Triumph

Triumph. Liberating Europe. Only a massive invasion by American, British, and Canadian forces could break the Nazi grip on western Europe. The Normandy Landing on D-Day, June 6, 1944, was the largest amphibious invasion ever, involving 600 warships, 11,000 aircraft, and 176,000 troops including rangers, paratroopers, and glider troopers. The Allies suffered 6,000 casualties. , Soon after D-Day, the 30th Infantry "Old Hickory" Division, including its 117th Infantry Regiment of the Tennessee National Guard, landed at Normandy and fought in Europe until the end of the war. By September, the Allies' two million troops, including the French First Army and "underground" forces, had liberated France. In December, a German counteroffensive in the Ardennes Forest began the Battle of the Bulge. Soldiers trained at Camp Forrest fought in this terrible battle which took one month counted more than 40,000 casualties. By February 1945, the German offensive had been crippled., In the spring of 1945, American forces moved into Germany, with Tennesseans of the 9th Armored Division helping capture the Remagen Bridge over the Rhine River. Black Tennesseans in the 761st Tank Battalion fought in General George Patton's advancing Third Army until the war's end. The Third saw action at Ardennes and Siegfried Line and liberated the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald. Black Tennesseans also fought with the Tuskegee Airmen who flew P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs against German fighters. , In April, Russian forces entered Berlin. Hitler's Third Reich, squeezed between two invading armies, disintegrated.