 Along the eastern shoulder of the Sherbrooke Peninsula, the beaches of Normandy are strung. The chilly waters of the channel reach quietly up the sand, which is today as it should be. A place where people go to spend a holiday afternoon with a cool sea breeze. There are lasting reminders, however, of a time when these beaches were not so hospitable. Where the neck of the peninsula joins the Normandy coast lie the beaches American soldiers remember. Utah, the westernmost one was called. And the other, Omaha. Further east, the beach heads the British soldiers can never forget. Gold, Juno, and sword. Today, history whispers and echoes through empty bunkers and in the imperceptible inroads of rust, flaking from ruined and abandoned implements of war. To climb the dunes of Utah or Omaha today is quite literally child's play. It was not so in June of 1944. D-Day. After its conquest by the Nazis, France becomes one of the most heavily fortified areas in history. But early in the war, plans are made to launch an invasion of this fortress across the English Channel. It is given the codename Operation Overlord. For thousands of American soldiers, the immediate effect of this decision is assignment to Great Britain to participate in the training and build up of forces to be used in the invasion. Not for all will the transfer be so direct. Some will study invasion on the beaches of North Africa and Sicily and Italy before they ever set foot on French soil. But throughout the winter and spring of 1944, great convoys churn across the Atlantic to British ports. Into Britain they come by the thousands and tens of thousands. England and wartime is the land of blood, sweat, and tears. A nation blackened and battered by the fury of the Nazi Luftwaffe. But it's still England. And for young Americans on their way to war, there is much to see. Wartime Britain is a place supercharged with excitement. Literally the crossroads of the world filled with uniforms from all the nations united in the war against the Axis. But there is work to be done here and hard work. The grueling days and weeks and months are devoted to it. But training has one specialized objective. How to assault a hostile, fortified coast. The American, British, and Canadian troops who train on England's landing beaches come to know well what it is they are getting ready for. The equipment they will use is ready too. Thousands upon thousands of vehicles, weapons, supplies of every conceivable sort. On the other side of the channel, the Nazis also know what the Allied forces are preparing for. And they are making preparations of their own. Along the coastline they have built an Atlantic wall which Arnold Hitler says will make Europe an impregnable fortress. The beaches and waters off them are heavily mined and will be trapped and strung with obstacles. Behind them, heavy guns are embedded in steel and concrete, positioned to train on any invasion fleet which might appear in the channel waters. By the spring of 1944, the Nazis know that an Allied invasion is imminent, but they cannot tell when it will come or where. They think the attack most likely will strike where the distance across the channel is narrowest at Calais. Consequently, their strongest forces and fortifications are concentrated here. The actual target is one of the best kept secrets of the war. The attack will come along a 50-mile stretch of coastline in the province of Normandy, sweeping west from the Horn River to a beach on the Coutantin Peninsula, dominated by the vital port of Cherbourg. The assault is first scheduled for May, when weather conditions are expected to be at their best. Allied leaders planning overlord are aware of Nazi estimates that the invasion will strike at Calais. They further this deception by ordering heavy bombing in the Calais area as well as in Normandy. In the months preceding the invasion, the tempo of air attacks steadily increases. Air fleets with their cargoes of destruction thunder out of British bases to pound at oil centers and industrial plants and airfields. In these months, the mighty Nazi Air Force has reduced to a ghost of its former power, and Allied superiority in the skies above France is what. Destruction of transportation centers and rail lines is an important part of the invasion plan in order to isolate the battle area in Normandy and hinder the enemy's efforts to bring up men and supplies. It becomes clear that additional time will give the Air Force a better opportunity to accomplish this critical objective. It also has decided to expand the original invasion plan, which called for an attack along a three-division front into one along a five-division front. This makes the acquisition of more landing craft essential. For these reasons, D-Day is postponed from early May until early June. The men who will launch the attack continue their training through the cold early English spring. And then, inevitably, comes the day when all the training and rehearsals are over. It is time now for the curtain to lift on the real thing. Throughout May, the roads of England are clogged with convoys, as men and supplies begin to move down to the ports and the loading areas. The English people cheer them on and pray for them as they pass. By the end of May, virtually all of southern England is one vast staging area. The realities of life now are small ones. For the individual man who will be called upon to execute the plan for the greatest assault ever proposed in the history of warfare, that plan comes alive now in a myriad of final details. Dozens of items to be issued and checked. Aboard the ships go the hardware of war, cargo which will be indispensable to the fighting man if he is able to secure a tow hold on the hostile beach and expand it into a lodgement area, vehicles and the fuel to run them, rations and fresh water to drink, medicine, weapons and ammunition, bulldozers and bridges, the long invisible line of equipment which stands behind every statistic of victory. Finally, the very heart of the striking force completes the movement. The men who will spearhead the invasion board the ships which will carry them to their long awaited hour of decision. In file after file they come in all the ports where the invasion fleet lies at anchor, moving up the gangplanks in a long, solemn shuffle whose cadence becomes the heartbeat of history. The extensive movement from shore to ship, swiftly and effectively executed is a masterpiece of logistical operation. But with the mechanics of logistics done, the eye of destiny is now on these men who bore their vessels bringing only what they can carry on their backs and in their hearts. The faithful hours that lie beyond the darkness ahead belong to them to do with as they can while the world waits in wonder and hope. They may not see themselves as the sword bearers of a crusade but they know well enough what depends on their effort and the ultimate preparation is for each man to make himself. Now begins a new period of waiting for the war. An invasion ship is a lonely ship, writes a correspondent who is there. It is a strange and suspended world but heavy with memories of the more familiar world left behind. Unknown to the men in the tense atmosphere of the invasion fleet tension is also high at Supreme Headquarters. Overlords scheduled for June 5th. The men who will arrive at the ship will arrive at the ship. Tension is also high at Supreme Headquarters. Overlords scheduled for June 5th has been postponed 24 hours because of the worst channel storm in 20 years. Now weather conditions predicted for the 6th are far from ideal but another postponement will mean a wait of at least two weeks for the right conditions of moon, tide and weather. The possible consequences of delay are staggering, loss of secrecy, drop in morale, strengthening of enemy defenses. One man must make the decision. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander. He makes it. The invasion will go as scheduled on the 6th. The great Armada begins its ponderous move into the channel waters. The men who will actually be the first into France are still back on English soil. Paratroopers of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division are to jump behind enemy lines to secure the flanks of the invasion area. On the eve of the invasion, the Supreme Commander visits some of them. I found them in fine battle General Eisenhower is to write later, admonishing me that I had nothing to worry about. There's is to be the biggest airborne invasion ever attempted to this time. The crucial hours of darkness ahead will make almost superhuman demands on them. Bad weather and heavy aircraft fire will scatter many of them over a much wider distance than is planned. They will be forced to fight the enemy as they find him in the night in small groups and on unfamiliar terrain. But Dawn will find the flanks at either end of the Normandy battlefield held by these first invaders. None of this, of course, can they know as they bore their planes in the late hours before D-Day. The great ghost fleet lifts from its British bases, carriers with the airborne warriors, the gliders carrying weapons and heavy communications equipment, the night skies over Normandy are suddenly alive with the dark shapes of men who will bring the first fires of D-Day to fortress Europe. In the waters of the English Channel, Dawn lights up the invasion fleet plowing steadily toward the Normandy coast. With almost 5,000 sea-going vessels, the historic Armada is the greatest ever assembled. The sea is incredibly rough. For many of the warriors aboard the vessels pitching helplessly on the rolling water, darkness is a cruel enemy to be fought before the Germans are ever faced. An hour before the first troops are scheduled to hit the shore, a naval bombardment opens up on the enemy's coastal defenses. The Nazis are at first confused about the Allied invasion. They are not aware of full-scale assaults in the making. Allied Air Forces, which have been protecting the assault convoy throughout its trip, join the attack on enemy targets. In wave after wave, they roar overhead above the Armada. In the ships of the invasion fleet, the men can hear the steady pounding of their fire on the enemy's positions. And they wonder, hopefully, if anything can be left alive by the enemy's forces, and if the enemy's forces are ready to attack. And they wonder, hopefully, if anything can be left alive on shore. In a world of nausea and fear and tension, the trip to the beaches begins. At the spear tip of this historic seaborn attack are some 3,000 men, American, British and Canadian troops, who will hit in the first wave. Behind them, the main body of ground forces will land in succeeding waves. The British and Canadians are to take the three eastern beaches. The Americans are to secure the two on the west. Exposed to fire from an enemy they cannot yet see, they rock toward land. H-Hour. On beaches called Utah and Omaha, and Sword and Gold and Juno, they come ashore. On the murderous sands of Normandy and its rim of watery hell, they push against the gates of Fortress Europe, and the fates of war and freedom await their performance. Enemy resistance varies in degree from beach to beach, but for every man there, the new world of Normandy is a world of private agony and chaos. And no man can see the broad design beyond it, on a scale so epic that words written long ago by William Shakespeare could have been composed for the 6th of June 1944. He that outlives this day and comes safe home will stand a tiptoe when this day is named. Three hours after the invasion begins, it is clear that the Allies have their put hold, however precarious. The electrifying announcement is made in London. It is night across the United States. Swingship workers in war plants are the first to hear the news. Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces supported by strong air forces began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France. Unquote. This is the only word we have at this time. There is no indication yet of exactly where how many men were involved. The news comes to America on this June day of 1944, bringing a swell of hope and pride and anxiety too. For great victories in war must always be fought dearly. And the price paid this day for the Allied hold on the beaches of Normandy is not cheap. But although the cost is steep, the results are incalculable to the plan of battle. The beachhead soon expands from put hold to lodgement. Men and weapons and equipment pour ashore. Within 12 days, almost 600,000 men and 90,000 vehicles are on the beaches masked for the drive inland. Ten months of war still lie ahead in Europe, bitter piting through the hedgerow country of the lodgement area. Hard grinding combat in the cities that lead from Normandy to the banks of the Elbe. Many men yet will fall. Many reverses will be suffered. Many triumphs recorded. But in the main, the progress of battle will follow the bold plan conceived in Allied councils and brought to flaming life by the men who stormed the Normandy beaches on a day which will forever be known as D-Day, who unlocked the gates of fortress Europe so that a monstrous evil could be pursued and destroyed. D-Day