HISTORY COURSEWORK –

WORLD WAR 2

TEACHER:  MR . BASTON

Q1.

     From the evidence given in source A we can learn that British attitudes towards operation Overlord were not only deadly serious but also vital in their instincts aswell. It is obvious by reading the source, which is written by the British commander, Montgomery, that this was a thought about and well planned mission. It was to do with ‘pride’ he states. He also thought it was the British ‘righteous cause’ to win even if it meant their men of high calibre were killed. The British desperately wanted to win this fight and go out and defeat the enemy, Montgomery gave the British soldiers and allies more persuasion and desire to win by using his speech to all the men fighting for Britain at this time. He was the man who was there to boost morals of his soldiers and fellow allies.

Q2.

     The sources B+C help us understand more clearly the tactics used by the British armies to conquer the beaches, ‘gold’, ‘juno’ and ‘sword’. First look at the British soldiers’ descriptions on the attack on Sword, it is easier to understand when broken down into your own words so this is what ill do now. I think that this is trying to tell us that the British shelled and bombed away at the beach fortifications to help clear the land of under-ground mines and debris. Then the British scampered forward and hid behind the ‘Atlantic wall’, where the Germans could not shoot at them. The British should have really conquered the attack on ‘sword’ due to the immense power of all their troops, this was to be the story and they did so. Also the information from source C, I think may back-up the overall tactics used to clear up the beaches of debris once again, bodies and mines. In this source a picture backs up my descriptions of the materials being cleared from the beaches. This picture has been taken from a boat, which was allocated to bombing the coastline, and also the planes, which were bombing the lines from the sky. These planes were used to bomb certain areas inland so their own troops could capitalise on these areas to set-up camps and also to make the opposition’s soldier’s retreat towards them.

Q3.

     After studying sources B, C and D and using my own knowledge I think I know why the sources B and C are different to the likes of source D. Firstly all the sources are seen from different perspectives, C was described by someone on a boat in the darkness, B a soldier who would only see a small portion of the beach and lastly source D the engineer who would have to travel up and down the coastline removing machinery and vehicles to safety and also removing them as they are proving to be an obstacle in the way. Therefore I believe that the engineer in source D would have the opportunity to see more than the other people in the sources. In source B it reads, ‘ the beach was soon swarming with our chaps’ which suggests that the attack is going well. However this is much the opposite to source D which states that the experiences are ‘traumatic and panicky’ it tells of how hardly any tanks got ashore from the boats. Also it states that 88 guns were firing down on the beach and leaving ‘dead people every where’. From my own knowledge I can tell you that ‘sword’ was an easy target and easy battle due to the British tricking the enemy into thinking that the attack would commence at Calais, they did this by bombing it and very cleverly sending a dummy army to there. Lots of planning and effort went into this as the British set-up one of the greatest plans to win them the time to get into France through Normandy. The British used special tanks called the ‘Hobart Funny’s which included the most famous ‘Sherman crab’ They bombed the Germans using these innovations and hit their defences using these devices. The Allied counter-offensive was launched on June 6, 1944. British, Canadian, and United States troops stormed their respective invasion beaches, and most were quickly overrun, except the Americans at Omaha Beach, who encountered stiff German resistance. As a result of successful British deception measures, many German Panzer tank divisions had been kept in reserve in the Pas de Calais, where the Germans anticipated the main allied landing would take place. Furthermore, the Allies had achieved air supremacy and their bombing of roads and railways in northern France imposed serious delays on the movement of German reinforcements to the allied bridgeheads. The atmosphere at Omaha beach was much the opposite, as the Americans didn’t bother with extra weaponry as the British did, they struggled with removing debris and materials from the beach and a number of their troops were getting killed when leaving the warships /boats. Also the American Parachutes were drifting off-course and were also landing too much inland. Even though the weather wasn’t much different between the American beaches; ‘Omaha’ and ‘Utah’ and the British beaches; ‘Gold’, ‘Juno’ and ‘Sword’ the same difficulties hung over the heads of the commanders and the soldiers for both teams of allies. Also the Americans who were firing missiles were struggling and their knowledge of co-ordinations of the beach and conditions of it were poor. By the time the soldiers had landed on the beach then the first line of leaders were dead, the Germans had much better protection on this beach and as said before guns were always firing down on them. Soon the beach had become overcrowded as the troops could not move forward and the ‘Atlantic wall’ still stood where the troops would hide behind, maybe this says that not many soldiers did actually make it this far from the boats.

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Q4 (I)

     We can learn from sources E, F and G that the German preparations for the invasion of France were very poor. We can tell this by the way source E addresses the ignorance shown by the Germans. First was G.E Feuder a commander of the 21st Panzer division who hadn’t appeared on D-Day morning because he spent time with his French mistress. Secondly was Commander Rommel who had spent most of the day at his wife’s birthday. This to me shows not only ignorance between the leaders but the knowledge of British attacks weren’t obviously revised ...

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