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showing 252 library results for 'd-day'

: D-Day & Operation Overlord in one hundred moments /Scott Addington. ''The invasion of Normandy was the most significant victory of the Allies in the Second World War. By 1944, over 2 million troops from over 12 countries were in Britain in preparation for the invasion. These forces consisted primarily of American, British and Canadian troops but also included Australian, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, Greek, New Zealand, Norwegian, Rhodesian and Polish naval, air or ground support. The operation was codenamed "Overlord" which saw the largest invasion fleet ever assembled, before or since, landing 156,000 Allied troops on five beach-heads on D-Day 6 June 1944. These forces established a foothold on the shores of Northern France, and broke out into the French interior to begin a headlong advance. D-Day was originally set for June 5 but had to be postponed for 24 hours because of bad weather. The forecast was so bad that the German commander in Normandy, Erwin Rommel, went home to give his wife a pair of shoes on her birthday. He was in Germany when the news came. British factories increased production and in the first half of 1944 approximately 9 million tonnes of supplies and equipment crossed the Atlantic from North America to Britain. Bagpiper, Bill Millin struck up Hieland Laddie as soon as he jumped into the shallows and then walked up and down the beach playing the pipes. German prisoners later admitted that they had not attempted to shoot him because they thought he had lost his mind. The British infantryman was paid ¹3 15s a month, the Americans got ¹12. A naval bombardment from seven battleships, 18 cruisers, and 43 destroyers began at 5am and went on until 6.25am. On the night of the invasion only around 15% of paratroopers landed in the right place. New gadgets designed for D-Day included a swimming tank and a flame throwing tank called the crocodile . There were even collapsible motorbikes. The morning after D-day the police raided a brothel, which French women had set up in a wrecked landing craft. 1,900 Allied bombers attacked German lines before the invasion began. Seven million pounds of bombs were dropped that day. A total of 10,521 combat aircraft flew a total of 15,000 sorties on D-Day. All this and much more is uncovered in a range of informative and detailed events spanning this most significant event in military history; biographies, fun facts, myth busters and illustrated throughout with infographics and contemporary photographs.''--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.542142
Operation Neptune : the D-Day landings, 6 June 1944 /Tim Benbow. "The D-Day landings of June 1944 were one of the most ambitious undertakings of all time, and their success one of the greatest military accomplishments. Operation Neptune was the initial assault stage of the broader Operation Overlord, the liberation of north-west Europe. It was a hugely complex undertaking involving several thousand ships and aircraft and hundreds of thousands of men, as the Allies took on Germany's vaunted Atlantic Wall. In the words of the man most responsible for the plan, Admiral Bertram Ramsay (Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief), 'It is to be our privilege to take part in the greatest amphibious operation in history' Our task, in conjunction with the Merchant Navies of the United Nations, and supported by the Allied Air Forces, is to carry the Allied Expeditionary Force to the Continent, to establish it there in a secure bridgehead and to build it up and maintain it at a rate which will outmatch that of the enemy.' The landings in Normandy represented the culmination of several long campaigns to put in place the strategic preconditions for the return to the continent, as well as marking the beginning of the campaign to finish the war in Europe. This volume provides the complete text of the Battle Summary written shortly after the war by the Admiralty historical staff, covering the planning, preparation and execution of the operation as well as the subsequent consolidation, together with the maps and detailed appendices from the original work. This is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction, newly-written for this volume, that explains the context for the operation as well as an overview of further reading on the subject. This is the first volume in Helion's new series, 'Naval Staff Histories of the Second World War'. The series aims to make available to a broad authorship these indispensable studies of the key operations of the war."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.542.1"1944"
Mastermind of Dunkirk and D-Day : The vision of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay /Brian Izzard. "This is the first major biography of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay in fifty years. Ramsay masterminded the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in 1940. Initially, it was thought that 40,000 troops at most could be rescued. But Ramsay's planning and determination led to some 338,000 being brought back to fight another day, although the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy paid a high price in ships and men. Ramsay continued to play a crucial role in the conduct of the Second World War - the invasion of Sicily in 1943 was successful in large part due to his vision, and he had a key role in the planning and execution of the D-Day invasion - coordinating and commanding the 7,000 ships that delivered the invasion force onto the beaches of Normandy. After forty years in the Royal Navy he was forced to retire in 1938 after falling out with a future First Sea Lord but months later, with war looming, he was given a new post. However he was not reinstated on the Active List until April 1944, at which point he was promoted to Admiral and appointed Naval Commander-in-Chief for the D-Day naval expeditionary force. Dying in a mysterious air crash in 1945, Ramsay's legacy has been remembered by the Royal Navy but his key role in the Allied victory has been widely forgotten. After the war ended his achievements ranked alongside those of Sir Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery and General Dwight Eisenhower, yet he never received the public recognition he deserved. Brian Izzard's new biography of Ramsay puts him and his work back centre-stage, arguing that Ramsay was the mastermind without whom the outcome of both Dunkirk and D-Day - and perhaps the entire war - could have been very different."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92RAMSAY, B H