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Operation Overlord

Operation Overlord


By 1944 World War II had lasted nearly four and a half years. The entire war now
depended on the success or failure of an invasion of France. The first three years of the war
had almost entirely been a chain of Nazi victories. They had succeeded in crushing Poland and
forcing France to surrender. Hitler's attempts at capturing England were halted by the RAF,
Royal Air Force. After the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on
the United States and forced Italy to follow.
By November of 1942 Hitler began to pay for his string of mistakes. In Egypt his favorite
General, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, had been defeated at The Alamein by the British Eighth
Army, after being trapped between two armies. Hitler, fearing he would be captured, ordered
him back. The fighting in Russia had been so severe and deadly that Marshal Stalin was
demanding an allied landing in France, so as to force Hitler to move his troops from Stalin's
divisions in the East. The line of trust between Stalin and the allies was thin, but fearing Russia
would leave the was, the United States and Britain send Canadian soldiers and British
commandos to raid France's Port of Dieppe. Nearly five-thousand troops were either dead,
wounded or captured by the alert German forces, it had been a disaster.
Britain and the United States were butting heads on whether to invade Europe at the
earliest possible opportunity. Britain argued that a failure of not capturing a strong hold on a
beachhead could set them back two years. In August of 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met in
Quebec, Canada and the invasion was approved. The plan included the landing of allied troops
on different beaches, and also the battles that would follow, on the quest for Berlin. The
shortest route would be Dover to Calais, but that would be a place where Germany would
expect an invasion and would be heavily guarded. Now all eyes were pointing towards
Normandy. The...