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00:00 80 years after they first landed in Normandy, just under 200 American veterans are back
00:07 on the soil they helped liberate from the Nazis. Most of them are around 100 years old.
00:14 "Oh, it's mixed emotions, yes, but I'm glad I survived it and I'm glad we won the war.
00:21 It was a period in which I felt that mankind had lost its way."
00:28 Jake Larson was just 21 when he landed at Omaha Beach on the 6th of June 1944.
00:36 Now he's one of the last survivors of that fateful day.
00:40 "I am the luckiest man in the world."
00:45 Code-named Omaha, the six-mile stretch of beach with its high cliffs,
00:50 was the longest, most heavily defended and bloodiest of the Normandy D-Day landings.
00:57 Taking Omaha was the responsibility of the US 29th and 1st Infantry Divisions.
01:03 Little did they know as they approached the beach on their landing craft
01:06 that an early morning aerial assault had missed its targets
01:10 and the German defences were all but intact.
01:13 At around 6.30am, the American soldiers began wading ashore,
01:18 while German gunners poured deadly fire into their ranks.
01:23 The rough seas also put them off course and made it near but impossible
01:27 for the amphibious tanks to make land.
01:30 It resulted in an estimated 3,600 American casualties, including 770 killed.
01:39 By nightfall, 34,000 troops had successfully landed on Omaha
01:44 and were eventually able to link up with the Allied troops at next door Utah and Gold Beaches,
01:50 of the largest seaborne invasion in history.