World War Ii History France

The 1942 raid on Dieppe was an attempt to test the enemy readiness, and take some pressure off the Russian front. It was a costly disaster, but lessons learned there were of the utmost importance to the D-Day planning. After a massive build up of men and materials, the D-Day landings finally took place in Normandy on June 6th, 1944. Despite vicious battles and stubborn resistance, within 12 weeks the Allied forces invaded Paris.

In 1939 Britain and her allies were completely unprepared for total war. In the spring of 1940, after months of inactivity, the powerful and highly trained German army smashed it's way through neutral Holland and Belgium and into northern France. The Allies had no choice but to retreat to the costal areas, where the 'Miracle of Dunkirk' took place. Half a million men were finally evacuated to England.

In 1949 Noor Inayat Khan was awarded the George Cross posthumously. How did this young lady from a noble upbringing with a pacifist belief have the desire, dedication, and willingness to risk everything to become one of the bravest and courageous agents during World War II? Starting her career with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, Noor soon wanted to make more of an impact on the war effort. This, combined with her incredible willpower and determination were soon noticed and she was recruited as a Special Operations Executive.

As the power of Nazi Germany grew alarmingly during the 1930s, the French sought means to defend their territory against the rising menace of the Thousand-Year Reich. As architects of the most punitive measures in the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, the French government made natural targets for Teutonic retribution, so the Maginot Line, a series of interconnected strongpoints and fortifications running along much of France's eastern border, helped allay French fears of invasion.

Nous sommes à l'aube du 6 juin 1944. Il est six heures du matin lorsque les forces alliées débarquent sur les plages de Normandie. L'enjeu est de taille : il s'agit de porter un coup fatal au IIIe Reich d'Adolf Hitler et de libérer les territoires occupés. Le jour le plus long vient tout juste de se lever. Ce livre audio vous permettra d'en savoir plus sur : le contexte politique et social de l'époque ; les acteurs majeurs du conflit ; le déroulement du débarquement et sa chronologie ; les raisons de la victoire alliée.

As far as the public knew, Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) did not exist. After the defeat of the French Army and Britain's retreat from the Continent in June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the top-secret espionage operation to "set Europe ablaze". Of the many brave men and women conscripted, two Anglo-American recruits, the Starr brothers, stood out to become legendary figures to the guerillas, assassins, and saboteurs they led.

What was it like to be a citizen fighting the Nazis? Lucie Aubrac, of Catholic and peasant background, was teaching history in a Lyon school and had just married Raymond, a Jewish engineer, when World War II erupted and divided France. This is Lucie's harrowing account of her participation in the Resistance, when, though pregnant, she planned and took part in raids to free comrades - including her husband, under Nazi death sentence - from the prisons of the infamous "Butcher of Lyon," Klaus Barbie.

Deep in the Blitzkrieg, one unlucky tourist must fight to survive. When aspiring pilot John Archer finds himself caught in the middle of the devastating Nazi invasion of France, he quickly realizes that his vacation could cost him his life. As an American swept up in a wave of refugees fleeing the chaos of the German advance, deep down he knows he’s in way over his head. When an unfortunate capture leads to Archer discovering vital information about the Nazi’s plans, he knows he has no choice but to slip out from under his enemy’s nose and tell the Allies what he’s found.

In this revisionist account of France's crushing defeat in 1940, Philip Nord argues that the nation's downfall has long been misunderstood. Nord assesses France's diplomatic and military preparations for war with Germany, its conduct of the war once the fighting began, and the political consequences of defeat on the battlefield. Ultimately, he finds that the longstanding view that France's collapse was due to military unpreparedness and a decadent national character is unsupported by fact.

Doctors at War tells the stories of physicians in France working to impede the German war effort and undermine French collaborators during the Occupation from 1940 to 1945. Determined to defeat the Third Reich's incursion, one group of prominent Paris doctors founded a medical network to treat injured Resistance fighters who they then secretly transported to Allied countries to avoid forced labor in Germany. Doctors at War stands as a dramatic, character-driven account of physicians' courage and resilience in the face of evil.

In the darkest months of the Second World War, Churchill approved what seemed to many like a suicide mission. Under orders to attack the St Nazaire U-boat base on the Atlantic seaboard, British commandos undertook 'the greatest raid of all', turning an old destroyer into a live bomb and using it to ram the gates of a Nazi stronghold. Drawing on official documents, interviews, unknown accounts and the astonished reactions of French civilians and German forces, The Greatest Raid recreates in cinematic detail the hours in which the 'Charioteers' fought and died.

Silent parachutes dotting the night sky—that's how one Normandy woman learned that the D-Day invasion was under way in June of 1944. Though they yearned for liberation, the French had to steel themselves for war. With D-Day Through French Eyes, Mary Louise Roberts turns the conventional narrative of D-Day on its head, taking listeners across the Channel to view the invasion anew. Roberts builds her history from an impressive range of gripping first-person accounts by French citizens throughout the region.

When Company A of the US 116th Regiment landed on Omaha Beach in D-Day's first wave on June 6, 1944, it lost 96 percent of its effective strength. Sixteen teams of US engineers arriving in the second wave were unable to blow the beach obstacles, as first wave survivors were still sheltering behind them. This was the beginning of the historic day that Landing on the Edge of Eternity narrates hour by hour.

With the SAS: Across the Rhine is the story of the latter part of Captain Ian Wellsted's military career with the Special Air Service. This is a very personal account, revealing the many emotional as well as physical strains placed upon men in the fighting line. The author takes us back to his time employed with the 79th armored Division (the famous "Hobart's Funnies") preparing for D-Day and his desire for more exciting action, which led first to the Parachute Regiment and then the SAS.

Le 18 juin 1940 : naissance de Charles de Gaulle. Naissance à Londres derrière un micro avec des mots qui promettent à la France, vaincue par les chars et les avions, la victoire par les chars et les avions. Mais la France n'est pas à l'écoute. La France est sur les routes, dans les villes surpeuplées du Sud-Ouest et du Midi, dans les camps de prisonniers. La France ne parle le 18 juin que d'un seul appel, d'un seul discours, celui que le maréchal Pétain a lancé le 17 juin pour dire qu'il fallait cesser le combat et demander l'armistice. Et la France est d'accord.

In the hours before dawn on 6th June 1944, an unprecedented assemblage of men, weapons, and machines swung into action.The long-awaited, highly secret D-Day invasion had begun. By the end of the day, the mission to liberate Europe would have made its most crucial advance. This book marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day through a rich account of the invasion and its aftermath. Drawing on the unparalleled collections of IWM, it reconstructs the historic landings and the subsequent battle for a foothold in Normandy.

This audiobook provides a concise and proper portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career. Napoleon as he was - not saint, not sinner, but a man dedicated to and ultimately devoured by his vision of himself, his empire, and his world. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, France was in a state of division and anarchy and in desperate need of a leader.

On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht comes this untold story of a teenager whose act of defiance would have dire international consequences. On the morning of November 7, 1938, a seventeen-year-old Jewish refugee, Herschel Grynszpan, walked into the German embassy in Paris and in an act of desperation assassinated Ernst vom Rath, a low-level Nazi diplomat. He did it, he said, out “of love for my parents and for my people.”

The challenges facing General Dwight Eisenhower before the Invasion of Normandy were not merely military, but political as well. He knew that to liberate France, and to hold it, the Allies needed local help, which would necessitate coordinating with the highly independent French resistance groups known collectively as the maquis. The Allies' objective was to push the Germans out of France. The French objective, on the other hand, was a France free of all foreign armies, including the Allies.

Nick Hewitt draws on fascinating new material to describe the violent sea battle which mirrored the fighting on land, and the complex campaign at sea which enabled the Allied assault. Aboard ships ranging from frail plywood landing craft to sleek destroyers, sailors were active combatants in the operation of June 1944, and had worked tirelessly to secure the Seine Bay in the months preceding it. They fought battles against German submarines, aircraft, and warships, and maintained careful watch to keep control of the English Channel.