Normandy landines D-Day June 6, 1944

ABSTRACTOn June 6, 1944, American and British troops staged the greatest amphibiouslanding in history to trigger Operation Overlord. The operation for Normandy was thedecisive western battle of the Second World War. It is the Allied invasion of Europe,commenced at precisely fifteen minutes after midnight on June 6, 1944. In the first hour ofa day that would be forever known as D Day. At that moment a few especially chosen menof American 101st and 82nd Airborn Divisions landed on Normandy. Five minutes laterand fifty miles away British 6th Airborn Division plunged out of their planes.The Allied airborn divisions marked the extreme limits of Normandy battlefield.Between them and along the French coastline lay five invasions beaches: Utah, Omaha,Gold, Juno and Sword. Through the predawn hours as paratroopers fought in the darkbushes of Normandy, the greatest armada began to approach to those beaches. There werealmost five thousand ships carrying more than two hundred thousand soldiers, sailors andcoastguardmen. Beginning at 6:30 A.M. and preceded by a massive naval and airbombardment, a few thousand of these men waded ashore in the first wave of the invasion.Today, we can recognize that the Russians made a decisive contribution to the western warby destroying the best of the German army, killing some two million men, before the firstAllied soldier stepped ashore on 6 June 1944. Much has been written about the poorquality of the German troops defending the Channel coast. Yet these same men preventedthe Allies almost everywhere from gaining the D-Day objectives and on the AmericanOmaha beach brought them close to defeat.What follows is not a military history. It is the story of people: the men of theAllied forces, the enemy they fought and the civilians who were caught up in the bloodyconfusion of D-Day. The day the battle began that ended Hitler?s insane gamble to besiegethe world.XI