Operation Fortitude was a military deception operation by the Allied nations as part of Operation Bodyguard, an overall deception strategy during the buildup to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was divided into two subplans, North and South, and had the aim of misleading the German High Command as to the location of the invasion.
The European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA) was a theater of Operations responsible for directing United States Army operations throughout the European theatre of World War II, from 1942 to 1945. It commanded Army Ground Forces (AGF), United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), and Army Service Forces (ASF) operations north of Italy and the Mediterranean coast. It was bordered to the south by the North African Theater of Operations, United States Army (NATOUSA), which later became the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army (MTOUSA).
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in northwest Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. US General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the commander in SHAEF throughout its existence. The position itself shares a common lineage with Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Atlantic, but they are different titles.
The liberation of Paris was a battle that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been occupied by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Armistice of 22 June 1940, after which the Wehrmacht occupied northern and western France.
The Psychological Warfare Division of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force was a joint Anglo-American organization set-up in World War II tasked with conducting (predominantly) white tactical psychological warfare against German troops and recently liberated countries in Northwest Europe, during and after D-Day. It was headed by US Brigadier-General Robert A. McClure. The Division was formed from staff of the US Office of War Information (OWI) and Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE).
Ike: Countdown to D-Day is a 2004 American made-for-television historical war drama film originally aired on the American television channel A&E, directed by Robert Harmon and written by Lionel Chetwynd. Countdown to D-Day was filmed entirely in New Zealand with the roles of British characters played by New Zealanders; the American roles were played by Americans.
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Normandy landings. A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August.
Major General Ray Wehnes Barker was a United States Army officer of the Allied Forces, and served in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. Barker was a key member of the combined United States-British group, which became known as COSSAC. This group planned the Battle of Normandy, codenamed "Operation Overlord", also known as D-Day, which liberated Nazi-occupied France. He served as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the European Theater from 1943 to 1944, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF).
This is a timeline of events that occurred during 1944 in World War II.
Camp Griffiss was a US military base in the United Kingdom during and after World War II. Constructed within the grounds of Bushy Park in Middlesex, England, it served as the European Headquarters for the United States Army Air Forces from July 1942 to December 1944. From here Dwight D. Eisenhower planned the D-Day invasion. Most of the camp's huts had been removed by the early 1960s, and a memorial tablet now stands on the site.
U.S. soldiers committed acts of rape against French women during and after the liberation of France in the later stages of World War II. The sociologist J. Robert Lilly of Northern Kentucky University estimates that 4,500 instances of sexual assault had been transgressed by U.S servicemen in France from June 1944 to the end of the war in May 1945.
Operation Marathon in World War II helped allied airmen who had been shot down or crash-landed in Nazi-occupied Europe evade capture by the Germans. The British intelligence organization, MI9, created the operation to gather downed airmen into isolated forest camps where they would await their rescue by allied military forces advancing after the Normandy Invasion of June 6, 1944. The Comet Line, a Belgian/French escape line, operated the forest camps with financial and logistical help from MI9.
The June 6, 1944, order of the day was issued by Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Allied forces on the eve of D-Day, the first day of the invasion of Normandy. The message was intended to impress upon the troops the importance of their mission which Eisenhower called a "Great Crusade". Eisenhower had been drafting the order since February 1944 and recorded a spoken version on May 28, that was broadcast on British and American radio on D-Day.
Colonel Richard Ernest Dupuy was a United States Army officer and military historian.
The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance.
The British Normandy Memorial is a war memorial near the village of Ver-sur-Mer in Normandy, France. It was unveiled on 6 June 2021, the 77th anniversary of D-Day, and it is dedicated to soldiers who died under British command during the Normandy landings.
The Overlord planners for the invasion of Europe in 1944 specified suitable weather for the assault landing; with only a few days in each month suitable. In May and June 1944 frequent pre-assault meetings were held at Southwick House in Hampshire near Portsmouth by Eisenhower with Group Captain James Stagg of the RAF, the Chief Meteorological Officer, SHAEF, his deputy Colonel Donald Yates of the USAAF, and his three two-man teams of meteorologists. Stagg was a "dour but canny Scot.. " He had been given the rank of group captain in the RAF "to lend him the necessary authority in a military milieu unused to outsiders". The senior commanders were General Bernard Montgomery, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay and Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, plus Eisenhower's deputy, Air Marshall Arthur Tedder, his chief of staff Walter Bedell Smith and his deputy chief of Staff Major General Harold R. Bull.
John Ford's D-Day footage refers to the motion-picture film shot by 56 U.S. Coast Guard combat photographers and automated cameras mounted on landing craft under the direction of legendary Hollywood film director John Ford on Omaha Beach and environs during the Normandy landings and Battle of Normandy in summer 1944. Director George Stevens landed with the HMS Belfast and shot on Juno Beach. A Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) timeline reported that 344,000 ft (105,000 m) of film was processed by the Allied communications departments in June 1944.
The United States military government in France was a planned government of liberated France that was to be run by the American Army. This was abandoned in favour of France being run by the Provisional Government of the French Republic led by Charles de Gaulle.
