Despite their early agreement on a strategy focused on defeating “Germany First,” the US and British Allies engaged in a lengthy and divisive debate over how exactly to conduct this strategy before they finally settled on a plan for Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The British landing area lay between Port-en-Bessin and Ouistreham where they would link up with 6th British Airborne Division along the Orne River, after their landing to protect the eastern flank of the Allied lodgment.  

Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower knew that success on the beaches would require support beyond the beaches to prevent the arrival of German reinforcements.

In a series of high-stakes strategic conferences in late 1943, the Allies made several key decisions that shaped wartime strategy, while reflecting the changing balance of power between the Allied nations and foreshadowing the postwar emergence of the bipolar world.

Operation Clipper, an offensive to reduce the Geilenkirchen salient in Germany, highlighted the value of specialized tanks in a combined US-British operation.

In a lesser-known operation that presaged the horrors of the deadly Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the XIX Corps broke through the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, Germany, in October 1944.

Historians have debated the logic of fighting to liberate Brest, with some arguing that it would have made more sense to simply bypass the city and isolate the garrison.

Despite the impending defeat of the Wehrmacht in France, the victory over Germany would not be complete until the capital of France was liberated, and the Vichy government replaced.

Operation Rashness, a major fall offensive intended to seize a port on China’s southeast coast, would open sea lines of communication into China for the first time in several years while providing a base of operations for the invasion of southern Japan.

Allied intelligence believed that most captured American officers were being held at the Hammelburg prisoner of war camp, Oflag XIII-B. This population likely included Patton’s son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John Waters, but there was no way to be sure.