assault on europe. late 1943—u.s. and great britain start preparing for the invasion of europe....

Assault on Europe

World Wars: World War II

Late 1943—U.S. and Great Britain start preparing for the invasion of Europe. The invasion is to take place in Normandy.

Operation Overlord

Codename—Operation Overlord—Allied invasion of northern France.Lead commander—U.S. 4 star General Dwight

D. Eisenhower.Headed SHAEF—Supreme Headquarters

Allied Expeditionary Force.

Operation Overlord

Operation is scheduled to take place in the spring of 1944.Early June along

the beaches of Normandy.

Would completely surprise Germans—expected the attack to come at Pas-de-Calais.

Operation Overlord

Germans believed that Patton would lead the invasion.Operation Fortitude—diversion from the real

attack.Germans heavily reinforced the area of Pas-de-

Calais

Operation Overlord

Training—very intense and extremely detailed.175,000 men, 1,000 transport planes, 5,000

ships, and 6,000 fighters and bombers.

Operation Overlord

German defensive positions well scouted—Allies knew almost every gun position along the Normandy coastline.

Operation Overlord

Created a huge deception (Operation Fortitude) that the invasion would take place at Pas-de-Calais.Inflatable tanks, cardboard airplanes, etc.—

used to deceive the Germans and worked.Germans kept a vast majority of their force at

Calais to repel the invasion.

Operation Overlord

Task for the Allies was daunting—huge undertaking—but the Allies were completely successful in seizing the element of surprise.

Operation Overlord

German occupied Northern coast of France.The “Atlantic Wall”—lined with giant pillboxes

and concrete bunkers.All kinds of murderous hazards as well along

the coastline

Operation Overlord

In command at Normandy for the Germans is Erwin Rommel—believed invasion would be won or lost on the beaches.

Operation Overlord

June 5, 1944—General Eisenhower gives the go ahead for the invasion.That evening U.S. and British paratroopers

dropped behind the German lines (Band of |Brothers) 101st Airborne.

Operation Overlord

By daylight June 6, 1945…despite confusion, the Allies secured beach-heads.

The Allied Invasion of France—The Great Crusade

Operation Overlord

June 6, 1945—5:30 a.m. landing craft begin their runs into the beaches.U.S.—Utah and OmahaBritish—Sword and GoldCanadians—Juno

Operation Overlord

At 6:30 a.m. the first assault wave of troops hit the beaches. It was a murderous affairs as all plans went

wrong.Men drowned, rough surf swamped landing

craft, and the German fire was withering.

Operation Overlord

Gunfire was far worse than anything they could have imagined.Within minutes of landing casualties in leading

platoons was 90%Blood literally turned the shoreline tidewater

red—horrible carnage.

Operation Overlord

By midday Allied naval gunfire had many German guns out of action.By Afternoon the beaches were swarming with

tanks, men, and supply carriers.

Operation Overlord

The invasion had been a complete surprise for the Germans—they never saw it coming.Within days it was clear the Allies were in

France to stay

Operation Overlord

The Germans would halt the advance for over a month in the hedgerow country.French farm fields bordered with 8 foot high

earthen walls.

Operation Overlord

The Hedgerows created a great defensive position for the Germans—difficult for men and tanks to penetrateGerman retaliation—Hitler begins launching V-

1 and V-2 rockets against London

Operation Overlord

On July 20, 1944 a bomb exploded at Hitler's daily briefing.  It was the last in a series of assassination attempts against Hitler carried out by a group of military conspirators.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

Shortly afterwards, using a legitimate military plan codenamed "Valkyrie," senior officers of the German Home Army tried to seize power in an attempt to free Germany from the criminal Nazi regime.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

But this assassination attempt, like all those before it, had failed.In consequence, within hours orders were soon

issued from Hitler's headquarters countermanding "Valkyrie." 

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

In some military districts, such as France, the subordinate commanders were anti-Nazi and they followed the "Valkyrie" orders without hesitation. The local Gestapo and SS were rounded up and

detained.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

But in other military districts, the news that Hitler had survived the assassination attempt was sufficient grounds for disregarding "Valkyrie" and following the orders from Hitler's headquarters instead.So the only uprising by Germans against the

Nazi regime collapsed.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

In the night of July 20, 1944, the first men associated with this German revolt against Hitler's dictatorship were executed without trial.The first man to fall to the vicious

Nazi retribution was the man who had from early 1942 onwards developed and nurtured the coup d'etat plans, Plan "Valkyrie":  General Friedrich Olbricht.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

Thousands of other conspirators and their sympathizers followed and were liquidated in a bloody retribution.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

Who were the men behind the conspiracy?  Was it really just a "tiny clique of criminally stupid officers" as Hitler claimed?  And was Claus Graf Stauffenberg – the only person named by Hitler - really the driving force behind it?

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

Erwin Rommel was implicated in the plot, and because of his service to Germany was allowed to commit suicide….instead of stand trial.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

Had the plot been successful, and Hitler would have been killed, the war would have been shortened by several months.

A smiling Claus von Stauffenberg with fellow conspirator Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim in 1942.

The Plot to Kill Hitler-Valkyrie

The Allies Breakout from Northern FranceIke puts Patton back in command of the U.S. 3rd

Army tank command in France.Rolls through

German forces moving southwest and eastward toward Germany.

July-August 1944

August 7, 1945—Germans counterattack west of Paris, but are stopped cold.Destroyed 2 Panzer Divisions and 8 Wehrmacht

DivisionsGermans are now in full retreat.

July-August 1944

August 25, 1945—Allies liberated ParisIn early fall however, Allies stalled due to a

gasoline shortage.Germans were

now in full retreat across eastern France.

July-August 1944

Germans are beginning to crumble along the Eastern Front as the Soviets continue to advance into Poland.

July-August 1944

With gasoline in short supply—Monty is given the lion’s share to advance east in September.Monty’s plan was to move through Holland but

suffered severe casualties.

September 1944

U.S. 9th Army captures the German city of Aachen.November 1944—the U.S. moved into “no-

man’s land” called the Hurtgen Forest.

October 1944

Hurtgen Forest was a useless operation—Germans inflicted heavy casualties on the U.S. forces.The forest is eventually bypassed rather than

continue the useless fighting there.

November 1944

South of Hurtgen Forest—Patton’s 3rd Army suffered the same results at Metz.All this time Hitler—

even though his army was retreating—was busy planning a counterattack.

November 1944

Hitler wanted to break the American line in Belgium’s Ardenne ForestBy mid-December

Hitler had assembled 24 divisions—mostly Panzer tank divisions….rready to attack 12/17/44

November 1944

December 17, 1944-January 31, 1945.By late 1944, Germany was unmistakably

losing the war. The Soviet Red Army was closing in on the Eastern front, while strategic Allied bombing was wreaking havoc on German cities.

The Battle of the Bulge

The Italian peninsula had been captured and liberated, and the Allied armies were advancing rapidly through France from west to east.Therefore, Adolph

Hitler knew that the end was near if something could not be done to slow the Allies' advance.

The Battle of the Bulge

After the triumphant breach of Normandy in August 1944, the Allies rushed across France with amazing speed.But before they

could cross the Rhine River, they would have to face a last-stand German onslaught.

The Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge, so named because of the westward bulging shape of the battleground on a map, lasted from mid-December 1944 to the end of January 1945.

The Battle of the Bulge

It was the largest land battle of World War II in which the United States directly participated. More than a million men fought in the battle — 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British.

The Battle of the Bulge

The battle was fought on an 80-mile front running from southern Belgium through the Ardennes Forest, and down to Ettelbruck in the middle of Luxembourg.

The Battle of the Bulge

Hitler's real target was the British-American alliance, and he saw the battle as a Juggernaut to break apart and defeat the Allied forces.That "surprise attack" would

supposedly divide British and American forces, leaving the way wide open for the Wehrmacht to swing north and seize the port of Antwerp.

Thus they could cut off the main supply base for the Allied armies on the Western Front.

The Battle of the Bulge

Hitler believed that he could force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis' favor. He also believed that such factors as bad

weather, bad terrain, and the Christmas holiday would help him catch the Allies by surprise.

The Battle of the Bulge

In other words, he anticipated it to be a decisive battle to win. After all, the Allies were very much inferior to

the Germans as far as their military strength was concerned.

The Battle of the Bulge

At the battle's beginning, the U.S. At the battle's beginning, the U.S. Army was equipped with 80,000 men, 400 tanks, and 400 guns, while the Germans had 200,000 men, 600 tanks, and 1,900 guns.

The Battle of the Bulge

The night before the battle, Hitler sent in soldiers to infiltrate the front.Some were dropped by parachute, others came

in driving captured American jeeps.Those German soldiers spoke fluent English

and wore U.S. uniforms; therefore they managed to spread confusion by giving false directions, changing road signs, and cutting telephone lines.

The Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge began with a German attack on the morning of December 16, 1944. Under cover of heavy fog, 38 German divisions struck along a 50-mile front.

The Battle of the Bulge

The German army managed to push American forces back nearly to the Meuse River and surround the town of Bastogne in Belgium.

The Battle of the Bulge

At that time, when ordered to surrender Bastogne, Brig. General Anthony C. McAuliffe famously replied: "Nuts." That same day, reinforcements were sent by

airdrop and Allied airplanes began their attack on German tanks.

Lt. General George Patton's Third Army rescued the defenders of Bastogne.

Allied leaders, including General Omar Bradley and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, were surprised by the force of the German attack.

The Battle of the Bulge

Much of the battle was affected by the weather.Great snowstorms were a big problem. Trucks

had to be run every half hour to keep the oil in them from freezing. Weapons froze, so men urinated on them to thaw them.

The Battle of the Bulge

The temperature during January 1945 was the coldest on record, and casualties from exposure to the cold grew as large as the losses from fightingThe Germans attacked in white uniforms to

blend in with the snow.

The Battle of the Bulge

The Malmedy MassacreOn December 17, 1944, halfway between the

town of Malmedy and Ligneuville in Belgium, an American battalion was captured by an SS force.

The Battle of the Bulge

The Malmedy MassacreAbout 150 POWs were disarmed and sent to

stand in a field. About 80 men were killed by gunfire, and their bodies were left where they fell. Many prisoners escaped into nearby woods. News spread quickly among Allied soldiers, and an order went out that all SS officers and paratroopers should be shot on sight.

The Battle of the Bulge

CounterattackOn December 23, American forces began their

first counterattack on the southern flank of the "Bulge."

The Battle of the Bulge

CounterattackOn January 1, 1945, the Germans launched two

new operations in an attempt to keep the offensive going and create second fronts in Holland and northern France.

The Battle of the Bulge

The Luftwaffe launched a major campaign against Allied airfields and succeeded in destroying or severely damaging more than 460 aircraft. The Luftwaffe also sustained an incredible

number of losses — 277 planes.

The Battle of the Bulge

While the Allies recovered quickly from their losses, the operation left the Luftwaffe weaker than ever.After 20 days of fighting, American forces fell

back, having sustained more than 11,000 casualties — but inflicting 23,000.

The Battle of the Bulge

On January 7, 1945, Hitler agreed with his staff to pull back most of his forces from the Ardennes, thus ending all offensive operations. On January 8,

German troops withdrew from the tip of the "bulge."

Their losses were critical.

The Battle of the Bulge

The last of the German reserves were gone, the Luftwaffe had been broken, and the German army in the west was being pushed back.

The Battle of the Bulge

Most importantly, the Eastern Front was now ripe for the taking by the Soviets.With the majority of its

air power and men lost, Germany had few forces left to defend the Third Reich. Germany's final defeat loomed just a few months away.

The Battle of the Bulge

Casualty estimates from the battle vary widely. American casualties are listed as 70,000 to 81,000, British as 1,400, and German casualties at between 60,000 and 104,000. More than 100,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner. In addition, 800 tanks were lost on each side, and 1,000 German aircraft were destroyed.

The Battle of the Bulge

Operation Overlord Dwight D. EisenhowerSHAEF NormandyOperation Fortitude Atlantic WallErwin Rommel June 6, 1945The Great Crusade Utah & OmahaSword & Gold JunoHedgerow Country V-1, V-2 RocketsValkyrie Friedrich OlbrichtClaus Stauffenberg Erwin RommelHurtgen Forest Battle of the BulgeBastogne Anthony C. McAuliffeMalmedy Massacre

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