Today, June 6th marks the 70th Anniversary of the day that changed the outcome of World War II–Germany. After almost a year of planning, allies landed 24,000 American, British and Canadian forces on the beach at Normandy – the largest seaborne invasion in history, even to this date. One unfortunate point to this invasion was the weather. The beach was a fifty mile stretch and there had been five major points of landing in the plan, with one brigade planned for each point; however, due to strong winds the landing crafts were blown east of their main targets. They landed enough off course that they were met with heavy fire resistance from gun emplacements set to overlook the beach. Had they landed where originally planned, they would have been to the side of the major amount of German bunkers and less lives would have possibly been lost, even with the strong presence of mines throughout the beach. German casualties that day were 1,000 where as Allie casualties were at least 12,000 with over 4,000 being confirmed dead.
Germany was advancing too successfully having obtained the control of most of mainland Europe. The Allies needed to come up with a concrete plan of a successful invasion of Europe and a strong counter-force to win the war. Hitler, anticipating an invasion, hoped to ward off the Allies allowing him time to fulfill his goal of conquering all of Europe.
Although the main goal of the first day of invasion was not met, especially all five brigades not having met up until six days later, the Allies began slowly making headway and even though longer than had been planned and hoped for, WE WON! By May 8, 1945, all German forces had unconditionally surrender – VE (Victory in Europe) DAY had been achieved!
To all Service Men and Women – past and present
God Bless America!
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