In the first week of the invasion, Ultra was of crucial importance. As the Allies struggled to advance beyond their beachheads, they were aware that the Germans were suffering from acute fuel shortages. This encouraged them to launch immediate offensives after their beaches became sucured. These offensives, although costly, managed within two weeks to conquer the French port of Cherbourg and the entirety of the Cotentin peninsula. Even after one of the worst storms ever to hit Western Europe hit in late June, the Allies became entrenched enough to avoid being driven “into the sea.”
It is at this point that Hitler lost the war. The Germans were forced to fight a two-front war again (three with Italy). This had proved disastrous during the First World War, and it proved to be again during the Second as well. This was realized by some in the German military who started to display defeatist attitudes. The assassination attempt on June 20, 1944 against Hitler was a natural outgrowth of these attitudes.
By the end of August, most of France was liberated. Paris fell on August 25. The Germans, however, hung on for another nine months. They launched one “last hurrah,” the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944; this surprised the Allies but did not affect the outcome of the war. By this point, it was a foregone conclusion that the Germans had lost. Four months later, Adolf Hitler ended the “Thousand Year Reich” with a bullet to his head.
Bibliography:
- D-Day R.W. Thompson.
- World War- II ? Milton Dark
- The Story of D-Day- Bruce Bliven, Jr.
- Microsoft Encarta 99 Reference Suite.
- D-day website: http://normandy.eb.com/