Jj
Tom brokaw: Normandy...
For many, this was the end.
Jj
For many more,
it was the beginning.
But for all of us,
everything changed here,
in normandy, on these sands.
The day they all embarked to come here,
they received a letter from their supreme commander,
general Dwight d. Eisenhower.
It was June 5, 1944,
general Dwight d. Eisenhower: Soldiers, sailors and airmen
of the allied expeditionary force!
You are about to embark upon the great crusade,
toward which we have striven these many months.
The eyes of the world are upon you.
The hopes and prayers
of Liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave allies
and brothers-in-arms on other fronts...
You will bring about the destruction
of the German war machine,
the elimination of Nazi tyranny
over the oppressed peoples of Europe,
and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one.
Your enemy is well trained,
well equipped and battle-hardened.
He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944!
Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41.
The united nations have inflicted upon the Germans
great defeats, in open battle,
man-to-man.
Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength
in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground.
Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority
in weapons and munitions of war,
and placed at our disposal
great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned!
The free men of the world are marching together to victory!
I have full confidence in your courage,
devotion to duty and skill in battle.
We will accept nothing less than full victory!
Good luck!
And let us all beseech the blessing of almighty god
upon this great and noble undertaking.
Jj
Woman: "Liberty ship" is the name
that president Roosevelt gave to the nearly 3,000 cargo ships
built in the United States from 1941 until 1945.
To ensure the supplying of the allied forces,
the pace of production Rose to one per day.
Braving all the dangers of the north Atlantic,
these ships transported the means
to bring Europe its Liberty.
Brokaw: There have always been wars,
in one place or another, on our planet.
But during the 20th century,
war extended to the entire world twice
in the space of 20 years.
Having started in Europe,
it is here, too, that the second world war
began to come to an end...
In France, and to be precise, in normandy.
Jj
It was here in normandy,
that a new balance for the world as we know it today was forged.
But during the war,
normandy was not as welcoming as it is today...
Because from 1940,
France, like most of Europe,
was occupied by German troops
of the third reich,
led by Adolf Hitler,
with Italy as its ally,
forming the axis.
Only the United Kingdom remained free
after its victory in the battle of britain.
In June, Hitler broke
his pact with Stalin
and triggered a massive offensive
against the Soviet union,
opening up an enormous battlefront
in the east of Europe.
In December, after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl harbor,
the United States entered the war
along with the British and the Russians
against the axis forces.
Despite Japan's infamy,
Franklin Roosevelt agreed with Winston Churchill
to liberate "Europe first."
Hitler knew this.
To concentrate his best troops on the eastern front,
he had to protect his western flank
from a seaborne attack.
In march,
he ordered the building
of a defensive system
along 4,000 kilometers
of coastline: The Atlantic wall.
By that August,
construction had only got
as far as the foundations
when the Canadian troops
attempted a first landing operation at dieppe.
Robert boulanger: August 18, 19 and 20, 1942.
Dear mom and dad,
there is enough moonlight for me to continue my letter
aboard our assault barge.
If I should be among the casualties,
Jacques will let you know what happened to me
as we have promised to do this for one another,
in case one of us does not return.
I love you
from the bottom of my heart, Robert.
Brokaw: The landing was a disaster.
Of the 6,000 soldiers present,
more than half were wounded, killed or taken prisoner.
This led Hitler to believe
his own propaganda,
describing the Atlantic wall
as an impenetrable barrier.
The artillery batteries were
the strongest elements
of the Atlantic wall.
Hidden back from the shoreline, each bunker housed a Cannon
that could destroy a ship 20 kilometers away.
The exact position of the ships
was given by the command post overlooking the sea.
Each battery was a small fortress
capable of devastating a fleet.
After inspecting the normandy beaches,
general rommel oversaw their reinforcement.
He covered them with millions of mines
and all kinds of obstacles.
Many were immersed at high tide to destroy landing craft
and stop a naval attack at the beaches.
Field marshal Von rundstedt
had 58 divisions
under his command
oh the western front.
39 of these,
averaging 14,000 men each,
were placed under rommel"s orders.
Well protected behind the wall,
an army of engineers developed new weapons
that could tip the war in favor of the axis.
V1's, the first cruise missiles,
and V2's, the first rocket missiles,
could be aimed at england.
And once operational,
the first jet aircraft
would be able to surpass
the fastest allied fighters.
The Russians pushed the Germans
back to their borders.
The allies retook north Africa
and surged into Southern Italy.
The opening of a second front
in western Europe
would allow them
to take the third reich in a pincer attack.
But first, they needed to breach the Atlantic wall.
That was the aim
of operation overlord,
commanded by an American general:
Woman: Two-and-a-half-ton truck.
A real all-rounder, this six-wheel drive truck
was involved everywhere,
for all uses during the second world war.
Of the 800,000 trucks made in four years,
more than 100,000 went to the Soviet army.
Brokaw: Since entering the war,
the United States had developed its military effort
with an enormous industrial capacity.
The allies had won the battle of the Atlantic and now,
even england's numerous ports
were not enough to accommodate all the arriving ships.
For the military forces
of 12 different nations,
the whole of england
became a gigantic training camp.
Man: Fire!
While the largest military gathering in history
prepared to invade Europe,
the allied commanders
kept the date and the place
of the landings a secret
until the Eve of d-day.
The location had to combine different imperatives:
Be near a large deep-water port
and within the operational radius of fighter planes
taking off from england.
It had to have flat,
wide and deep beaches to enable thousands of men
and their equipment to land and quickly move inland.
The countryside had to be suitable
for the construction of makeshift airfields.
In the end, two French locations
fit all the criteria best:
The calais area
and western normandy.
By deciphering the codes generated
by the reich's coding machine, enigma,
the allies knew that Hitler's generals
were expecting a landing around calais.
This big port was on the quickest route to Germany.
Thus, it was the most heavily protected section
of the Atlantic wall.
So the allied planners chose normandy.
Although further from england,
it was also more lightly defended.
And if the Bridges over the loire and the seine
were destroyed, it would be difficult
for German reinforcements to access.
Jj
To increase the element of surprise,
the allies launched operation fortitude,
an elaborate deception plan to encourage the Germans
to concentrate their troops away from normandy.
Double agents reported information
on the first U.S. army group
amassing just across from calais,
commanded by the legendary general patton.
But these armies were fake.
In addition, clouds of metallic strips
were dropped to deceive radars spread along the coast
and create the illusion of a large-scale attack.
At dawn on d-day,
big clouds of this chaff were dropped around calais.
At the same time, the allies did everything possible
to get intelligence on normandy.
They collected millions of postcards
and family photographs of the coastline
from before the war.
They took aerial photographs and sent in commandos
to collect sand samples from the beaches.
But it was the French resistance
that supplied
invaluable detailed information
on the German troop and defense positions.
Exiled in London,
general de gaulle appealed
to French men and women at home
to rise up
against the German occupation...
And form the resistance,
a real shadow army.
Risking their lives,
they carried out orders sent from London.
Every evening,
in the greatest of secrecy,
they listened to a special British radio program.
These ordinary French phrases were actually coded messages.
And this verse from a French poem
formed the first part of the signal
that violette and her companions
had been expecting for four years.
The landing would take place in five days' time.
Never had an invasion
been as well prepared as that of normandy.
General Montgomery,
who had beaten rommel in north Africa,
designed the final plan.
More than 130,000 men
would land on five code-named beaches:
"Utah" and "Omaha" for the Americans,
"gold" and "sword" for the British,
and "juno" for the Canadians.
These beaches stretched
80 kilometers along the coast.
For the Americans,
objective number one was cherbourg.
Impossible to capture from the sea,
they needed to seize
this important port from the land.
For the British and Canadians,
objective number one was caen,
to ensure an anchor for the allies on the continent
and open the route to Paris.
The resistance had to carry out sabotage operations
to isolate normandy and disturb communications
between the German command posts.
The date of the assault would also be determined
by a combination of favorable conditions.
Right before the landing on the beaches,
paratroopers would need the darkness of night
to secure the flanks of the assault zone.
But the bombers would need a full moon
to find their targets.
So that night, the full moon had to rise,
but late.
The morning of the landings,
a high tide would hide the obstacles,
but a low tide would extend the distance to cross.
So the tide had to have started rising.
In June 1944,
the right conditions for both tide and moon
would only happen in normandy
between the 5th and the 7th.
A never-ending wait in the rain began.
Alfred birra: June 5, 1944,
my darling Barbara,
there aren't many men able to sleep tonight.
Most of us are sitting around talking,
generally doing what men do when they're anxious,
a little afraid and not wanting to show it.
Brokaw: "Okay, we'll go."
With these words at dawn on June 5,
after a final weather report promising marginal conditions,
eisenhower launched the largest
and most important military operation ever.
His letter was read by tens of thousands of men
embarking on the European assault,
and he went in person to encourage some of them.
In France that day,
the German weather bureau had not forecast
a break in the channel storms.
Reassured, rommel left France for Germany.
The next day, June 6,
was his wife's birthday.
In Southern england, the greatest armada of all time
finally set sail, heading for normandy.
More than 6,000 vessels
gathered in the middle of the channel.
Except for the easily-recognizable
four-engine bombers,
all allied aircraft were painted
with white and black invasion stripes
that could be seen from a great distance,
and thus avoid friendly fire from the ground.
Jj
The landing would take place the next day.
June 6 would become...
History.
Woman: C-47 skytrain.
This military version of the DC-3
was nicknamed "Dakota" by the British.
It was used for parachuting, glider-towing, troop transport,
casualty evacuation, freight and postal delivery.
With over 10,000 made,
it is the most produced transport plane in history.
Brokaw: The night before the landings,
the resistance carried out more than 1,000 sabotage operations
to disrupt German communications and isolate normandy.
Meanwhile, in england,
allied airborne troops were embarking.
Just after midnight,
six gliders carrying 30 men each,
landed between the caen canal and the orne river Bridges.
They had been mined and it was crucial to seize them intact.
The forces arriving later from the beaches
would use them to quickly reinforce the eastern flank.
Taken by surprise,
both Bridges were captured and demined
within a few minutes.
An hour later, to the west,
the arrival of two American airborne divisions
was much tougher.
The 13,000 American paratroopers
were dropped from their c-47s
over a huge area behind Utah beach,
many far from their targets
around sainte-mere-eglise
and sainte-Marie-du-mont.
The Germans had flooded much of the area behind the beaches,
and dozens of paratroopers drowned on landing.
Undetected by the Germans, the armada,
led by cruisers and battleships,
dropped anchor about
20 kilometers from the coast,
most of them out of range of German artillery batteries.
Despite their famous “crickets,”
which were intended to help paratroopers
find each other at night, nearly half were missing.
But sainte-mere-eglise was taken
and thus, the Americans controlled the cherbourg road.
The position had to be held
until reinforcements could arrive from Utah beach.
Soldiers were transferred
from troop ships to landing craft,
each with 32 men.
The longues-sur-mer artillery battery
was right in the middle of the allied landing zone.
At dawn on June 6,
the horizon was hidden by fog.
Oh, my god.
Sie kommen.
Brokaw: While the landing craft approached the shore,
allied ships blasted the German coastal defenses.
The firepower became apocalyptic
when hundreds of bombers took over from the fleet.
Flying along the coastline,
medium-size bombers dropped their bombs
oh Utah beach fortifications...
Targeted strikes that destroyed
most positions along the shore.
At the same time, over Omaha beach,
heavy bombers attempted a frontal attack.
Lack of visibility and fear of hitting
their own landing craft delayed their bombing
for a few seconds.
So, despite the bombing,
the defenses of Omaha beach remained intact.
Strong currents pushed
the first assault waves nearly two kilometers south,
fortunately for them.
Here, the German defenses were lighter.
The follow-on convoys were directed to the same location.
Many of the amphibious tanks leading the attack
sank with their crew.
Just behind, the first waves of infantry
were sent into a ten-kilometer front
without any protection.
The battery at the top
of pointe du hoc
was still a threat
to both Utah and Omaha beaches.
After sustained bombing, 225 U.S. rangers
stormed the eastern flank of the cliff
to neutralize those guns.
The climb to the cliff top
and the subsequent fighting were murderous...
But 20 minutes after the start of the assault,
the bunkers were captured.
The brave rangers discovered
the feared cannons were not in the bunkers.
Hidden a kilometer away,
they would be found and destroyed.
In the British sector,
the tide had begun to rise.
At last, the assault began.
Jackie landreaux: June 6, 1944.
Papa went to look on the beach and shouted,
"english ships!
The allies are coming!"
Shells whistled and burst over us.
Our final hour had come.
Suddenly, the shots were further apart.
We went outside, and papa went to check on Mrs. dumont.
He returned quickly.
"She has a wounded englishman."
We were to nurse him.
He gave me four sweets,
and I heard my first english words.
"Thank you."
Brokaw: Close to 25,000 British soldiers
landed on a five-kilometer front
to the east of the planned site.
Their mission was to capture bayeux,
but first to take the high ground overlooking arromanches.
With French soldiers from kieffer's commando leading,
29,000 men landed
at the set time.
After crossing Pegasus bridge,
they were set up on both banks of the orne river.
Then, joining up with the Canadians of juno beach,
they had to capture caen before nightfall.
In juno's western sector,
seven amphibious tanks out of 29 sank.
But the Canadians,
determined to take their revenge for dieppe,
overcame fierce German resistance.
Their mission:
Join up with the British from sword beach
and capture the caen airfield.
At the German headquarters, confusion reigned.
They were awaiting Hitler's orders,
yet the only order he had given
was to not be awaken before 9:00 A.M.
Still trapped between German crossfire
and the rising tide,
American troops were being decimated.
Then, eight destroyers charged toward the beach
at flank speed from the sea.
They came in close
to fire on the deadly cannons.
The shots were spot on.
Taking advantage
of this unexpected support,
small groups broke through
the German defense lines.
Aiming for the orne river Bridges,
heavy bombers dropped more
than 150 tons of bombs on caen.
Denise harel: We heard aircraft hovering above.
Boom! We hid in the bathroom.
I was facing my cousin,
who smiled at me one last time
as a second bomb fell on the house next-door.
Everything collapsed.
Therese and I were buried under the rubble.
We fell all the way through the cellar
and we had two floors and the attic on top of us.
Therese said nothing.
She was next to me and her right arm was around my waist.
I was begging to get me out of there
as quickly as possible...
And they brought me here,
into the shelter.
Brokaw: Now back in France,
rommel learned that Hitler had finally agreed
to release some of the reserve armored divisions.
The 21st panzer division
launched a counterattack
and reached the coast,
but outnumbered and surrounded,
it withdrew to the north of caen.
Sainte-mere-eglise
was how seized,
the road to cherbourg
was in the hands of the U.S. army,
and around sainte-Marie du mont,
the bridgehead was firmly secured
behind Utah beach.
Mission accomplished.
Arromanches was liberated, and the British reached
the outskirts of bayeux, miraculously spared.
Of all the allied troops
that landed at dawn,
the Canadians pushed deepest into the countryside,
but they were stopped north of caen.
The troops landed on the beach,
succeeded in joining the airborne division.
Near Pegasus bridge,
the cafe gondree
became the first liberated house in France.
The eastern flank was secured,
but caen remained out of reach.
As soon as the battles were over on the beaches,
reinforcements arrived without waiting
for a real port to be seized.
At Omaha, the bridgehead
was very thin.
Soldiers and civilians suffered heavy losses,
but the landing was a success.
By the evening of June 6,
the allied forces had opened up a large breach
in the Atlantic wall.
Melvin b. Farrell: June 6, 1944.
It all seemed unreal.
This section was under intense fire
from the pillboxes we could see on the hill.
Every fifth machine gun bullet is a tracer, glowing red.
They're so dense and crisscrossed.
You can't believe anyone can get through it alive.
I wonder if I'll ever be able to forget all this.
Brokaw: The "longest day" was finally over,
but in normandy,
the "longest summer" was just beginning.
Woman: Bulldozer.
This humble workhorse, neglected by history,
played a vital role in the early hours of the landing,
clearing obstacles and leveling the beaches.
Later, it cleared roads, dug passages through hedges,
plowed under the mine fields,
and most importantly, created makeshift runways.
Brokaw: Now the allied forces
had to fight Hitler's armies on their own ground.
A major port was essential,
but cherbourg was not yet taken,
and that's why the allies brought two artificial ports
over from england and began setting them up on June 7:
Mulberry a and mulberry b,
also known as port Winston.
The breakwaters were made of 6,000-ton concrete blocks,
built in england.
These floating caissons were towed across the channel.
Once in normandy,
their bottoms opened up to allow water in,
and they sank to the seabed.
Having demarcated the calm water area,
the floating piers were installed.
The piers were built
on a special sliding system
that allowed them to float
up and down with the tide.
The harbor was large and deep enough
to accommodate the biggest ships.
Only ten days after d-day,
each mulberry was able
to disembark thousands of equipped men,
hundreds of vehicles
and up to 7,000 tons of supplies a day.
Mulberry a was destroyed by a violent storm on June 19.
Desperate to reach their top priority objective,
the Americans, led by general Collins,
captured fortress cherbourg
just 20 days after d-day.
The cherbourg harbor, badly damaged by the Germans,
was once again made functional by August,
and for months, it was the busiest port in the world.
Fuel came via a pipeline under the channel.
The Germans tried to use the railway lines,
but allied aerial supremacy was total.
Jj
Montgomery's main objective
was finally captured on July 9,
after several attempts,
and with considerable British and Canadian losses.
Major Edward r. Hargreaves: Sunday, 23rd of July.
Many French civilians have returned
it is very touching to see how they take care
of the graves of our soldiers.
It was often impossible to bury them in the cemetery
during the heat of the battle...
And the men are often buried where they fell.
Brokaw: When preparing overlord,
the allied commanders had not taken into account
the height and the thickness of the normandy hedgerows.
The Germans knew this terrain well
and used the hedgerows to carry out ambushes
and to set up stubborn defenses.
The deadly battle of the hedgerows
lasted until late July.
On the 19th, Saint-lo,
or what was left of it,
was liberated by the Americans.
95% destroyed,
it had become a martyr city.
After the American breakthrough on July 25,
Hitler ordered four armored divisions
into a counterattack west toward mortain
in an attempt to split the American advance.
The tiger was the most powerful German tank
and the most feared.
But the allied forces had become
real "tank killers."
The Germans had to fall back to the east,
giving the allies an opportunity
to capture several German divisions in a trap:
The falaise pocket.
Spearheaded by Polish and Canadian divisions,
the allied pincers eventually
snapped shut on August 19.
40,000 Germans had surrendered by August 21.
100 days after d-day,
the battle of normandy was finally over.
The road to Paris was now open.
Woman: The Jeep.
Today, we might argue about how the Jeep got its name,
but everyone considers this four-wheel drive vehicle
a symbol of the liberation of Europe.
According to eisenhower,
the bulldozer, the two-and-a-half-ton truck,
the c-47 skytrain and the Jeep
are the keys to victory.
Brokaw: The human cost
of the battle of normandy was enormous'
more than 200,000 allied dead or wounded,
and nearly 400,000 dead,
wounded or captured on the German side.
The Norman civilian toll was also very heavy:
Up to 20,000 dead,
mostly victims of the bombing of their cities.
But the course of the second world war
had definitively shifted in favor of the allies.
On August 25,
general leclerc's 2nd armored division
to liberate their city,
and general de gaulle,
leader of a free France,
could march triumphantly
down the champs-elysees.
Throughout winter,
the allied forces fought on
in severe conditions in Belgium and the Netherlands.
It was not until may 1945 that they finally forced
the third reich into an unconditional surrender.
And on September 2, 1945,
with Japan's surrender,
six years exactly after its beginning,
world war ll finally ended.
It resulted in over 60 million victims worldwide,
military and civilian.
Jj
Today, there still are wars,
in one place or another on our planet...
But most of us live freely,
in a relatively peaceful world.
While the last withesses
of the second world war are departing forever,
let us not forget what millions of men and women
had to suffer in order to leave us
a better world.
Let us be grateful to those
who gave everything,
including their lives,
for our Liberty.
Jj