Therefore source B supports both source C and E.
3. How useful are sources A and J in helping you to understand the success of the D Day landings?
Source A tells us that the airborne landings on d-day have been a success also that the beach landings “are proceeding at various points.” Source A also tells us that “the obstacles that were constructed in the sea have not proved as difficult as first apprehended”. The significance of these points are that on d-day people back home wanted to know what was going on. I Can also tell, from what is said in the speak, that it is vague this tells me that the house of Commons was aware that German spies may be listening and therefore did not want to give anything away. I know that D-Day was a success, both airborne landings completed their objectives this adds to the credibility of source A and it agrees with what is said in this source. I know that Pegasus Bridge was taken in less than 15 minutes this was an airborne operation completed by the Horsa Gliders this also agrees with source A. Parachutists however had problems many landed off target and they suffered heavy casualties this disagrees with what is said in source A. I believe that this is not mentioned in the speech that is made in parliament because it would lower the moral of the country and cause some panic. I know that Sword Beach had problems with their landing and suffered from traffic, Omaha suffered many casualties and also at Utah beach the landing crafts were blown off course and ended up landing in an area that was lesser defended. Source J shows me, the Allied casualties in the first 115 days of battle according to Supreme Headquarters, I can see from this that the Canadians were the most successful or the most skilful of the f the Allied forces because they have the least killed, wounded or missing this could also be explain by that they had the fewest troops to killed, wounded or missing. The problem with this source is that it is not specifically about D-Day it is over the first 115 days this mean that these figures could be all of them from D-Day or all of them from 114 days after D-Day, this source instead shows the success/failure of the whole war not just this single event or day. I know that 300,000 landed at D-Day in total it were successful and there were not a lot of deaths. In total after 115 days of war one of which being D-Day there were 40,549 troops killed, wounded or missing these back up that D-Day was a success. From these 2 sources and my knowledge I have understood that the D-Day landings on the whole were a success.
4. Study sources D, G and I: Use these sources and your own knowledge to explain how successful the D-Day landings were.
Source D shows me that there are boats in the harbour from this i can infer that D-Day has been successful because if there are this many large and small boats in the harbour they are allied boats also this means that there are not many German defences left therefore this then means that there has been allied victory on the French coast. That there are large and small boats means that is active successful landings. Source D backs up my knowledge of D-Day that the operation was a success. Source G that the Allied troops took advantage “of the poor quality of the German troops defending the channel coast” from this I can tell that the success of the Allied invasion was partly or maybe fully down to a German failure and their weaknesses. However source G also states that the Allied forces almost everywhere didn’t achieve their specific objectives and in the case of the American Omaha beach they were close to defeat against the poor quality of defences. Omaha beach had no tanks support 27 out of 32 of which sunk and suffered 2,000 casualties however weakly defended the beaches were they were still underestimated at the Omaha beach. However the Germans were not as heavily guarded elsewhere therefore they underestimated how many troops and to the scale that the allied forces would be coming. My knowledge on the beaches is that the Sword and Juno beaches had a higher death rate than was anticipated, that the Utah beach was a success and only suffered 200 casualties, at Gold beach there was a success and the Allied forces were able to set up the harbour that is pictured in source D here. Source I states that “things did not go altogether according to plan”, from this I can tell that what success there was on D-Day was limited and there were many mistakes made. The source also comment on that Montgomery claimed that D-Day did go to plan, from this I can tell that at the time the truth of what was really happening wasn’t revealed and on many occasions there were false statements made to keep morale high this is an explain of propaganda. Also source I compares the British on D-Day to what they did in WW1 Gallipoli says that “the British dallied on the beaches as they had done long ago at Gallipoli.” From this I can tell that on the failed beaches there were casualties and this is comparable with the mistakes that were made by generals in WW1 from this I can tell also that the British army didn’t learn from their previous mistakes in WW1. All three of these sources contradict each other and from this it is hard to tell which of them has the information that you should believe because of this I am going to instead stick with my knowledge that I have already obtained from other things and go with what is said most often in all the sources in this yellow booklet. Therefore D-Day was a success for everyone of the Allied beaches and all of the Airborne landings however it did have its unanticipated problems for example Omaha beach had more resistance than was expected and didn’t complete its objectives but the landings was still able to maintain a stronghold and hold the beach.
5. “The Allies successfully invaded France in 1944 because their planning was effective” Use the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this view.
I agree with this statement however it was in part lucky. It was good planning because of the types of technology that were invited and why they were invited to get around German defences and to cover every scenario and to make D-Day a success. For example the Higgins boats which were shallow boats propeller powered to get over the beaches and land when the tide was low this enabled the attack to b a surprise because none of the German’s expected the Allied invasion to come at low tide because then the allied forces would have a lot more beach to cover, these boats had built in landing ramps this was so that the troops could get out of the front of the boat quickly, safely and efficiently and be straight into the fight. The duplex tanks or the D-D tanks were able to travel as a boat and then as a tank on land they could float and travel in water by them selves this was very unexpected and surprised the German defences also it added another dimension to the Allied assault. The Horsa gliders these were pulled along by planes and then let go of and were able to glide to their target they silent and extremely difficult to detect they were used in operation Pegasus which was to take a vital bridge and disarm its detonation devices which the German’s had set up so if they were invaded they could halt the invasion by blowing up the bridge trapping the Allied forces, the mission was a complete success and the bridge was taken in 15 minutes. The German’s had their own technologies however like hedgehogs which were 5ft tall pieces of metal positioned on the waters along the coast of France to hole the Allied boats these hedgehogs also had mines strapped to them which would exploded it a solider touched them or if a boat collided with them to get round this the Allied attack was when the tide was low so these hedgehogs were either out of the water or the ones that were in the water were completely visible. The Germans also had what was called The Atlantic Wall especially at Calais this was a wall that consisted of sighted guns and concrete bunkers to stop the Allied invasion. Also they had barrage balloons these were used to stop the Allied recognisance missions and the air assaults that the were happening these balloons would stop the Allied planes from being able to see what they were doing therefore stop them seeing there targets.
It was good planning because at Calais the Atlantic wall was at its strongest there was also 93 heavy guns and also 39 mobile guns also a the 7th Army which is a infantry division and the 56 panzer division which is a tank division, but instead of attacking the coast at it strongest they attacked at Normandy where in comparison there were 27 heavy guns and only 20 mobile guns and only 1 infantry division the 15th army altogether there was over two and a half times more troops at Calais than there was at Normandy it was a huge surprise to the German resistance this shows good planning. For there to be success at D-Day the Allied forces had to use the element of surprise to their advantage and to gain the element of surprise they had to make the German’s believe that there was no immediate danger and what danger that there was wasn’t going to be at Normandy to do this they for weeks before the attack bombed Calais to make them believe that they were softening it up also there were many double agents within the British intelligence that German’s believed were on their side but were feeding them false information showing false photos of the Allied forces preparing on the beaches of Dover this was to make the German defences believe that the attack was coming to Calais if this had failed and they had found out where the attack was really going to happen then the success of D-Day may not have been a success it may have been a complete failure because in the case of Omaha beach they couldn’t get through light defences in comparison to what would of awaited them at the coast of Calais.
Source C shows Churchill’s furrow planning and attempt to predict every eventuality and how much pressure he was under to makes sure that the operation was a success, Source B shows how Churchill knew that the operation could go either a way and he stated it “cannot be fully foreseen”
Source I is a historians account of the D-Day beach landings, he states that the things didn’t complete according to plan he states that the Americans landed successfully on one beach but at the other they disembarked to far out, and that the British dallied for a long time at their beaches this shows that however good the planning is, it can not take into account what happens on the day this is down to luck and the soldiers on the beaches.
