By the end of 1943, the German military had suffered defeats
and was weakened. But it was still powerful enough to control France , Belgium ,
and much of the rest of Western Europe .
The time had come for the United States and its Allies to
liberate the continent. The Supreme
Allied Commander, American General Dwight Eisenhower, used radio to speak to
the troops preparing to land on Normandy .
“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. In company
with our brave allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring
about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi
tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe ,
and security for ourselves in a free world.”
The German leader Adolf Hitler had known an invasion was
coming. But he did not know where the
Allied force would strike. Most Germans
expected the Allies would attack at Calais , in
northern France . But they were wrong. General Eisenhower
planned to attack Normandy , across the English Channel .
Eisenhower had 150,000 men and 12,000 airplanes for the
attack. But most importantly, he had
surprise on his side. Even after the
invasion began, General Erwin Rommel and other German military leaders could
not believe that the Allies had really attacked at Normandy .
But attack they did. On the night
of June 5th, tens of thousands of Allied soldiers parachuted behind German
lines.
Then, Allied planes began dropping bombs on German
defenses. And in the morning, thousands
of ships approached the coastline, carrying men and supplies.
The battle quickly became fierce and bloody. American, British and other Allied forces
moved on five beaches from their landing craft.
The Germans had strong defenses.
They were better-protected than the Allied troops on the open beaches.
But the Allies had more troops.
On all but one of those areas, German resistance was lighter
than expected. At Omaha
Beach , two American
divisions were slowed by the rising tide and heavy German gunfire. It was the fiercest and bloodiest battle of
D-Day.
Slowly, the Allied soldiers moved forward on one part of the
Normandy
coast, then another. The Allies
continued to build up their forces in France . Within one week they had brought nearly 90,000
vehicles and 600,000 men into France . And they pushed forward.
A total of 3,000 American soldiers died on Omaha Beach
alone 70 years ago. On the first day of the invasion, almost 10,000 Allied
troops were killed or wounded.
The Battle of Normandy continued through August, as Allied
troops fought the Germans through France . In less than four months, General Eisenhower
and the Allied forces had regained almost all of France . More than 400,000 Allied and German troops
were wounded, killed or missing in action.
From VOA Special English.
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