Germany first
Arcadia
"We've got to go to Europe and fight"
The Mediterranean tar baby
Casablanca to COSSAC
Brits and Yanks
"Some God-dammed things called LSTs"
SHAEF and ANCXF
Duck, fox, beaver, tiger
"A hum throughout the country"
D-Day : the invasion
D-Day : the beaches
D-Day : the crisis
"The shoreline was just a shambles"
"A field of ruins."

"On June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops landed along 50 miles of French coastline to battle German forces on the beaches of Normandy. D-Day, as it would come to be known, would eventually lead to the liberation of Western Europe, and was a critical step in the road to victory in World War II. Yet the story begins long before the Higgins landing craft opened their doors and men spilled out onto the beaches to face a storm of German bullets. The invasion, and the victories that followed, would not have been possible without the massive naval operation that led up to it: Neptune. From the moment British forces evacuated the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940, Allied planners began to consider how, when, and where they would re-enter the European continent. Once in the war, the Americans, led by George Marshall, wanted to invade in a year's time. The British were convinced this would be a tragic mistake. Allied forces would be decimated by the Wehrmacht. When Operation Overlord.