1. D-Day

2. What Was D-Day?
D-Day, most simply put, was the invasion by the Allies of Normandy, France that was occupied by Germany.
D-Day was the largest air, sea, and land invasion in history.
D-Day was the start of Operation Overlord, the strategic plan to regain control of Western Europe.
D-Day is seen as the beginning of the end of WWII.

3. Who Was Involved? The Allies attacked the Germans.
The main Allied countries who carried out the attack were the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, with additional support from Australia, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, an American general and future president, ordered the attack and led the invasion.

4. When and Where Did D-Day Happen?
D-Day was on June 6th, 1944, along five beaches on the coast of Normandy, France.
Maps showing the Normandy Invasion routes

5. Why Did D-Day Happen?
D-Day happened because the Allies wanted to liberate NW Europe from German control, and free Europe from fascist control in general.
The Allies wanted to capture the city of Caen and establish another large front in the war in order to split German resources. The Russians were pressing from the East and the Western Allies would then be pressing from the West.
Eventually recapturing Western Europe from the Germans would weaken their control, which could (and did) lead to a win for the Allies.

6. How Was D-Day Carried Out?
Because of weather issues, the original plan to begin the Operation on June 5th had to be cancelled.
June 6th, 1944, Allied Troops landed on five different beaches in Normandy, France. They arrived by sea and air.
18,000 air troops parachuted onto the beach, and another 155, 000 troops stormed the beach by jumping into the water and wading ashore.
Although the Allied troops were met with German defense and retaliation, some stronger than others, there were still critical gaps in the German strategy that eventually led to victory for the Allies.
There were gaps in Germany’s defenses because they believed the invasion was going to happen somewhere else, so they didn’t fortify this part of Normandy as well.

7. An Illustration of Operation Overlord

8. Effects of D-Day
There were at least 10,000 casualties that day, and 4000 people died.
Paris was liberated within ten weeks of D-Day.
By September of 1944, France, Belgium and Luxembourg were also liberated.
One of the long term effects of D-Day was the decimation of Germany’s defense network and the opening of another major front that weakened Germany’s resources, which was a major turning point in the war..
D-Day helped prevent Germany from rising to complete dominance.
D-Day was a major turning point in World War II.
D-Day also established the Western Allies as a major power, and it led to stability in Western Europe.
The United States emerged as a Superpower.

9. Fun Facts
Part of the reason the Germans had an inadequate defense was because no one wanted to wake Hitler to get his permission to send out defense troops due to Hitler being particular about how much sleep he got.
This wasn’t the only “D-Day” in the war. The “D” in D-Day is a military term. D-Day and H-Hour are actually general terms used when commanders haven’t decided the exact day or time an attack will occur. They used “+” and “-” signs, combined with a number, to indicate before or after the day/hour in order to plan the attack

10. THE END
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