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The Atlantic Wall was a wall built under the orders of Hitler that stretched from Norway to Spain. The wall stretched for 1,670 miles and was built to protect Hitler's Europe from attacks by the Allies. The wall took two years to build; construction started in 1942 and ended in 1944. The wall was intially built to just protect ports where Hitler's Navy boats were docked, but building then expanded to many other coastal areas. The cost for the wall in France alone was 3.7 billion Deutschmarks.
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Exercise Tiger was a practice for the Normandy invasion. Over 30,000 troops were in attendance for the mock beach landing. The Royal Navy was responsible for protecting the beach where the practice invasion was taking place. On April 28th, German E-Boats attacked Ally tank landing ships in Lyme Bay. One boat caught fire and was abandoned, another sank after being torpedoed, and a third caught fire but made it back to shore. 638 people were killed, while in the actual invasion, only 200 died.
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Operation Tonga was an airborn operation to gain control of bridges that would be used to help Allied forces advance. The troops were also supposed to destroy the Merville Gun Battery which supposedly held heavy artillery. Due to poor piloting and poor weather conditions, many of the troops were dropped outside of the set area. This caused unnecessary deaths and made the mission more difficult than intended. Even though the troops were depleated, they still destroyed the Murville Battery.
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Utah Beach was the codename for the landing area farthest to the west. Utah Beach was 3 miles long and was the farthest west of all of the 5 landing beaches. The beach was located in between Pouppeville and La Madeleine. Although Allied forces did not land where they were supposed to, there was little resistance from Germany. In Omaha Beach however, there was lots of violence.
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Omaha beach was located on the northern coast of France. The beach stretched five miles long and was one of the main landing places for Operation Overlord. The goal was to advance five miles deep inland. They would do this to connect the other landing beaches. These beaches were Gold to the east and Utah to the west.
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Pointe du Hoc is a cliff in Normandy on the northern coast of France. It is 4 miles from Omaha beach and the cliffs raise 100ft above the sea. Point du Hoc had to be destroyed because weapons on top of cliffs could reach landing spots on both Omaha and Utah beach. The US attempted to bomb Pointe du Hoc multiple times but the defenses were too strong, so a ground attack was necessary as well. On d-day, the Germans moved their weapons back exactly one mile and US troops thought them missing.
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Sword beach was another codename for a landing spot for Operation Overlord. It was the landing spot farthest to the east and the beach stretched 8 km. Sword beach was about 15 km away from Caen. When the British first landed there was almost no fire. As they advanded, though, they ran into heavily defended areas. This group was the only one to be attacked by a German Panzer devision on the 6th.
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Juno Beach was located in between Gold and Sword Beach. It was also called the Canadian beach because the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division was assigned to it. Although it was the Canadian Infantry, it was under British control until July 1944. Even though the Canadians had significant numbers on the beach, there was also a good number of British soldiers there too. The naval part of this invasion was called Force J.
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Early in the morning, Americans found out that years at war had led up to Operation Overlord, also known as D- Day. In the night, planes and ships landed in Normandy. The plan was to drive the Germans back to Berlin. Dwight Eisenhower was put in charge, just months earlier general Eisenhower led an invasion on French North Africa.
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"Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force. You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you." -Dwight D Eisenhower. The operation is the largest amphibious invasion of all time.
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Gold beach was one of the center landing places for Operation Overlord. The landing was led by Major General Douglas Alexander Graham. Gold beach had 3 main assault areas Item, King (Green and red), and Jig (also split into green and red). There was a fourth area called how, but it was not used for landing. Gold beach was assigned to the 50th Infantry Divsion.
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The Germans were positioned on Hill 262 or Mont Ormel ridge. This ridge was elevated 860 feet above the ground. The Germans had beed surrounded and the ridge offered them their only escape route. Polish forces got position on the northern side of the hill and, although being isolated, held the position until August 21st. The Pols stand greatly helped push the Allies to the victory that followed.
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"The French capital had been occupied for four years, and most Americans associated German occupation with a romantic picture of Parisians struggling against German oppression. In reality, the Vichy Government helped the Germans to send thousands of Jews to concentration camps, and hundreds of thousands of laborers to Germany to work in war production as slave labor. By 1945 most slave laborers were French; the Poles had died out." (World History Project 1). Paris was the last fight in Overlord.
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After Fortress Breslau fell, General Alfred Jodl offered to surrender German forces fighting the Allies. "At 02:41 on the morning of May 7, at the SHAEF headquarters in Reims, France, the Chief-of-Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl, signed the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces to the Allies. General Franz Böhme announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway on May 7, the same day as Jodl signed the unconditional surrender".
