Seth Cahill Adv. English Favaro 13 December 2016 The Evacuation from Dunkirk The Evacuation from Dunkirk was the largest, and most successful military evacuation in world history. Over 330,000 soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of France after a failed attempt at defending it from the Nazi occupation. When the Germans invaded France in 1940, the British sent soldiers to help in the defence of the country. German tactics and technology allowed the Nazis to beat back the French and the British to the coast line. Not being able to counter-attack, the British decided to evacuate all of the troops on the shore to warships in the English Channel. The docks were destroyed forcing the British government asked civilians to take their …show more content…
Despite being completely surrounded on all sides by German Army (Wehrmacht) and the German Air Force (Luftwaffe); the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) kept fighting in hopes to wither down the Germans and make them retreat. The attempt was futile and resulted in countless more deaths (Clark 288). The massive retreat of the soldiers to the coast from the Dyle Line, a defensive line running down the River Dyle from Antwerp to Sedan in northern France, was very well handled and allowed the Dunkirk costal pocket to be formed. This part of the operation was the exact opposite of what happened when the BEF and the French Army attempted to defend against the Germans and their lines were completely shattered …show more content…
It was described as “leap-frogging but with massive battalions” by some of the soldiers that were there. What they did was have the front line battalion stop fighting the enemy and retreat under the protection of two auxiliary battalions all under the cover of darkness. They repeated this until all of the battalions were able to regroup and form a stronger line. It was extremely hard to control but at the same time very effective and protecting retreating soldiers. The retreat was greatly assisted by the First French Army rearguard located deep inside the bulge of the Allied line (Clark 302). One factor that helped allow this was a day of bad weather which stopped the German Air Force from flying and spotting their movements. German forces were slacking from sitting around and not, per say, fighting for their lives. During May 27 and May 28, the Belgian lines fell to the Germans and they surrendered that day, all the while the Germans pushed hard into the western flank causing them to retreat closer to Dunkirk. The withdrawal pulled troops from the east making a gap on the eastern flank which gave the Germans a chance to penetrate and get around behind the the remaining French and BEF soldiers. When German artillery fired to weaken the Allied front lines, they miscalculated and the shells began falling on friendly troops killing several men and almost
The prelude to the Battle of the Bulge began on a winter day in mid-December of 1944. Three powerful German divisions, were the last German offensives in the west at that time during World War II. They began after the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Allied had forces swept rapidly through France but became stalled along the German border earlier that year in September. On December 16, 1944 taking advantage of the weather, which kept the Allied aircraft on the ground, the Germans launched a counteroffensive through the semi-mountainous and heavily-forested Ardennes region in Germany, and advanced 31 miles into Belgium and northern Luxembourg near the Meuse River. Their goal was to trap four allied armies, divide the Americans and the British to force negotiated peace along the western front, and retake the vital seaport of Antwerp in Belgium. Thinking the Ardennes was the least likely spot for a German offensive, American staff commander chose to keep the thin line, so that manpower might concentrate on offensives north and south of the Ardennes known as the "bulge" in the Allied lines. These American lines were thinly held by three divisions in the Allied Army and part of a forth division, while fifth division was making a local attack and the sixth division was in reserve. Division sectors were more than double the width of normal defensive fronts, therefore there were more men scattered along a larger area. The German advance was halted near the Meuse River in late December. Even though the German Offensive achieved total surprise, nowhere did the American troops give ground without a fight. Within three days, the determined American stand and the arrival of powerful reinforcements insured that the ambitious German goal was far beyond reach. In snow and sub-freezing temperatures the Germans fell short of their interim objective- to reach the rambling Meuse River on the edge of the Ardennes. But they managed to avoid being cut off by an Allied Pincer movement.
Evaluation of the Success of the Evacuation of Children from Major British Cities during World War II
Desert Storm was a part of the Gulf War, Desert Storm was a codenamed Operation to get Iraq soldiers out of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This was the first foreign crisis that the U.S. got involved in since the Cold war. It was because of saddam Hussein. Saddam ordered his Iraqi army to cross the border to Kuwait. This wasn’t some random attack by Iraq. but instead Iraq had been preparing for this for years, they knew what they were doing and were heavily equipped with weapons.
The night before the attack Eisenhower ordered that the thousands of war ships, military and civilian, depart from English ports. They carried the assault force of one hundred and fifty-six thousand Allied soldiers through the English channel. Thousands of war planes flew close to the attack site until the attack. A fleet of warships bombarded German fortifications along the beaches. One hundred and thirty-five thousand men and twenty thousand vehicles invaded the beaches. In the next few days, the Allies secured the beaches. Some of the most important beaches in this battle are Omaha, Utah, and Juno beaches.
At Dunkirk over 40% of the French army was lost with over 80% of its
Under the command of Field Marshall Sir John French, the British. Expeditionary Force (BEF) retreated to Ypres after Antwerp fell. They arrived there between 8 and 19 October to bolster the Belgian and French defence of the sandbox. The Allied position around Ypres took the shape of a small salient in the trench lines because it could best be defended. from the low ridge of higher ground to the east, but it was vulnerable.
World War I, also known as the Great War, lasted from the summer of 1914 until the late fall of 1918. The war was fought between the Allies, which consisted mainly of the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire, and the Central Powers, which consisted mainly of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria (Alliances - Entente and Central Powers). In total, it is estimated that twelve million civilians and nine million combatants died during this horrific and devastating war (DeGroot 1). When the war first began in 1914, many people thought that it would be a war of movement that would quickly be over. However, that changed when the Germans, who were trying to reach and capture the city of Paris in France, were forced to retreat during the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (Ellis 10). German General von Falkenhayn, who felt that his troops must at all cost hold onto the parts of France and Belgium that they had overtaken, ordered his men to dig in and form defensive trench lines (Ellis 10). The Allies could not break through the enemies lines and were forced to create trenches of their own (Ellis 10). This was only the beginning of trench warfare. A war of movement had quickly come to a standstill on the Western Front. A massive trench line, 475 miles long, quickly spread and extended from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier (Ellis 10). With neither side budging, soldiers were forced to live in the most miserable of conditions. Simply put, life in the trenches was a living hell. A lieutenant of the 2nd Scottish rifles wrote, “No one who was not there can fully appreciate the excruciating agonies and misery through which the men had to go [through] in those da...
How do you judge the atrocities committed during a war? In World War II, there were numerous atrocities committed by all sides, especially in the concentration and prisoner of war camps. Europeans were most noted for the concentration camps and the genocide committed by the Nazi party in these camps. Less known is how Allied prisoners were also sent to those camps. The Japanese also had camps for prisoners of war. Which countries’ camps were worse? While both camps were horrible places for soldiers, the Japanese prisoner of war camps were far worse.
Evaluating the Success of Dunkirk There are many opinions on how successful Dunkirk was; one point of
“Concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
After heavy defeats in Normandy in July and August 1944, the remnants of the German troops were retreating from France through Benelux to German borders. In German lines was spreading desertion. Units disintegrated in the fight were escaping in all direction from the front back to Germany. Fast progressing of western Allies caused difficulties in supply, as the fighting was getting away from beaches. The whole Allied troops were supplied through the Normandy beaches and harbor Cherbourg. The Germans knew about the Allies problems and tried to keep ports as long as possible. The Allied Forces had trouble delivering supplies from the port to the advancing troops; they were progressing faster than the supplies could be delivered. They created so called “Red Ball Express” -supply system supported by 5,900 trucks. However, its mistake was that it consumed a lot of fuel.
The Hundred Days Offensive, also known as the Advance to Victory, was a series of battles that took place at the end of World War I. These battles took place on the Western Front from August to November of 1918, and ultimately resulted in the Armistice of November 11 1918.Key battles during the 100 days offensive consisted of the Second Battle of Ypres, Battle of Somme, Battle of Cambrai, Battle of Verdun, The Battle of Jutland, Battle of Lys, Battle of Ecaust, Battle of Selle .The armistice stated Germans must Immediately clear Belgium, France,and Alsace-Lorraine. Any troops remaining in these areas to be interned or taken as prisoners of war. Surrender 5,000 cannons, 30,000 machine guns, 3,000 trench mortars,and 2,000 planes. Evacuation of the left bank of the Rhine, Mayence, Coblenz, Cologne, occupied by the enemy to an area of about 30 kilometers deep. On the right bank of the Rhine a neutral zone from 30 to 40 kilometers deep must be established, evacuation within 11 days. Nothing to be removed from the territory on the left bank of the Rhine, all factories, railroads, etc. to be left intact. Surrender of 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 railway coaches, 10,000 trucks. In the East all troops to withdraw behind the boundaries of August 1, 1914,.Renunciation of the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest. Unconditional surrender of East Africa. Return of the property of the Belgian Bank,
Before the landings were to begin, the coastal German defenses had to be adequately prepped, and softened by a combination of a massive battering by United States ships, and bombing by the United States Air Force. Between the hours of 0300 and 0500 hours on the morning of June 6, over 1,000 aircraft dropped more than 5,000 tons of bombs on the German coastal defenses. As soon as the preliminary bombing was over, the American and British naval guns opened fire on the Normandy coastline (D' Este 112). A British naval officer described the incredible spectacle he witnessed that day: "Never has any coast suffered what a tortured strip of French coast suffered that morning; both the naval and air bombardments were unparalleled. Along the fifty-mile front the land was rocked by successive explosions as the shells of ships' guns tore holes in fortifications and tons of bombs rained on them from the skies. Through billowing smoke and falling debris defenders crouching in this scene of devastations would soon discern faintly hundreds of ships and assault craft ominously closing the shore.
During the fall of 1944, the “Atlantic Wall” had diminished after the invasion of Normandy and the American and allied forces were making their way towards Germany. One of the offensives directed to counteract this; Adolf Hitler focused in on and was attacking the inadequately defended Ardennes front. Had this plan succeeded, through the capture of Antwerp, the Germans would have divided the American and British forces in the area, depriving the American Soldiers and allies of a seaport for resupply.
‘The Battle of Dunkirk’ was initially the retaking of Europe from the Germans but later turned into the evacuation of the allied troops trapped on Dunkirk. I believe that Dunkirk was a disaster for the Allies' army generals but it was a triumph for allied civilians and especially the soldiers' families. In that situation, it was a triumph, as out of all the soldiers trapped on the beaches 330,000 of them were evacuated, however it was a huge defeat as it made Britain appears cowardly and weak. The British government never planned on having to retreat and evacuate there troops at the beginning of the counter against Germanys advancing army.