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http://www.dday.org/history/d-day-the-invasion/overview

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ShxO7QoSiA

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1. Why was the battle fought and what were the strategic goals for each

of the groups in the conflict?

U.S. Troops invaded the beaches of Normandy on June 8, 1944. This battle has

been named as Operation Overload, carried out by Dwight Eisenhower. U.S. Troops

invaded with one goal, to stop the Nazi army from taking complete control of Europe.

At this point in time the Nazi's had control of most of Western Europe. The U.S. had allied

forces throughout Europe, and surrounding countries who Adolf Hitler had planned to

take over next. The U.S. needed to get involved in order to stop Hitler and his troops.

The Nazi troops were prepared for the battle as always, but it was a huge success when

American troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. This secured their safety to travel

farther into Europe to battle.

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Citation: C N Trueman "Operation Overlord"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 21 Apr 2015. 3 Mar 2016.

Operation Overlord was the code-name given to the Allied invasion of France scheduled for June 1944. The overall commander of Operation Overlord was General Dwight Eisenhower. Other senior commanders for Overlord included Air Marshall Leigh-Mallory, Air Marshall Tedder, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery and Admiral Bertram Ramsey. Operation Overlord required the type of logistical issues that no army had ever had to cope with before and the plan was for the Allies to have landed a vast amount of both men and equipment by the end of D-Day itself.

The command team for D-Day

Overlord itself required the involvement of many men - both in Britain and in France via the Resistance. Security for the plan had to be total. The fact that the Germans were taken by surprise at Normandy indicates that the Allies were successful in this.

The first issue that the Allies had to decide on was where to land in France. The Pays de Calais was an obvious choice as it was the nearest part of France to Britain. Getting to France would be swifter but the whole area was known to be well defended.

The Allied high command decided on a landing in Normandy. The risks were much higher but the beaches were suitable for a mass landing of people and equipment. A diversionary attack on Calais was considered in an effort to confuse the Germans.

One of the first plans was known as the COSSAC (Combined Anglo-American) plan. This included a plan to use two airborne brigades to protect the flanks of the three landings in Normandy.

Montgomery added an amendment to the COSSAC plan. He wanted an attack on five beaches in Normandy with support given to the amphibious landings by two airborne divisions landing on the flanks of the beach attacks in the vicinity of Caen and in the southeast corner of the Cotentin Peninsula. Montgomery wanted a beach assigned to a specific army from either Britain or America - he did not envisage a joint force landing on each beach.

Eisenhower backed Montgomery's plan and the final variant of Overlord was very similar to Montgomery's plan. Whereas Montgomery had bargained for five divisions to be landed, Eisenhower had a desire to land more men - 18 divisions by D-Day plus 10.

The planning and logistics behind Overlord were unparalleled in history. The Allies had to ensure that none of the plan was released - above all, the desire to fool the Germans that the Pays de Calais was the main target as opposed to Normandy.

The mere gathering of equipment needed for the invasion was an issue in itself. Where could it be stored without attracting the attention of German spies? How could it be transported to selected places in the south without local people talking about it? How could the thousand of boats needed for the invasion be gathered together and readied?

For the actual invasion, 6,000 ships were needed for D-Day and for future cross-Channel trips carrying troops and equipment. In the first three days of the attack, Overlord planned to move over 100,000 men and nearly 13,000 vehicles. The plan also included the movement of an artificial harbour so that people and materials could be landed with more ease once the landing beaches had been secured..

Overlord had built into it the movement of a total of 3 million men in 47 divisions, moved by 6000 ships with aerial cover provided by 5000 fighter planes. That it was such an overwhelming success (with major casualties only occurring at Juno and Omaha Beach) is indicative of how well planned it was.

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Operation Overlord - History Learning Site

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Operation Overlord was the code-name given to the Allied invasion of France scheduled for June 1944. The overall commander of Operation Overlord was General Dwight Eisenhower. Other senior commanders for Overlord included Air Marshall Leigh-Mallory, Air Marshall Tedder, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery and Admiral Bertram Ramsey.

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2. Where was the battle and how did geography play a factor?

On June 6, 1944, the Americans landed on the beach of Omaha in Western Europe. Coming in on the beach, it was harder for the Americans to get to the target when the soviets were set up in their villages shooting from the shore. The Americans were in the wide open and were very easy to be shot down.

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3. Who were the groups and leaders involved in the fighting?

Axis: Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (Right)

Allies: (Standing from left) Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley; Admiral Sir Bertram H. Ramsay; Air Chief

Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory; Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith;
(Seated from left) Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder; Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower; General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery.

Allied forces:

U.S. casualties on D-Day: 2,499 dead, 3,184 wounded, 1,928 missing, 26 captured

and approximately 2,700 British, 946 Canadians were killed.

Axis Forces:

German casualties: 4,000-9,000.

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5. How did this battle influence the outcome of the war? What was the battles significance?

Before D-day, Allied attacks against Germany and Italy had been in Europe far away from Germany. Overlord was the first real threat to Germany’s control of Western Europe. This opened up a second front against Germany and convinced Russia to remain in the war. Before D-Day Russia felt that they were the ones doing all the fighting against Germany. It was clear that Germany was going to be defeated at some point. America and Britain were worried about what the Russians would do. The Russians might make a separate peace with Germany. This would leave Britain and America to fight on alone or Russia might beat Germany and control most of Europe.D-Day stopped this from happening. This put Russia’s fears to rest by opening a second attack and helped the Allies in stopping the spreading communist threat in Europe.

Without D-Day Adolf Hitler would have deployed  a lot more divisions to resist the Red Army. Hitler would have had more time to make and send out his modern weapon of terror, the V2. The war might have continued for a lot longer that it did.

sources:

http://www.generalpatton.org/d-day/dday_importance.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/general-dwight-d-eisenhower-launches-operation-overlord http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=dday_leaders

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/wwiieurdday.htm
http://theconversation.com/the-military-power-economics-and-strategy-that-led-to-d-day-27663

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4. What strategies did each  of the groups involved in the fighting use to try winning the battle?

The Allies strategy was to disperse the German army enough to where they can't perform a counterattack. The Allies thought an attack in Normandy would bring the Allies total victory in Europe and force Hitler to surrender. The Allies had to spread the Germans across the western coast of Europe so that few would be there when the attack hit. They made Hitler believe they were in Scotland ready to invade northern Germany when instead they attacked with over 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes, and over 150,000 service men in Normandy. They set up fake camps and sent false messages to Germany to get them believe they were somewhere else in Europe. On the other hand the Axis powers strategy was to stop an attack in Northern Germany because that is where they believed the allies were coming from. They tried to hold the allies out of Normandy but didn't have enough time to react when the Allies arrived on the beach and that is how the German domination ended in Europe.