D-Day Essay - What happened?

GCSE: History

This is only a preview of the full essay

Preview:

...
Although fewer Allied ground troops went ashore on D-Day than
on the first day of the earlier invasion of Sicily, the invasion of
Normandy was in total history's greatest amphibious operation,
involving on the first day 5,000 ships, the largest armada ever
assembled; 11,000 aircraft (following months of preliminary
bombardment); and approximately 154,000 British, Canadian and
American soldiers, including 23,000 arriving by parachute and glider.
The invasion also involved a long-range deception plan on a scale the
world had never before seen and the clandestine operations of tens of
thousands of Allied resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied countries of
western Europe.

American General Dwight D. Eisenhower was named supreme
commander for the allies in Europe. British General, Sir Frederick
Morgan, established a combined American-British headquarters known as
COSSAC, for Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander. COSSAC
developed a number of plans for the Allies, most notable was that of
Operation Overlord, a full scale invasion of France across the English
Channel.

Eisenhower felt that COSSAC's plan was a sound operation.
After reviewing the disastrous hit-and-run raid in 1942 in Dieppe,
planners decided that the strength of German defenses required not a
number of separate assaults by relatively small units but an immense
concentration of power in a single main landing. The invasion site
would have to be close to at least one major port and airbase to allow
for efficient supply lines. Possible sites included among others, the
Pas de Calais across the Strait of Dover, and the beaches of Cotentin.
It was decided by the Allies that the beaches of Cotentin would be the
landing site for Operation Overlord.
...

*Very simple registration required first