crucial to the success of D-day.

Preparation and PlanningIn late 1943 allied troops moved into England filling up barracks with 3 million troops. The date in which the allies were to pick for D-day was crucial. The weather had to be just right. There had to be a high tide for the landing craft to get past the beach obstacles. Even the brightness of the moon had to be taken into account, a full moon would be to bright making the landing craft too easy to see, but if there was no moon then the allies themselves wouldnt be able to see. This shows the level of detail the allies put into their planning for D-day. Before the landing craft landed on the beaches paratroopers landed in behind enemy lines. Their job was to knock down phone poles, destroy radars and generally cause a havoc for the Germans, this was all in aid to relieve pressure of the ground troops. But on the actual day the paratroopers received heavy fire from AA guns causing there to be a lot of miss drops.Before the attack 138 Allied ships bombarded the German costal defences. Solders were carrying at least 70lb worth of equipment with them. The allied designated 5 beaches as targets.

Utah, Gold and Sword were secured without too much trouble. The Canadians in Juno had a rough landing but eventually managed to secure there beach. However Omaha was a complete disaster. The sea turned red with all the blood that had been spilled. The Americans came to a heavily fortified beach. Machine guns spread the entire width of the beach. The Germans troops were experienced veterans. Omaha offered little cover adding to the negatives. Of the 34,000 troops that landed on the beach, 2,400 had either been killed or wounded.

On June 4th 1944 Eisenhower decided to move D-day back a day due to bad weather. This was one of the crucial decisions that led to the victory in Normandy. If they had decided to not move the operation back a day then there could have been catastrophic consequences. Half of the landing craft might not had even made it to the beaches. The biggest amphibious assault in the world did face challenges when it came to vehicles. Many specialist vehicles were created just for D-day, these were known as Hobarts Funnies (named after the man in charge of them). One example is the DD tank. It has a rubber ring around it allowing for it to float in the water.

DD Sherman tank with its flotation screen loweredHere is a full list of specialist vehicles made:

British Deception

British DeceptionThe scale of the deception used in the D-day attack was massive. The name of the Deception plan was Operation Bodyguard. Their main goal was to trick the Germans into thinking that the invasion were to take place in the port city of Calais. The British used fake radio signals to and from the fake army bases to make it appear that there were actually training and preparation going on in a completely different place to where it was actually happening. A fictional army known as the First U.S Army group was created. The group was located in Kent and Sussex. The allies also built dummy trucks and landing craft to further the illusion. Canadian forces were also stationed there to expand upon the impression. The British even created fake tanks to fool German planes. The Germans believed that they had a large network of spies located in Britain but in reality they had none. All of the German spies had either been captured or defected to become British spies. Britains double agents fed information the Germans indicating that the attack were to happen in a completely different place on top of the physical evidence they were planting.The British deception is what allowed the D-day operation to go unnoticed, if the deception was not at the level it was, then Hitler could have found about D-day and prevented it.

American SupportBecause of the severity of the First World War, the USA decided that they would not fight in the Second World War. Germany hadnt attacked them so they saw no need to join another costly war. But on December 7th 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour therefore forcing America to join the War. While America did mainly focus on their fight against japan, they did contribute a lot to the British army and they played a major role in the victory of D-day.The only way to beat the Axis forces would be for the Americans to help beat the centre of the problem which was Hitler and his army of Nazis. But even before this massive wakeup call American had still been supporting Britain. This picture shows how much the Americans had been contributing in the Second World War.

The Americans supplied over 1/3 of the troops that would make up D-day, they also supplied a lot of the vehicles used in D-day. Without the Americans the allies wouldnt have had nearly enough man power to make such an attack on such a large scale. The Americans played a key factor in the stratagem of D-day, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander but he was also American.

German MistakesBecause of Britains deception plans Hitler (The leader of the German Army) had all of his troops stationed at Calais. The main part of the German army was stationed in Calais making a counter attack on the allies D-day force impossible.Because of Hitlers paranoia he deeply mistrusted his Generals, so in turn, his Generals deeply mistrusted him. Because the Allies paratroopers had broken up German Communication it made it almost impossible for the Germans to communicate with their forces. Field Marshal Rundstedt was the only German who seemed to catch on with the Allies plan. He requested extra troops to be brought to reinforce the troops, but he could not get permission from Hitler because Hitler was sleeping. Eventually when Hitler gave the order it was too late.Hitler however did have one secret weapon against the Allies- the V1 rockets. Hitler was so focused on counter attacking that he did not defend. Instead of using his V1 rockets to attack the beaches of Normandy he used them in an attempt to cripple London. However the V1 rockets are terribly inaccurate meaning that of the ten V1s launched, four crashed at once, two vanished without a trace, one demolished a railway bridge in London, and three hit open fields. It was a complete disaster.If Hitler hadnt of made these mistakes then D-day could have failed and completely destroyed the Allies forces.

ConclusionAll of the reasons covered play important roles into the success of D-day. But if any of those factors were not present then D-day would not have been the success it was. The mistakes the Germans made really hindered them. D-day could have been a lot worse for the Allies if the Germans hadnt made the mistakes they made, and if Hitler hadnt been so stubborn as to believe that the attack was going to take place in Calais.But the evidence suggests that the Germans Mistakes was not the key factor in the success of D-day.The Americans and played a significant role in D-day not only did they provide troops, vehicles and many other things, one out of the two generals in charge of D-day was American. The Americans provided a key role in the success of D-day and did provide a lot of man power. They also suffered the most casualtys due to the unfortunate events at Omaha beach. But if the Americans hadnt been participating in D-day 3/5 of the beaches would still have been captured, still making D-day victorious but on a smaller scale.The evidence suggests that Americas support was not the significant factor in the success of D-day. British deception played one of the prime roles in the success of D-day. The British went all out making it look like the attack was happening in Calais. In fact they convinced Hitler so much that D-day was going to happen in Calais he refused to move his troops from that position until it was too late.Without the British deception D-day would definitely not be the success it was, but it still might have been a victory. So the evidence suggests that Britains deception was not the key factor in the factor in the success of D-day.The preparation and planning that went into D-day was immense. There was an extreme level of detail that went into the planning. General Eisenhower and General Montgomery had to manoeuvre 3 million troops, they had to plan the paratroopers, the air support, the naval support, an enormous amount of logistical planning that went into D-day. The allies had to prepare every solder with 70lb+ of equipment. The solders had to be trained too. The evidence suggests that the preparation and planning that went into D-day was the crucial part that led to the success of the worlds biggest amphibious assault ever, that then led to the liberation of France and the defeat of Hitler. D-day was the turning point in the Second World War, the events from D-day directly impacted the result of the war, and due to the preparation and planning, it was a huge success.If the preparation and planning had not been what is was, then arguably wir wrden jetzt werden Deutsch sprechend, nicht Englisch. (We would now be speaking German, not English.

Bibliography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord#Preparations_for_D-Day was used as a starting point.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings - used in conjunction with the article above this on.http://www.combinedops.com/Dieppe.htm#The%20Outcome used in the research of Dieppe.http://www.historyinanhour.com/2014/06/06/d-day-omaha-beach-brief-summary/ - used for the understanding of the 5 beaches.http://www.worldwar2history.info/D-Day/Hitler.html - used in understanding the German mistakes.http://d-dayrevisited.co.uk/planning/american-armed-forces.html - used for an overview of D-day.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31nt2fsMORU used for information on the 5 beaches.http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/27711699 - used for an overview of D-day.http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/dieppe_raid_01.shtml - used for information on Dieppe.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuHGDnjf5G8 used for an overview on D-dayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart%27s_Funnies used for information on Hobarts Funnies