Operation Sledgehammer

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The Operation Sledgehammer ( German  Operation Sledgehammer ) was one of the USA in the early stages of the Second World War Message Favorite Company for invasion in Western Europe . It was only intended in the event that the Soviet resistance against the German Wehrmacht advancing east should collapse or be decisively weakened.

The American planning staff, appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower to draw up the plan, assumed a possible landing in the summer of 1942. It was to be carried out first by British units, to be followed by American reinforcements. A number of American divisions were already on their way to the United Kingdom as part of Operation Bolero . A date between July 15 and August 1 was assumed as the day of attack (D-Day). The operation was to be preceded by fifteen days of air strikes that would lead to the withdrawal of German planes from the Eastern Front . The airspace over the English Channel and on the continental coast between Dunkirk and Abbeville was intended as an Allied control room. Further air strikes should be carried out on the coasts of the Netherlands , Belgium and Normandy . 30 days later the landing attack of the main troops was planned, which had to control the area north of the Seine and Oise .

A revision of Operation Sledgehammer , which was worked out a little later, consisted of a six-division landing force that was to cross the English Channel to Cherbourg according to the US plans . The main task of the then to be formed bridgehead was to wait for supplies from Great Britain and to set up a heavily armed depot for a later advance into the French interior.

A subordinate operation, Operation Jupiter , was intended to build a beachhead in Norway .

However, as early as mid-July 1942 the British spoke out in favor of a later date for the invasion. Operation Roundup , which they favored, was scheduled for the first half of 1943 at the earliest.

Since the Soviet Union under the leadership of Josef Stalin demanded the establishment of a second front in the west as quickly as possible , the disappointment was great when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced the decision to postpone the invasion plans at a meeting in Moscow in mid-August 1942.

In the further course Churchill managed to convince his counterpart Franklin D. Roosevelt of a landing in northwest Africa in the fall of 1942 ( Operation Gymnast / Torch ) instead of Operation Sledgehammer.

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