D-Day

The date is June sixth, 1944. You are a U.S. Marine headed for the beach. The landing craft's ramp is lowers, and immediately your division is being rained on with MG fire. That is just a little of what the soldiers had to deal will on the D-Day invasion. The plan was created by David Dwight Eisenhower. The Germans had taken over five French beaches, nicknamed Omaha, Sword, Utah, Juno, and Gold. The Germans had set up a perimeter around those five beaches. The plan was for paratroopers to drop in during night, and take over the bridges and roads. The rest of the soldiers would arrive by ships. The British would attack the beaches Sword and Gold, the Canadians would take Juno, and the U.S. would attack Omaha and Utah beaches. Nicknamed Operation Overlord, the attack began early morning of June sixth, 1944. The paratroopers successfully landed, except for the Omaha beach ones. Most of them missed the drop zone and either was shot out of the air, or drowned, meaning that when the landing crafts got to the beach, the Germans weren't taken over. Over 2400 Americans died before Omaha was taken over. Utah Beach was almost as bad. Very few landing crafts made it on time, and most of the troops weren't placed near their designated targets. The British had better luck on Gold Beach. The British had little beach to cross and got almost none enemy gunfire, and suffered only 400 causalities. The attack on Sword Beach went not according to plan. The airborne attack did not succeed, and while the British only suffered 630 causalities, they didn't get as far as the D-Day planners had hoped. The Canadians suffered worse loss on Juno Beach then on Omaha Beach, however the Canadians had made the deepest penetration out of any land forces. After the beaches, the Allied forces had taken France back, and they started on their trek to Germany, as were the Soviets. This is an image of after Omaha beach was taken over.