Western Axis Campaigns and Operations: Danemark, Norway, Low Countries, France, England, war on the sea, Overlord & aftermath
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Wehrmachts Victory Parade in Paris June 1940 |
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The Western Wehrmacht campaigns included:
- Phony War (Sitzkrieg).
- The Denmark campaign as Operation Weserübung
- The Norwegian Campaign.
- The first campaign in the Western Theatre involving combat was conducted against the Netherlands, Belgium, etc. and France (Fall Gelb) in 1940. This predominantly land campaign evolved into two subsequent campaigns, one by the Luftwaffe against the United Kingdom, and the other by the Kriegsmarine against the strategic supply routes linking the United Kingdom to the rest of the World.
- The Western Front resumed in 1944 against the Allied forces with the Battle of Normandy.
- The Brief air attack on America, aiding the Japanese, lasted about two days, which took place in the outlying islands of Alaska.
- The strategic air campaigns the Luftwaffe won in 1939 and 1940 in Poland and France ended with the Battle of Britain.
- The Battle of the Atlantic resulted in early Kriegsmarine successes that forced Winston Churchill to confide after the war that the only real threat he felt to Britain's survival was the "U-Boat peril."
From 1941 to the end of 1943, the Luftwaffe entered a long and bloody air battle with the Red Air Force that affected its participation in the campaign against the RAF. Allied air forces enjoyed aerial superiority on all three Theatres by the summer of 1944. In respect to the Battle of Britain, had the Luftwaffe pursued its early goal of bombing the RAF airfields and fighting a war of attrition, it is likely they would have been victorious. However, in response to a string of events beginning with a small-scale air raid on Berlin by British bombers, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe bomber forces to attack British cities. These reprisal attacks shifted the weight of the Luftwaffe away from the RAF and onto British civilians, allowing the RAF to rebuild its fighting strength and, within a few short months, turn the tide against the Luftwaffe in the skies above England.
