Реферат: Analysis Of World War 2 Essay Research

In terms of the preinvasion plan, General Eisenhower intended establishing a solid lodgment area in France extending as far east as the Seine River to provide room for air and supply bases. Having built up strength in this area, he planned then to advance into Germany on a broad front. Under Montgomery’s 21 Army Group, he would concentrate his greatest resources north of the Ardennes region of Belgium along the most direct route to the Ruhr industrial region, Germany’s largest complex of mines and industry. Bradley’s 12th Army Group, meanwhile, was to make a subsidiary thrust south of the Ardennes to seize the Saar industrial region along the Franco-German frontier. A third force invading southern France in August was to provide protection on Bradley’s right.

The First Army’s breakout from the hedgerows changed that plan, for it opened the German armies in France to crushing defeat. When the Germans counterattacked toward Avranches to try to cut off leading columns of the First and Third Armies, other men of the First Army held firm, setting up an opportunity for exploiting the principle of maneuver to the fullest. While the First Canadian Army attacked toward Falaise, General Bradley directed mobile columns of both the First and Third Armies on a wide encircling maneuver in the direction of Argentan, not far from Falaise. This caught the enemy’s counterattacking force in a giant pocket. Although a 15-mile gap between Falaise and Argentan was closed only after many of the Germans escaped, more than 60,000 were killed or captured in the pocket. Great masses of German guns, tanks, and equipment fell into Allied hands.

While the First Army finished the business at Argentan, Patton’s Third Army dashed off again toward the Seine River, with two objects: eliminating the Seine as a likely new line of German defense and making a second, wider envelopment to trap those German troops that had escaped from the first pocket. Both Patton accomplished. In the two pockets the enemy lost large segments of two field armies.

Even as General Eisenhower’s armies secured the lodgement at Normandy, the Allies on August 15 staged another invasion of southern France (Operation DRAGOON) to provide a supplementary line of communications through the French Mediterranean ports and to prevent the Germans in the south from moving against the main Allied armies in the north. Lack of landing craft had precluded launching this invasion at the same time as OVERLORD.

The D-Day invasion plan called for landings at five beach locations on the Cotentin Peninsula.

Dwight David Eisenhower by Nicodemus David Hufford (1915- ). Oil on canvas, 38″ x 30″, 1973. Hufford painted Dwight Eisenhower?s portrait for the Army some four years after the death of the former chief of staff and 34th president of the United States. Thus it was necessary for him to work from photographic likenesses.

Eisenhower gives the order of the Day. “Full victory – nothing else” to paratroopers in England, just before they board their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe. Some of the men with Eisenhower are presumed to be: Pfc. William Boyle, Cpl. Hans Sannes, Pfc. Ralph Pombano, Pfc. SW Jackson, ; Sgt. Delbert Williams, Cpl. William E Hayes, Pfc. Henry Fuller, Pfc. Michael Babich and Pfc. W William Noll. All are members of Co E, 502d. The other men shown on the photo are not identified.