It is the only United States Military Award that is worn from a ribbon hung around the neck, and the only award presented "By the President In the Name of the Congress".
Learn more about their heroism.The correct title for the award often called the "Congressional Medal of Honor" is simply " Medal of Honor" and the men who have received it prefer to be called "Recipients" (of the award), not "winners". When the invasion was launched its success was far from certain, though we now know it marked the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany. Of the hundreds of thousands of men who fought to liberate Normandy, sixteen soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the campaign that began on D-Day – nine of those were awarded posthumously. Not content to leave the Allies with the initiative, German forces on counter-attacked on August 8 leading to the Battle of the Falaise Pocket. The advisability of the counterattack, given the state of German forces in Normandy and the attempted assassination of Hitler on July 20 is questionable. This battle was a decisive engagement in the liberation of Normandy from German control and destroyed the hope of enemy resistance in the region. By the end of August 1944, the Allies were victorious in Normandy. All told the liberation of Normandy cost the Allies over 200,000 casualties, of which more than 120,000 were American. Caen was an important Allied objective as it a was a road hub and strategically straddled a river and a canal. German forces were entrenched in the suburbs around the town and within the town itself as they knew its strategic importance. Capturing Caen from the Germans cost the Allies 30,000 casualties. Liberating Normandy also required capturing the city of Caen, a six-week long battle that started on June 6 and ended on July 19. Fighting for the town was long and bloody, taking until June 30 and costing 2,800 Allied lives and more than 10,000 wounded. As part of this effort the 101st Airborne Division and the 2nd Armored Division had captured and secured the town of Carentan in order to link up Omaha and Utah beaches. One of the first major Allied objectives was capturing the port town of Cherbourg which was at the end of the at the end of the Cotentin Peninsula. Having a safe landing zone on Jmeant that the Allies could install two massive temporary harbors, though one was soon damaged beyond repair by weather. These harbors had taken six months to construct in England prior to their installation in France. Millions of men, tons of supplies, and hundreds of thousands of vehicles would be unloaded on the beaches of Normandy. Having available and protected beachheads allowed Allied forces to then turn their attention to liberating the rest of Normandy.Ī large component of the Allied plan was the connection of all five beachheads into one continuous front. It took five days of fighting before the Allies secured the five landing beaches, codenamed Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, 6 June 1944.
DO MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENTS GET ANY AWARDS FULL
We will accept nothing less than full victory! Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
DO MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENTS GET ANY AWARDS FREE
He will fight savagely.īut this is the year 1944! The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory! I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. On June 6 planes carried 13,000 paratroopers, gliders carried 4,000 glider infantry, and landing craft carried 57,000 infantry to storm into Normandy and breach Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. On the eve of battle Dwight Eisenhower has a message for the men about to invade France: Planned for over a year before it started, more than 130,000 Allied troops stormed into Normandy in early June by sea and by air in the largest amphibious attack in military history. Though World War II contained many “D-Days” the one most fixed in the popular imagination is the D-Day that saw the Allies invade France at Normandy. The ‘beginning of the end of World War II’ came on June 6, 1944.
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