By 1941, after the surrender of France, and with the British armies defending their colonies in the Middle East and Asia, it was clear that the Allies would not attempt to recover Europe for a time. The invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany, motivated the public to claim to reopen the Western front, as experts at the time said that without support, the Red Army would be destroyed before the end of the year. The arrival of the United States to the war and the stabilization of the Eastern Front calmed the Western nations, who began to understand that a hasty reopening of the second front would only cause a waste of lives as it did on the Eastern Front.
While the Soviet Union faced alone the armies of Third Reich, the Western Allies began to plan the landing in Europe, realizing first a small incursion that would be well-known as the Battle of Dieppe. On August 19, 1942, six thousand Canadian soldiers landed at Dieppe, with the aim of staying a short period in which they would collect information and try new methods of assault on the beaches. The result was disastrous, almost every soldier dying or being captured, losing many ships and planes.
Fortunately for Stalin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in favor of ending the war in Europe first, before going against Japan, so after the relatively successful campaigns in North Africa, the allied troops jumped to Sicily on July 10, 1943. Finally, due to Stalin's continued insistence, it was decided in May 1943 that the reopening of the Western front would take place in 1944.
After selecting different places for the landing, it was concluded that it should occur on the beaches of Brittany, Normandy or the Strait of Dover. As the Strait was very well defended, it was discarded almost immediately, and as Brittany was very far from Paris and Germany, and since its climate was very unstable, it was decided that the beaches of Normandy would be selected. In June 1943 it was confirmed to Stalin that the invasion would be made in May 1944.
On June 6, 1944 several divisions of elite paratroopers landed in France. However, they were very dispersed and could not effectively neutralize all the defenses of the beaches. While four of the five target beaches did not encounter much resistance, on Omaha Beach, poor planning caused most of the amphibious tanks to sink, leaving the infantry alone, often being considered the option to retreat. However, by the end of the day, Omaha was captured, although 6,000 US soldiers were killed, the highest casualty figure of the day.
In total, some three million Allied soldiers landed in Normandy in June 1944, of which some forty-five thousand died in the battles that followed, most of them British. Some two hundred thousand Germans perished in these clashes, from an initial force of one million men that was scattered throughout France.
