first trip to Europe." Yet another rifleman who was carried to the beach in the LCVP's relates one of his incidents: "I got on the gun. I set the gun up, and we're looking, we're looking. He says, "See if you can spot him." All of a sudden I spotted him, about 200 yards away, and I'd say maybe 30 or 40 feet higher than me. He wasn't firing at me. He was firing down across. So when he opened up again - the Germans, when they fire, they fire fast, they don't fire like we did, because they change the barrels of their machine guns in seconds. Ours were a pain. We had to take the whole gun apart and screw the barrel off, and then put another barrel on. They would get hot if you fired like the Germans. We only fired bursts of three or four at a time. The Germans put their finger down, they'd run a hundred off. Because they just push a button, the barrel falls out, and they put another one on. We couldn't do that. We had to take the whole gun down, screw the barrel off, put a new barrel on, then loosen it three clicks, it was a pain. So he fired, I picked him up, I got about ten rounds in there, that sonofagun never fired any more. Some of the riflemen got up and they walked over and looked in the hole. They didn't signal that there was anybody in there. They just looked in the hole and walked away..." Background of D-Day: The Second World War had started almost five years ear, on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. England and France had promised to defend Poland. But they were unprepared to fight, and as a result they were terribly beaten. by the next spring, France had fallen into German hands. The British army had to flee the Continent and escaped from the French port of Dunkirk with frightful losses. In the summer of 1940 the Germans, with their allies, the Italians, controlled all of western Europe. The German air force began its attempt to bomb the British Isles into rubble. Nevertheless, the British began to think about getting back onto the continent. They started planning an attack across the Channel- even though it seemed more likely that they would become the invaded rather than the invaders. Hitler threatened to invade England. He went so far as to assemble a fleet of barges along the French coast, planning to use them as assault boats. But he hesitated because he realized the risks of an amphibious attack. Also, he knew that the British navy would destroy itself, if necessary in an attempt to smash a German invasion fleet. Still the idea was tempting. The British knew as well as Hitler did that if the Germans could make the landing successfully, England would be lost. Meanwhile, Royal Air Force fighter pilots in their spitfires and hurricanes, lashed back at the great German air force. And British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the British people looked forward to the day when England would attack. Then Hitler postponed his English invasion plans. it was, from his point of view, one if his greatest errors.. He made another bad mistake in June 1941 by declaring war on Russia, until then his ally. His Italian and Japanese partners also made mistakes. They both attempted more than they had the strength to handle. Italy pushed the war into North Africa. Japan brought the United states into the conflict, on December 7th of that same year, by attacking Hawaii (Pearl Harbor) the Philippines and other American possessions in the Pacific. American military strategists, like the British, began to plan for the day when the Allies would invade Europe to destroy the powerful German army. In August 1942, when the United States was just beginning to turn its peacetime strength into military power, the British and Canadians actually made a small amphibious test raid across the Channel. it was aimed at the small French port of Dieppe. The raid was a disaster. nearly half the 6,100 British and Canadian soldiers who took part in it were killed or captured. Yet, despite its frightful cost, the Dieppe raid taught the Alli

Some common words found in the essay are:
Camp Whilst, Vehicle Personnel, Allies Germans, British Canadian, Germans Overlord's, World War, Bletchey Park, Secret Service, Normandy German, Nevertheless British, de calais, pas de calais, pas de, june 6, western europe, air force, german army, fighter strength, world war, germans invasion, deception plan, de calais allies, german air force, screw barrel barrel, june 6 1944,
Approximate Word count = 3360
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)