General Dwight D. Eisenhower's D-Day: The Invasion Of Normandy

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On June 6, 1944, in an event that would later become known as D-Day, more than 150,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France in history’s largest amphibious military operation. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with fellow Allied leaders Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin to discuss an invasion across the English Channel into what he called “the soft underbelly of Europe” (“D-Day” 1/2). The three leaders eventually came to the agreement that U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower would lead the invasion, now known as Operation Overlord. Normandy was picked as the invasion site because it was not near any of the main ports in France which would make it easier to gain a foothold in Europe. …show more content…
In addition, a decoy invasion was set up to attempt to deceive the Nazis. This was called Operation Fortitude and was led by U.S. General George Patton. Operation Fortitude involved the borrowing of equipment from Hollywood and British film studios to try to deceive the Germans into thinking the invasion would be at Pas-de-Calais, France. This strategic decoy worked, since General Erwin Rommel, commander of Nazi forces in France, kept nine of his eleven units in Pas-de-Calais instead of moving them to Normandy (1/2). All in all, the invasion was a success. Despite a stalemate, by late June, more than one million British and American troops were stationed in Normandy and were able to liberate France in late