1944
- 27 January: Siege of Leningrad ends
- 5 June: Allies enter Rome
- 6 June: D-Day landings
- 10 June: Oradour-sur-Glane massacre
- 20 July: Valkyrie
- 19 August: Resistance uprising in Paris
- 25 August: Liberation of Paris
- 13 September: Allies reach the Siegfried Line
- 17 September: Operation Market Garden
- 14 October: Allies liberate Athens; Rommel commits suicide
- 4 December: civil war in Greece
- 16 December- 25 January: Battle of the Bulge
We are nearing the end of the this class, so many things have been condensed. The campaign in Italy continues, and the Allies are preparing for their first major western front offensive, Operation Overlord and the Normandy invasion.
On 19 August 1942, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Dieppe, on the German occupied, French northern coast. This small scale invasion was to be temporary-- go in, gather intelligence, stir up the Germans, and then withdraw. This, however, was unsuccessful, garnering 1,400 deaths and 1,946 captured.
The Dieppe Raid, narrated by Alex Trebek-- which seems odd, but the majority of the Allied forces in this raid were from Canada, and Trebek also hails from Canada, details the raid and the events that made it unsuccessful.
Why would this be important now that we are studying two years later? This failed landing and invasion prompted better tactics and logistics of Operation Overlord and D-Day.
The invasion of Normandy was a massive undertaking that took an incredible amount of deception, like we saw with Operation Mincemeat last week, and planning. This elaborate operation to convince the Germans that an attack should be expected at Pas de Calais began directly across the English Channel from Pas de Calais in Kent, England. Operation Bodyguard was the ultimate in pulling the wool over German eyes.
For Operation Bodyguard and Fortitude information and the ideas for Hobard's Funnies like the Mulberry Harbours, we watched minutes 11:43 to 20:43 of WWII in HD Colour: Overlord, Part 9/13.
The stage was set, intelligence indicated that the foolery had worked and while the Wehrmacht prepared for an invasion at Pas de Calais, the Allies were ready to land on the beaches of Normandy.
The first phase of Operation Overlord was codenamed Operation Neptune which was the beach invasion portion of Overlord. It would become the largest seaborne operation in history. The aerial bombardment was codenamed Operation Pointblank. The generals overseeing these operations were General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bernard Montgomery (who we spoke about a few weeks ago from the North African campaigns with Rommel). There were five beaches used in the landings: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.
Another aspect of the planning was the use of parachute troops behind enemy lines in Normandy. 13,000 troops parachuted, but the most famous of these is the D-Day jumped landings of the 101st Airborne, "Easy Company"-- or as many would recognize today as the "Band of Brothers." Their job was to slow down the German response to the Allied beach invasion. Many missed their drop zones, but once they regrouped, they struck. Lt. Dick Winters lead a few meant to capture and destroy four German 105mm funs at Utah Beach and then the next day helped take the town of Carentan from the Germans.
This clip-- Band of Brothers- D-Day Jump Scene-- is from the miniseries "Band of Brothers". We did not watch the entire scene, just long enough to get an idea of what an airborne drop in the midst of an invasion would be like.
After D-Day, Easy Company was pulled back to England before regrouping and being part of Operation Market Garden, and ill conceived attempt to capture bridges over the Rhine River, opening up routes to Berlin. Although considered a bust, Easy Company kept this operation from being an outright disaster.
For further reading, check out All the Way to Berlin by James Megallas, an officer of the 82nd Airborne, who after fighting at Anzio in the Italian campaign, jumped at Operation Market Garden before making the push to Berlin. The link will take you to Amazon.
On 10 June 1944, four days following the Normandy invasion, the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer division was sent to Oradour-Our-Glane, in what has been speculated as either a German retaliation for French Resistance's part in Operation Overlord for sabotage, or as the clip suggests, a hostage operation gone wrong somewhere. To be clear, this is the Waffen-SS which is not part of the German Wehrmacht but a unit under the Nazis.
The Oradour-sur-Glane Tragedy was the massacre and destruction of the entire town. USHMM.org records this event as the "tragedy [that] rivaled the liquidation at Lidice as an iconic symbol of German crimes against civilians in occupied Europe." The town of Lidice was liquidated exactly two years earlier on 10 June 1942 in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, spoken about in class last week.
After the unsuccessful Operation Market Garden and the massive push across France, the Allies were ragged and exhausted. Hitler took his chance and attacked, which began the Battle of the Bulge.
The Battle of the Bulge (1944-1945) was located, once again in the Ardennes forests which had seen action in the First World War and with the German invasion of France in 1940.
We did not get to this clip in class, but it is of the experience of the Band of Brothers battling in foxholes in Bastogne. Band of Brothers: Battle of the Bulge
Films for today's section are Saving Private Ryan and the miniseries Band of Brothers. Both are exceptional accounts of events in France and the push to Berlin. However, they are exceedingly realistic at times and should be viewed with discretion.
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