The D-Day assault

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On the side of D-Day being significant, my own knowledge comes into play. I know full well that a lot of planning and preparation went into the D-Day assault.

To begin with: The deceptions at Dover, where the allies put in fake airfields and landing craft and made a complete mock army in the surrounding areas tricked the German reconnaissance aircraft into thinking that an invasion force was being assembled for an attack at Calais.  This belief was made stronger by the radio traffic that the Germans picked up from Dover, the transmissions were announcing the deployment of troops to this area in preparation of an invasion of Calais. But this was all a deception, the real invasion was to come to the beaches of Normandy. But Hitler has fallen for it and he had even ordered that no troops were to be moved from defending Calais, even if another invasion landed at Normandy or anywhere else on the French coast, without the explicit orders of Hitler himself. Hitler thinking that it would be a deception for the real invasion at Calais.

I also know that D-Day hinged on many crucial small objectives within the opening hours of D-Day. The capture of Pegasus bridge to hold back the German armour that would have spelt disaster for the whole invasion was executed without fail, the soldiers also set up an 'Alamo' just in case the Germans broke through the defence of their newly captured bridge, the Alamo being if the Germans broke through and were on their way over the bridge then they would blow it up, slowing down the Allied advance but also stopping German armour stopping the invasion.

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After the initial landings a temporary port was set up at the seaside town of Arromanches called the Mulberry Harbour 'B'. The Americans also has a Mulberry Harbour this one on Omaha beach, Mulberry Harbour 'A', however their port was severely damaged due to a storm that raged and made the harbour unusable. The Mulberry Harbours were big, hollow concrete blocks and big metal piers floated over the channel and put in place to create the worlds busiest port for a couple of months, they were only designed to last the war but the remnants can still be seen around ...

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