[Instrumental Music]
The most powerful invasion air force ever launched.
Some of the eleven thousand planes that opened
the path through the so called impregnable Atlantic wall.
[Bombs bursting]
Between La Havre and Cherbourg in Normandy
the Allied lightning strikes.
[Planes and bombs bursting]
Communications necessary to the German defenses are blasted.
[Plane and gunshot sounds]
And now, back in England a fifty mile long air train
gets under way.
Yank paratroopers receive last minute instructions
before taking off for the invasion coast,
one hundred miles across the English channel.
These are the heroes who established first contact with the enemy.
As the transports take off, General Barrattin wishes them godspeed.
[Plane sounds]
Another set of brave men board gliders.
Zebra stripings [sic] mark all Allied aircraft as invasion equipment.
And at another English field, one of the many from which the terrific Allied
power set out, British troops are glider-borne to the flaming coast of France.
[Plane sounds]
Backing up the mightiest invasion by air,
four thousand ships, combat and landing craft, carry the war
to the enemy by sea.
The Coast Guard, the Navy, the Air Forces, land hundreds of thousands
of British, Canadians and Yanks on Hitler's doorstep within a few days.
Isolating Cherbourg with its strategic harbor is the immediate objective.
Landings are made under a naval barge.
[Cannons firing]
President Roosevelt said, "Let our hearts be stout."
And later, Germany [sic] is the [sic] first on the list for destruction.
These troops bucking the choppy seas in the Channel heeded his words.
[Cannons firing]
While landings were successful, we were not without our losses.
Shocked troops move in for the beach assault.
[Planes, bombs bursting and gunshots]
The most gigantic armada in history.
H hour and the enemies hedgehog defenses are ahead.
This is the supreme moment of invasion.
This is frontal assault on an entrenched enemy.
[Gunshots]
Heroic medical corpmen remove wounded for return to England.
[Gunshots]
Some landing craft are stranded on sandbars.
And a tank founders.
The first batch of Nazi prisoners.
The "supermen" who believe their west wall impregnable.
And the Frenchmen, to whom the stars and stripes spell liberty.
He's waited a long time for this.
What he says wouldn't pass the censor.
Nazi wounded get the same care as Allied soldiers.
[Instrumental music]
During the landings, the merciless pounding of the entire
invasion area continues.
[Planes and bombs bursting]
Here is real, pinpoint bombing.
One of the last bridges between the invasion coast and Paris gets it.
[Bombs bursting]
When the beachhead is established,
heavier equipment is moved in.
Reinforcements for those heroes who are bringing liberation
to the people of Europe.
The cost of our initial landing was but a fraction of what our leaders expected.
More than ten thousand German prisoners were captured
in the first few days of the battle.
And we know one Hun who's not going to pedal anymore Nazi philosophy.
The Allied advance is rapid as we mop up town after town.
Those not seriously wounded are questioned on the spot by their captors.
The Allies bagged plenty of equipment from the surprised Germans.
Many of the enemy troops didn't know what hit them.
And the cooperation of the French aided our cause.
Some Yank will have a nice doormat when he gets back home.
The Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower holds an early conference
with General Montgomery, the Commander of English ground troops.
And they see that all operations go according to plan.
These are the men who will lead us to victory.
Along with General Omar Bradley, with glasses, who commands our infantry.
The cost of our first landing was low.
But many wounded are returned to English ports.
Men injured in that first assault.
Let these pictures remind us that there is still a long road ahead to Berlin.
The bond you buy in this fifth war loan drive
can help men like these on the path to victory.
Now it's your turn.
Buy that extra bond, today.