The first attempts to use airborne units took place in the US armed forces in the early 1930s, but they turned out to be unsuccessful. Only the outbreak of World War II in Europe accelerated the development of this formation in the United States, and the first parachute unit in the history of the US Army was one of the platoons of the 29th Infantry Regiment, which in 1940 underwent appropriate training. One of the most important figures in the development of American airborne units was General William C. Lee, also known as the father of this formation. During World War II, two airborne divisions were formed: 82nd ("All American") and 101st ("Screaming Eagle"). American troops of this type played a huge role in the first days of the operation in Normandy (June 1944), but also fought later as part of Operation Market-Garden (1944) or Varsity (1945).
Operation Overlord is an Allied offensive operation involving an air and sea landing in Normandy (northern France), which began on June 6, 1944, and officially ended on August 30 of the same year. On the Allied side, in the first several days of the operation, about 1.4 million soldiers took part in it, and this number finally increased to about 2.1 million people. The commander-in-chief was the American General DD Eisenhower. By the way, the later president of the USA in 1953-1961. On the German side, approx. 0.3 million soldiers were fighting initially, with a total force estimated at approx. 0.65 million people. The formal commander in chief was Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Plans for the Western Allies' landing operations in Europe had been developed since 1942, but their final form crystallized in 1943. The operation, which was eventually codenamed Overlord, assumed the landing of allied forces - Americans and British, but also Canadians, Free French troops, and later Poles - in Normandy, with simultaneous sea and air landing. It assumed the involvement of a gigantic flotilla of auxiliary and landing craft (over 4,000 vessels in total) and over 10,000 aircraft. For this reason, Operation Overlord has gone down in history as the largest landing operation in the history of wars! The operations began on June 6, 1944 (the so-called D-Day) with the Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy. After the capture of the bridgeheads and their merger, there was a period of stalemate and the impossibility of penetrating the German defense, as exemplified by the repeated Allied attacks on the city of Caen. The breakthrough was only Operation Cobra at the end of July 1944, which led to the breakthrough and the exit to the rear of the German troops. As a result of this maneuver, the German retreat took place, which cost the Wehrmacht a lot of effort and resources. The political and military effect of the operation was the liberation of Paris and the lion's share of France, and the actual creation of the so-called Of the 2nd front in Europe.