"The Longest Day" was a mammoth project dramatizing D-day, the Allied invasion of France. It was nearly three hours in length and with an enormous ensemble cast, all playing supporting roles. The production was very conscientious about realism, the actors were always of the same nationality as their characters, and spoke in their native languages, leading to a lot of subtitles translating French and German dialogue. Although the movie was historically correct, it was also meant to be a blockbuster by starring John Wane, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery and Henry Fonda. But The American role in the invasion is not exaggerated, and the German soldiers and officers are not portrayed as brutal stereotypes.
The date for invasion was decided in Washington in May 1943, but due to some difficulties it had been postponed till June 5. June 5th was the unalterable date for the invasion to take place. The troops and the officers had been stationed in barracks for month and they were getting quite anxious to get the invasion over with. On June 5th due to bed weather the invasion had been postponed again, some ships were already on the way and had-to be recalled. The film shows the meeting that General Eisenhower (Supreme commander of the Allied forces who was in charge of the operation Overlord) held to decide to whether of not go on
with the invasion. They came up with a decision to delay the invasion for twenty- four hours. The solders and the officers got quite excited when they heard that the invasion was delayed for only 24-hours, they were worried, if the invasion would be delayed any longer they would have to wait for two more month for the tide to be back.
The allies took a lot of thought in fooling the German intelligence. Allies had air supremacy so German recon planes were very unsuccessful. The allies used that to their advantage, they had set up fake landing crafts and purposely allowed German planes in those arias. Germans had also underestimated the Allies. They didn’t believe that allies would ever gather up a navy big enough to attack the French coast but on June 6th a fleet of more then 5’000 ships took off for the French beaches.
Prior to the landing of the Allied troops there were several pr invasion bombings, which had very little effect on German fortifications. The movie did a very good job in portrayin...
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...e parts of the invasion were so intimately connected, that if one had failed the others would have almost no chance to succeed.
The movie had also focused on an aspect which is not mentioned in most of the books, the French underground resistance. They played a small but extremely significant role for the D-Day invasion. They were marking the sites for the paratroopers, they had disabled some German communications and had sabotaged the railroads. The producer did a very good job in researching this aspect of the Longest Day.
The “The Longest Day” was an extremely well done film that reenacted the events, which happened on June 6th 1944. The production was very conscientious about realism, the actors were always of the same nationality as their characters, and spoke in their native languages, leading to a lot of subtitles translating French and German dialogue. Although the movie was historically correct. This has been one of the best American war movies I’ve seen.
Bibliography
D-Day, Warren Tute, Collier Books, 1974
Red Berets ’44, Official Publication of the Airborne Forces
Pegasus Bridge - June 6th 1944, Stephen E. Ambrose, 1985
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.
In 1942, the Allies decided to help out the Soviet Union and opened up another front to the war in Western Europe. The United States and Britain did not have a large enough military to mount an invasion at the time but they had drawn up plans to prepare for an invasion in case Germany’s western front weakened or the Soviet Union was put into dire straits. In August of 1942 the Canadians attempted an invasion of the French port city of Dieppe. It was a poorly planned and coordinated invasion that was meant to be a test the defense that Germany had established that ended in disaster, nearly 5,000 troops were either killed, wounded, or captured. In July 1943, British, American, and Canadian troops invaded Sicily as the western front expanded from Africa into Europe. The valuable experience from the amphibious landings in southern Europe would be used to launch to launch the largest invasion force in the world to crack open the solid ...
Despite the meticulous planning for OPLAN 90-2, there were a number of external factors that disrupted overall timeline and sequence of events. The plan was to assault and seize the Omar Torrijos International Airport after the last commercial passenger flight was scheduled to arrive at 2300. However, the flights arrival was delayed by two hours. The plan was to give enough time for the passengers to get their luggage and clear the airport prior to the assault. Weather conditions also became an issue for the departing forces. Soldiers traveling by convoy from Fort Ord to Travis Air Force Base had to combat a thick fog, coupled with Christmas traffic making the 150-mile trip very difficult. Upon arrival to the base, not all of the aircraft were configured the same, which was not surprising because most of the aircraft were pulled from different bases all over the nation of short notice. Equipment had to be repacked and the aircraft had to be reconfigured along with amending the flight manifests to fit all of the troops and equipment. Due to inclement weather at Fort Bragg, the Paratroopers arrival was also postponed. These delays were not taken into account during the planning period, which ultimately delayed departure.
D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose follows the landings on the Calvados coast of Normandy from the pre-planning stages all the way up through the invasion and through about D-Day plus one - one day after the Normandy landings. The first two chapters deal with the combatants in a general fashion before moving on to the location of the landings and why it was chosen. From there, Mr. Ambrose moves into planning of the operation and the preparation for the same. This discussion of the preparation leads into a chapter on the operation specific training that the soldiers received. Then Ambrose discusses the numerous briefings that the troops underwent before the invasion was even launched and then he writes about the process behind General Eisenhower’s deciding to launch the invasion. Once that actual invasion begins, Ambrose uses oral history accounts from men on both Utah Beach and Omaha Beach to tell the story of how the day progressed. The end of the book is taken up with the British and Canadians on Gold Beach and Sword Beach, as well as the actions of the British airborne units. Finally, Mr. Ambrose ends his book with an overview of the Allied forces at the end of June 6, 1944.
In 1943, the decision was made to attack the Germans in the spring of 1944. It was called Operation Overlord. On June 6, 1944, Allied troops invaded Normandy on the northern coast of France. The invasion was originally planned for June the fifth, but due to bad weather it was postponed until June the sixth. The Allies consisted of the United States, Britain, France, and Canada.
would take on the day of the attack, so when the day came, the troops would be fully
The reason the movie starts out with the soldiers invading Normandy is to show people that war is not a joke and many people die for the United States. In a later scene while the US is fighting in the streets of Germany, Private Jackson yells “Get down Parker”, and a tank then shoots and kills Parker and Jackson (Jackson). This scene and many others show the audience just how fragile life is and how it can be taken away in an instant.
The fifth term sometimes used when talking about D-day is The Atlantic Wall. The Atlantis Wall was the German’s first line of defense in the west, which was along the English Channel coast of France. The wall was only partly completed by June of 1944. It had many guns placed on it, beach obstacles, and mine fields. The part of the wall directly across from England and manned by Field Marshal Rammel's seventeenth and eighteenth armies containing thirty-seven divisions.
relieve their sorely-pressed armies in the East. The Dieppe raid also served as a risky opportunity for
Book Critique of The Longest Day Cornelius Ryan, born in Dublin, Ireland in 1920, worked as a reporter covering the battles in Europe from 1941-1945 and then the final months of the Pacific Campaign. His articles were printed in both Reuters and the London Daily Telegraph. His first book was The Longest Day, published in 1959, selling over 4 million copies in 27 different editions. In 1962, a director named Darryl Zannuck made the book into a movie. Ryan's next book was The Last Battle, published in 1966.
This essay is a critical analysis that will explain the historical representation of two films that represent the World War Two Normandy Landings. The Normandy Landings took place on June 6, 1944 in France. The Normandy Landings also referred as D- Day, was an invasion by Allied forces on Normandy Beach by crossing by sea and air from English channel to Normandy Beach, which was captured by Nazi forces. The D-Day invasion is the largest war invasion by way of sea and air that included forces from twelve Allied countries. The objective was to reclaim Normandy from the Nazis and establish control over the area as the Germans were attempting to strengthen the position they had in Normandy, France . The general of the Allied forces Dwight E. Eisenhower planned and executed the massive invasion that was codenamed ‘Operation Overload’. Operation Overload involved that would involve transporting troops and supplies from the English Channel to Normandy Beach, this involved attacks from the air and troops on the ground . The Allies forces out number the Germans in Normandy and consequently reclaimed the area. The outcomes of this operation on D-Day ended with the Allied forces claiming Normandy from the Germans and in the process the loss of approximately 425,000 Allied and German soldiers. The invasions by the Allied forces were significant because it allowed access for the Allied forces to enter the border of Western Germany and fight against the Germans on their home turf. If D-Day had not occurred, the outcome for the war might have been different .
D-Day was a time where the Allied Forces came through Germany from the beaches of Normandy to start the invasion. D-Day was the most enormous sea-to-land attack ever reco...
Sun Tzu once stated “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using force, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the adversary believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold our baits to entice the adversary, feign disorder, and crush him.” During the build up to D-Day, June 6, 1944 The Allied nations enacted operation fortitude; codenamed operation bodyguard, the principle goal of Fortitude/Bodyguard was to make sure that the Germans would not increase their military presence in Normandy. The Allied forces successfully achieved this by attacking other German position specifically Scandinavia and the Pas de Calais, equally important was the task of delaying the German Reserve force to prevent and potentially devastating Nazi counter attack. Operation Fortitude was divided into three main divisions; Fortitude North, Fortitude South, and Fortitude South II.
To begin with, a general examination of the film and some of its qualities, particularly in regards to the war: One of the opening scenes is of the chaos in the Moroccan streets, which immediately sets the mood of chaos in the world at large. The feeling of... Who can you trust? The sense of danger lurking around the corner. It lends the viewer a sense of unsettlement as it paints the feeling of world war II. The rest of the film was definetly a distraction from the current events at the time, WWII was themed and chanalled through the characters but never directly.
For a long time, when anyone thought of a war movie, they immediately thought of Darryl F. Zanuck’s, The Longest Day. Cornelius Ryan, who was the author of the book by the same name, and happened to be a D-day veteran himself, wrote the movie. The book meticulously recreates the events preceding and during the invasion. It is filled with detailed descriptions of multiple occurrences during the invasion. It explains everything from mass attacks on beaches and towns to humorous anecdotes. The book wasn’t exactly a story involving characters, and neither was the film. The Longest Day is more a story of tragedy, glory, and courage surrounding one very important day. And even though mainly American and English filmmakers produced the movie, the movie and book both portray the Germans fairly. But the film added so much to the story that the book could not. Without some of the stunning visuals that the five (Zanuck went unaccredited, but was said to have directed over half the movie) directors put in the film, it would have been impossible to comprehend the scale of it all.