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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many infantrymen crowd into the boats carrying them to the beach?

2. How many members of the 101st Airborne are captured by Jahnke's Germans?

3. Where do the Americans beat the Germans in battle prior to D-Day?

4. What are B-17s known as?

5. What are the troops given to communicate with each other once they are on the ground?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the Allies' "Transportation Plan" versus the "Oil Plan"?

2. What is Rommel doing in the days before the invasion?

3. What causes the panzer unit to arrive fourteen days late to Normandy?

4. What purpose does the British Double Cross System serve in the war?

5. How does the British airborne fare in comparison to the dismal deployment of the American paratroopers?

6. What are the plans for taking Omaha beach?

7. While the Allies train obsessively, how are the Germans conducting training?

8. Why does Hitler believe an Anglo-American offensive poses a greater threat to Germany than the Russians?

9. How is the "Transportation Plan" viewed by experts after the war?

10. How do the British and American armies differ?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Ambrose says in the Prologue that his book is about the young men who were molded by the 20's and 30's to become the heroes of D-Day. Discuss what he means by this.

Essay Topic 2

How does the image of a young soldier beside someone whose dead hand bobs, "Cornelia Otis Skinner's Our Hearts Were Young and Gay" capture the essence of what happened on D-day?

Essay Topic 3

Ernie Pyle wrote in 1944: "In this column I want to tell you what the opening of the second front entailed, so that you can know and appreciate and forever be humbly grateful to those both dead and alive who did it for you." Why is it important for the story of D-Day to be told to future generations? What aspect of the American character does this day embody?

(see the answer keys)

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