D-Day “Operation Overload”

Date?

June 6, 1944 (06.06.1944)

What was Germany’s defense?

• Pill boxes and bunkers on coastlines

• Cut telephone lines

• Mines and explosives on beach/in ocean

• Hedgehogs: jocks on the beach

Who led America?

Eisenhower

• chose to go against Germany

Who led Germany?

Gerd Von Runstedt and Erwin Rommel

• GVR knows allies plan

What to the English Allies do at the Normandy Coastline?

• make inflatable tanks and planes

• Make a fake base in Dover as a distraction: “Patton’s ghost army”

• Double agents say that Patton is there

What was the puppet drop?

• puppets stuffed with firecrackers

• Germany thinks that it is an invasion and wastes their guns and reinforcements

What were the French people waiting for?

For a radio signal

• when it came, they blew up the railways and phone lines

Describe Phase One

• terrible, windy weather

• British, American, Canadian paratroopers → bridges and roads

• Violets Szabo - landed in German fort and died

What happened to Rommel during phase two?

• he didn’t think that they will get attacked so he took his wife shopping in Paris

• Gets in a car crash and shatters leg

What beaches to the Brits and Americans win?

• Brits: Sword and Gold Beach

• US: Utah and Omaha Beach

What happens when the Von Rurstedt assassination plot gets out?

• Von gets fired

• Hitler either goes to a public trial or takes a pill and no one knows he died

Who was going against Hitler?

Italy, USA, UK

Violette Szabo

• French-British spy

• During a mission in France she got taken by the Nazis and executed in Ravensbrück concentration camp

• the first British woman to be awarded the George Cross