Plywood

1. Plywood Oil Drums How do you think they helped to win the war? Scaffolding

2. Why was 6th June 1944 so important?

3. By the end of today's lesson you will be able to: • Describe what happened on D-Day • Be able to explain the preparations involved in preparing for the invasion • Analyse why D-Day was so important.

4. What was D-Day? http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/launch_ani_d_day.shtml

6. Your Task 1. Write the title ‘D-Day’ in your books 2. One person from each group should come to the front of the class to collect question 1. 3. Take question 1 back to your group. 4. As a group find the answer to the question from the information sheet you have been given. 5. All people in the group should write the question and answer into their books. 6. One person from the group to bring their answer to the front of the class. If the answer is correct you will be given question 2. 7. Repeat for each question until all questions are answered.

7. Uplifting Review Imagine you are stuck in a lift with the person sitting next to you. You have 2 minutes to explain to each other : • What you have learnt today… • How you learnt it… • How will what you learnt today help you in the future?

8. The Beginning of the End? On 6th June 1944 Operation Overlord (known as D-day) began. U.S., British and Canadian forces were landed on five separate beaches in Normandy to begin their invasion of Europe. Each beach was given a codename: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. When the allies decided to invade France in order to re-capture her from the Germans, the task of organising the invasion was given to the American General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was appointed Supreme Commander of the operations. The command of the land forces was given to the British General Sir Bernard Montgomery. D-Day was to be a HUGE operation and involved moving ‘something comparable to a city the size of Birmingham’ across the English Channel. Everybody in Britain (and Germany) knew that an invasion of France would have to happen at some point, however the plans for D-Day had to be made in the utmost secrecy in order to stop the Germans finding out where the invasion force would land. The obvious choice for a landing was an area known as The Pas de Calais, as it was the shortest distance from Britain. Because it was the obvious choice the Germans had made it almost impossible to attack. This was why an area of Normandy further west around the coast was chosen instead. In the winter of 1943 the BBC issued an appeal on behalf of the War Office for family pictures of the French coast. These pictures would be used to help build up a picture of the terrain (layout of the land) the troops would be facing. A large number of photos were sent in by the public in response. As well as preparing for the actual invasion, another operation, codenamed Fortitude, was carried out. This was a plan to trick the Germans into believing false information abut a planned invasion. The plan involved pretending that forces were preparing to invade from Kent (which would suggest that they would be landing in Calais). Huge inflatable “tanks” and plywood “planes” were put in fields in south-east England, whilst dummy landing craft made from oil drums and scaffolding were sailed along the Thames and Medway rivers. To make these preparations look real the King and Queen “inspected” them, as did Eisenhower.

9. British, U.S. And Canadian troops trained in Cornwall, Devon, Wales, and Scotland, on beaches that were as like those in Normandy as could be found. In Christmas 1943 all of the people who lived in the village of Tyneham in Dorset were made to leave so that final training exercises could happen nearby. They were only supposed to be moving out for a short period of time, but after the war the army compulsorily purchased the land (they were allowed to buy the land even if the owners did not want to sell it).The people of Tyneham have never been allowed back to their homes and the area is still used by the army for training today. It had been decided that D-Day would be 5th June 1944, but bad weather conditions meant that it had to be delayed for a day. On the night of 5th June 882 parachutists and gliders landed in Normandy around the area that the troops would be invading the next morning. It was their job to try to remove as many of the German defences as they could before the main invasion force landed. At 06:30 am the first landing craft filled with troops began arriving on the beaches. By the end of the day 130,000 British, Canadian and U.S. Troops had landed on the beaches, plus another 23,000 had been flown in by air craft. Over 10,000 men had been killed.