When the signal is given,
the whole circle of avenging nations
will hurl themselves upon the foe
and batter out the life of the cruelest tyranny
which has ever sought to bar the progress of mankind.
That signal comes today.
This episode is sponsored by Wargaming.
New players can download World of Tanks and use the code: NEPTUNE
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D-Day. June 6th, 1944.
Months of effort have been building up to this day.
Throughout England, half a million men have been gathered at staging areas
to strike across the channel as soon as the signal is given;
men from The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Belgium,
Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands,
New Zealand, Norway and Poland.
Today we'll be telling the American story,
as best as it can be told in a few short minutes,
and over the coming weeks, thanks to the generous support of Wargaming,
we'll tell the story of three of the other major players involved.
But that story begins with a dinner in Tehran in 1943.
For the first time, the leaders of the most powerful allied nations,
The United States, The USSR and the British Empire, met in one room.
For years, Stalin, his nation battered by the Nazi invasion
and bearing the brunt of the human cost of the war against Germany, had
pressed the allies to open up a second front to the war by invading France.
The British had pushed back, arguing for operations in North Africa,
and then an assault on Italy.
But now, with the USSR winning on the Eastern Front,
the demands from Stalin became harder to deny.
And simultaneously everyone started to think of the post war settlement.
If the Allies won without British and American troops
liberating Western Europe, how could they stop the USSR
from claiming huge swaths of land
and perhaps even, at least politically, dominating the continent?
And so, an agreement was made out in the deserts of Iran:
the western powers would open up a second front
by invading France in May of 1944.
Plans were drawn up.
An amphibious operation of this size had never been tried.
Men and material would have to be drawn back from around the world,
new technologies would have to be invented,
engineering feats previously only discussed in conference rooms
would have to be put to the test under wartime conditions.
But the first decision that had be to made was where to land.
There were two possible targets: Calais, the closest point in Europe to England,
or Normandy, one of the farthest on the Channel coast.
Calais was the sane, sensible place to land,
but it had two notable disadvantages:
first, terrain in which you could easily get bogged down, and second,
the fact that it was the sane, sensible place to land.
Reviewing the battle plan, Eisenhower and Montgomery were in agreement:
they wanted the element of surprise
with the possibility of being able to rush off the beaches.
So the decision was made. Normandy it would be.
But this would require one of the greatest counter intelligence operations
ever attempted to keep the secret safe,
not to mention equipment and manpower on an even greater scale.
Entire harbours had to be fabricated
which could be shipped over from England, more landing craft
needed time to roll off the factory lines. The operation was delayed until June.
Finally, the day arrives: June 4th, 1944.
Planes prep, final drills are run through,
tens of thousands of men board ships for the invasion,
and then the rain starts to roll in.
Soon it becomes a storm.
Ferocious waves sweep the channel, clouds completely block the sky,
high winds buffet any craft that ventures on sea, land and especially air.
Eisenhower is forced to make the decision: the attack must be delayed.
Rain continues to pour the next day.
A council of allied commanders is called.
If they delay again, they won't be able to launch until July.
They need to do the channel crossing at night,
they need to do commando raids and mine sweeping
when the unsuspecting Germans will have the fewest patrols out.
But for a crossing of this magnitude, they need nearly full moon visibility.
Even if they did decide to brave a launch without the full moon,
tidal conditions wouldn't be right for another two weeks. What do they do?
They've got thousands of men already holed up on boats,
getting seasick and nervous and just plain stir crazy.
They've already started moving equipment and forces into staging areas
which can clearly only be targeting one place: Normandy.
And they've had to alert enough people up and down the chain
as to the nature of the operation that, with each passing day,
the odds of keeping their landing location a secret plummet.
But to cross in this weather, that would be madness.
Then a captain is ushered in.
He's an RAF meteorologist, and he's about to make what may well be
the most consequential weather report of all time.
He says he believes it's going to be clear on the 6th.
Eisenhower nods. The operation is a go.
6,000 ships begin to steam across the channel.
Minesweepers fan out ahead of them, clearing a path.
For weeks, the allied forces have bombed
the German airforce in the region nearly to oblivion.
No enemy interceptors exist to spot the waves of gliders and transport planes
carrying 17,000 airborne troops.
The ships won't reach the beaches until dawn,
but the airborne infantry has night work to do.
First in are the pathfinders, the men whose job it is to light the drop zones
for all the other parachute infantry.
Of the four planes carrying these pathfinders
one overshoots their target, another has to bail before ever getting to France,
and the remaining two kept most of their signaling gear in the ditched plane,
leaving them desperately trying to signal the paratroopers
by waving flashlights at the passing airplanes.
The paratrooper drop goes even worse:
scattered by enemy anti-aircraft fire and blinded by low clouds,
paratroopers jump from altitudes that are either too high,
leaving them drifting slowly, unable to do anything but watch
as enemy guns spit shrapnel up at them,
or too low, breaking bones on landing
as their parachutes don't have enough time to slow their fall.
They are scattered all over, many landing miles from their drop zones,
some landing in marshes or rivers, others being slaughtered
as they drop right into the middle of the enemy.
It was a harrowing and confusing night of chaotic firefights
and desperate small unit actions.
But the more veteran of the American airborne troops,
groups like the Screaming Eagles and the 505th,
managed to pull together to capture
crucial road junctions, communication points and bridges,
and even destroyed some of the artillery batteries
that would imperil the landing at Normandy.
And they would hold fast, delaying or preventing
any counter-attack that might sweep the impending invasion back into the sea.
Then there's the initial bombardment. Allied bombing runs go astray,
causing massive damage to the civilian centres in Normandy,
but doing little to weaken the dug-in German positions.
As dawn breaks, though, the Allied gunners can finally see their targets,
and the bombardment becomes far more effective,
softening up the beach for the initial assault,
but there's little time remaining until the troops' scheduled landing.
At 6:30 AM on June 6th, 1944, the klaxons sound,
and the assault craft are released.
They plow through the chop, men huddled in their tin shells,
as German fire pours down,
sinking entire landing craft to the bottom of the sea just off the Normandy coast.
Then the assault craft hit the beach, ramps drop and men charge out.
But on Utah Beach, things have already gone horribly.
The men look around them, and the terrain's all wrong.
They've landed on the wrong beach.
Luckily for the Americans, the oldest man in the invasion,
and the only general to actually join these ground troops,
Teddy Roosevelt Jr., happens to have landed with them.
The local commanders ask him what they should do,
and living up to his namesake, he simply responds:
"We'll start the war from right here."
He correctly assessed that the beach they had landed on
was actually a better, more easily takeable landing point
than the one the senior staff had assigned them.
In a miracle of heroism and logistical coordination,
he managed to reroute the entire Utah Beach invasion force to his location,
direct the battle and continuously rally the men as he walked the beach
with his cane, waving his pistol.
His new "Utah Beach" would be the first beach successfully overrun,
and for his actions there he would be awarded the medal of honour.
Omaha, though, was a different story.
Here, the pre-landing bombardment had been even less effective.
The seas were choppy, landing craft took on water
and men tried to bail with their helmets.
Some of the landing craft sank.
Those that landed were filled with wretching seasick men.
Much of the armoured support that was supposed to follow them
foundered in the waves or simply got picked off as they hit the shore.
Soon, the men were all pinned down against a small shingle of land
that provided what little cover there was to be found on the beach.
Many of the units had taken heavy casualties,
and much of the command staff was dead.
With units getting washed ashore in the wrong places
or scattered in the desperate scramble to try to get to the small ridge of sand
that served as cover, the assault had become hopelessly disorganised.
The second wave met with much the same fate.
Hopelessly bogged down, withdrawal from Omaha Beach was considered,
but it was the vital linking point between the British and American forces.
As the day wore on, a number of ranger units began to rally and scaled the bluffs,
finally managing to assault German positions on the heights.
At the same time, several of the naval ships came dangerously close
to the beach to provide more effective support fire
just as the German ammunition began to run out.
Even after all this, Omaha Beach wasn't truly cleared by the end of the 6th.
But as the sun began to set on those bloodied beaches,
it was clear that the American forces were there to stay.
Join us next time as we join the British
for their covert efforts to keep the biggest invasion in history a secret.