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00:00:00D-Day, June the 6th, 1944, the most ambitious military operation in history, the target
00:00:27to liberate Europe from Nazi rule.
00:00:32On this day, American paratrooper Bill Tucker makes the most important drop of his life.
00:00:39British Commando Cliff Morris lands in Normandy on Sword Beach.
00:00:46Canadian Lieutenant Glen Dicken hits the sand on Juno Beach.
00:00:52Their actions, along with 150,000 others, will determine victory or defeat.
00:00:58Their fate will dictate Europe's fate.
00:01:03In Britain, a double agent codenamed Garbo must continue to confuse the Germans about
00:01:09the Allies' real intentions.
00:01:13Also in Britain, the commanders can only wait.
00:01:16They know the outcome rests on a knife edge.
00:01:21In France, André Heinz and Sonia d'Artois wait, too.
00:01:25They are working with the resistance inland from the Normandy beaches.
00:01:31Nothing on such a scale has been attempted before or since.
00:01:36This is the story of the 10 days to D-Day and the day itself, told through the eyes
00:01:41of 10 ordinary people whose actions shaped extraordinary events.
00:01:59When D-Day began, the outcome was far from certain.
00:02:02Countless things could go wrong.
00:02:04To convey more than 150,000 men across 100 miles of sea and land them on heavily defended
00:02:11beaches, or to fly them behind enemy lines, was a hugely difficult and risky enterprise.
00:02:18It was individuals who held the outcome in their hands.
00:02:22The soldiers in the firing line tipped the balance on the battlefield, while their commanders
00:02:28hoped and prayed.
00:02:32There were spies and saboteurs thwarting the German war effort, agents who duped the Nazis
00:02:37about the time and place of the invasion, and even backroom planners predicting that
00:02:42most fickle of all things, the British weather.
00:02:48Sunday, May 28, 1944.
00:02:54All over Britain, tens of thousands of troops who will spearhead the D-Day landings are
00:02:59on the move.
00:03:01Their job is to lead the way for the invasion force.
00:03:05Sussex, England, 7 a.m.
00:03:09Among them is British commando Cliff Morris.
00:03:12He is highly trained, but untried in combat.
00:03:16His unit must secure the beachhead, or the next wave of men will die.
00:03:21May 28, 1944.
00:03:24Once again we leave from Brighton, this time assembling at Hove Station in the early hours
00:03:29of the morning.
00:03:32Everyone senses that this time we will not be returning.
00:03:38The whole affair is organised and run by yanks and seems very good, with the food being excellent.
00:03:45We are being fattened up for the kill.
00:03:47It was all like the days weren't really, I think we'd trained up to that sort of level.
00:03:54Obviously we expected to lose some members of the party, but it would never be you.
00:04:00You would think you would come through it.
00:04:05Another soldier who in ten days will see action for the first time is Glen Dicken, a Canadian
00:04:12farm boy who has never been away from home before.
00:04:16He misses his family and writes to them most weeks.
00:04:27He tells them that all leave, for all ranks, has just been cancelled.
00:04:32He doesn't know it yet, but his regiment, the Regina Rifles, will suffer many casualties
00:04:37as the men land on the French coast.
00:04:45The D-Day command centre that will send Cliff Morris and Glen Dicken into battle is a secret
00:04:50underground military complex on England's south coast.
00:04:55Here the final stages of planning are now underway.
00:05:01Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey is the naval commander for the Allied Invasion Force.
00:05:09Portsmouth, England, 10am.
00:05:13Sunday May the 28th, got the staff busy working out the times by which the forces must be
00:05:19told of changes in D-Day and consequently the days and hours at which the commanders
00:05:25in chief must meet in order to decide these questions.
00:05:31Ramsey's job is to oversee and send into action the largest armada of ships and men the world
00:05:37has ever seen.
00:05:45The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, is Ramsey's ultimate boss.
00:05:49Today he is at Chequers, his country retreat.
00:05:58For two years, Churchill has worried that D-Day will end in failure.
00:06:03His private fear is that the British soldier, when confronted by his German counterpart,
00:06:08will lose.
00:06:11But the German soldier is no longer everything Churchill fears.
00:06:15Their own commanders have failed them.
00:06:18While many crack units remain, others have had too long in France with too little to
00:06:23do.
00:06:25Nantes, France, 11am.
00:06:30One such soldier is Walter Schwender.
00:06:33He works in an army repair shop.
00:06:36He has no idea of what's brewing in England, nor that he will be in the first line of defence
00:06:41once the invasion sweeps through France.
00:06:46Sunday, 28th of May.
00:06:49Dear all, as I have just got use of a typewriter, I don't want to miss the opportunity.
00:06:55And so I am writing you a letter.
00:06:58The typewriter is actually with us for repairs.
00:07:01And it also has to be tried out, of course.
00:07:09Today at Whitsun, we have marvellous weather here again.
00:07:13I was going to have some wine to drink now, but it doesn't taste that good in this heat.
00:07:18It's really better to stick to lemonade.
00:07:20Oh well, I hope that this will all be over soon.
00:07:24Lots of love to everyone, Walter.
00:07:28Hampshire, England, 6pm.
00:07:36Unlike Walter Schwender, Cliff Morris is ready for battle.
00:07:41The No. 6 Commando is under strict orders to remain in camp.
00:07:44Secrecy is everything.
00:07:46Nothing must be said to put the invasion at risk.
00:07:49Suddenly there's a crisis.
00:07:53Three of the camp staff soon tire of this confinement and jump it.
00:07:57They miss out on the evening roll call which everyone has to answer.
00:08:02A net is immediately thrown over the locality and a search made.
00:08:11The missing men are found in a beer house which is packed out.
00:08:15This is immediately closed and customers, proprietors and deserters are thrown into jail.
00:08:21Likewise, a woman merely talking through the wire to her husband is roped in.
00:08:27On several occasions, the Yankee guards who are armed with .22 rifles open fire at Civvy's loitering near the wire.
00:08:34No chances whatsoever are being taken.
00:08:41At 10pm, Sonia d'Artois, a British secret agent, arrives at an English airfield.
00:08:49We were searched to see that we didn't have any compromising English cigarettes or chocolate bars or whatever with us.
00:08:58And then we were given our jump clothing to wear over our regular clothing.
00:09:03And when it was time, we were just escorted to the plane and said goodbye to everybody and on we got.
00:09:12On you go.
00:09:1420-year-old Sonia is British but was raised in the south of France.
00:09:18She speaks perfect French, which is why she has been chosen to parachute into enemy terrain.
00:09:26Three months earlier, Sonia was in the typing pool.
00:09:30Now she is on her way to France to work as a courier, relaying messages between resistance networks.
00:09:37Her mission is to help the French play their own vital role in the liberation of their country.
00:09:43If her cover is blown, Sonia will be executed.
00:09:49The cause that you're working for or fighting for, if you want to put it that way, that's the most important thing.
00:09:57So you're able to overcome your fear.
00:09:59If you believe in something, you do.
00:10:14Monday, May 29, 1944.
00:10:17Eight days to D-Day.
00:10:22General Dwight D. Eisenhower is Supreme Allied Commander.
00:10:26He is in overall charge of the D-Day landings.
00:10:30It will be his job to give the go-ahead for the invasion.
00:10:34If he gets it wrong, hundreds of thousands of lives will be at risk.
00:10:42Supreme Allied HQ, England, 8 a.m.
00:10:46This morning at his headquarters near the south coast, Eisenhower perfects his golf swing, chain smokes, and thinks about his family back home.
00:10:57As the pressure mounts and the strain increases, everyone begins to show weaknesses in his makeup.
00:11:04It's up to the commander to conceal his.
00:11:07Above all, to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust.
00:11:17Leicestershire, England, 8.30 a.m.
00:11:23While Eisenhower takes the strain, American soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division leave the village of Corn in the English Midlands.
00:11:31Everyone knows that the Allies are soon to invade German-occupied Europe, but no one knows exactly where or when it will happen.
00:11:46Private Bill Tucker from Boston, Massachusetts, joined up one year earlier when he was 20.
00:11:55A few days before, he and his comrades were summoned by their commanding officer, General Matthew Ridgway.
00:12:02We all assembled, and his voice was very powerful.
00:12:09There wasn't a sound when he spoke.
00:12:13You men are to take part in a tremendous act in the history of mankind.
00:12:20You may not realize that at this time, but you will realize it in time to come.
00:12:27You will be among the first few soldiers landing in the greatest invasion of history.
00:12:34Some of us will die.
00:12:35It had a lot to do with that sense of mission and freedom of the mind, not being concerned about the physical aspects of the parachute jump.
00:12:49And, you know, the inspiration of Ridgway made a lot of difference.
00:12:55And you will remember for the rest of your lives your role in this necessary, most noble and historical effort.
00:13:04God bless us all.
00:13:08Hampshire, England, 9 a.m.
00:13:16Two million troops are now waiting in England for the invasion to begin.
00:13:21Cliff Morris and the men of Number Six Commando, who know they will do battle on D-Day itself, keep themselves busy.
00:13:29Anything to take their minds off what lies ahead.
00:13:3329th of May.
00:13:35All time is spent playing sports and keeping fit.
00:13:38The camp being very well equipped with football pitchers.
00:13:42Perhaps some play on spec of getting a broken arm or leg.
00:13:47No one is lucky enough.
00:13:50British Number Six Commando, just like the Canadian Regina rifles and the American 82nd Airborne, will be the first into action when the invasion comes.
00:14:00And yet they still don't know where they are going or when.
00:14:04They must be kept in the dark till the very last moment.
00:14:18Portsmouth, England, 9.30 a.m.
00:14:22But deep underground in the Allied command center are the people who really do know what's happening.
00:14:28Although it is too soon for the fighting men to have all the details, their senior officers have already been led into the D-Day secret.
00:14:36There is a buzz of excitement.
00:14:39The moment that everyone has been working towards for months is drawing near.
00:14:43The invasion will be on the Normandy coast between the mouth of the River Orne and the Cherbourg Peninsula.
00:14:51It will take place at low tide and by full moon.
00:14:55And it will take place within a matter of days.
00:15:05Monday, May 29th, 1944, eight days to D-Day.
00:15:14Throughout the south of England, thousands of troops, vehicles, tanks and guns are on the move.
00:15:20It is impossible to disguise such a massive exercise from enemy eyes.
00:15:29But the Allies have a plan to confuse the Germans as to when and where the landings will take place.
00:15:36This strategy of deception is critical to the success of D-Day.
00:15:40If it does not work, the enemy will be ready and waiting for the invasion.
00:15:47The Germans must be led to believe that the most likely place for the assault will not be Normandy, but further north near Calais.
00:15:55It is the logical choice because it is where the English Channel is at its narrowest.
00:16:01To support this deception, hundreds of misleading messages are sent daily to German intelligence by people such as Spaniard Juan Pujol, codenamed Garbo.
00:16:13Hendon, North London.
00:16:16Though recruited by the Germans, who still believe he is on their side, Garbo now works for the Allies.
00:16:23From his anonymous suburban home, he bombards the enemy every day with a confusing bulk of material.
00:16:30If he fails, D-Day may fail.
00:16:35A massive fighter attack stopped, taking place in the Calais area.
00:16:39A total of 66 squadrons are taking part.
00:16:42Airfields in Kent and Sussex are being used by the planes to rearm and refuel.
00:16:52Like all the best lies, his messages contain elements of truth.
00:16:56Today, the skies over Calais are the target.
00:17:00But the bomber's real objective, when it comes to D-Day itself, will be Normandy.
00:17:12Normandy is also the objective of the U.S. 82nd Airborne.
00:17:16Now on the move in the English Midlands, they will drop behind enemy lines ahead of the main landings.
00:17:22If they fail, the ground troops will never get off the beaches.
00:17:26Their job is among the most dangerous of the entire operation.
00:17:38And yet there is something paratrooper Bill Tucker and his comrades haven't been told.
00:17:44In Normandy, the German 91st Infantry Division has just been mobilized near the drop zone for the 82nd Airborne.
00:17:52The Americans will land in an area now bristling with German soldiers.
00:18:03Portsmouth, England, 10 a.m.
00:18:06Desmond, will you be kind enough to take this to the ACM?
00:18:09Yes, sir.
00:18:10But as Admiral Ramsey notes with regret in his diary, it is too late for Eisenhower to change the plan.
00:18:17It will have to go ahead, even though many paratroopers will die.
00:18:22Monday, May the 29th, a boiling hot day.
00:18:27Commander's meeting at 10.00 settled the airborne drop not to our satisfaction, but to necessity.
00:18:36Will prove very expensive to life and plane.
00:18:48For four years, France has been occupied by the Germans.
00:18:52Now, finally, liberation is in sight.
00:18:55Sonia d'Artois knows what she has to do, liaise between resistance cells as they sabotage the Nazi war machine.
00:19:06Le Mans, France, 11 a.m.
00:19:11Unlike the waiting paratroopers, she has safely landed across the channel and is taken to meet her network.
00:19:21Sonia has an ally, British agent Sidney Hudson.
00:19:25He has been in France for several months, mobilizing the partisans for the coming invasion.
00:19:32We were only helpers of the French resistance.
00:19:36We were in far less danger than they were.
00:19:40We were mobile, trained, armed.
00:19:45And the French farmers and business people who helped us were absolutely sitting ducks for the Gestapo.
00:19:58One such patriot is André Heinz, who, despite his German sounding name, is a Frenchman.
00:20:04Every day, he risks his life collecting intelligence for the resistance.
00:20:09My friends were the same, young people, couldn't bear the thought of the Germans being here.
00:20:15And there's an immediate reaction against their being there.
00:20:21And for one reason, while it's terribly humiliating to be suddenly occupied by your enemy of the day before.
00:20:30Most mornings, André Heinz comes to mass to pass on information to his contact.
00:20:36He was not a believer, but still he managed to have a prayer book that we exchanged during the service.
00:20:45And in his was the questionnaire for next time.
00:20:49And in my book were all the answers I had been able to gather.
00:20:56But in the last month, his contact has been arrested and thrown into prison.
00:21:00Now, André lives with the knowledge that he too might be betrayed.
00:21:04At any moment of the day or night, the Gestapo could come to find him.
00:21:08Only the invasion, if it succeeds, will save him.
00:21:13I would have been not only arrested, but tortured for days sometimes.
00:21:19It depended how long you could resist.
00:21:22Because they wanted to make you give the names of all those that were included in the group.
00:21:28Only a few miles from André Heinz's hometown of Caen,
00:21:32Field Marshal Erwin Rommel inspects the coastal fortifications.
00:21:37He is Germany's most celebrated military leader.
00:21:40His job is to defeat the Allied invasion.
00:21:52On Rommel's orders, the entire coast from Calais to Normandy is now a deadly assault course.
00:21:58There are four million mines in place and half a million obstacles on the beaches.
00:22:09In return, the Allies are relentlessly bombing northern France.
00:22:13Their aim? To destroy German defenses and sap their will to win.
00:22:23Normandy, France, 1 p.m.
00:22:26Today, as Rommel continues his tour of the Atlantic wall,
00:22:30he writes to his wife back home in Germany.
00:22:34Monday, May the 29th.
00:22:36Dearest Lucy, the Anglo-Americans in Norway let up from their incessant bombardment.
00:22:42The French suffer from it terribly.
00:22:45In 48 hours, there have been 3,000 dead among the people.
00:22:50And yet Rommel's problems are not confined to the enemy.
00:22:54His superior, Field Marshal von Rundstedt, has refused his demands for more reinforcements on the coast.
00:23:02Rommel is convinced that he alone should control troop movements, not von Rundstedt.
00:23:07What he does not realize is that the domestic staff in Normandy have connections with the French resistance,
00:23:14and his frustrations are known to the Allies.
00:23:30Hampshire, England, 8 p.m.
00:23:33Rommel's success or failure hinges on throwing the invaders back into the sea.
00:23:38For front-line troops like Glenn Dickon,
00:23:41the sight of planes taking off to bomb the enemy offers some comfort.
00:23:46Dear mom, the European war seems to be reaching a decisive stage now.
00:23:51The Germans are really taking a terrific beating from the aerial bombing.
00:23:55It is a beautiful sight to see.
00:23:58They certainly are making a nice job of softening up the invasion troops.
00:24:03In the southwest of England, the summer sun finally slips below the dunes at Slapton Sands in South Devon.
00:24:12Just over a month earlier, this had been the site of a live ammunition D-Day rehearsal,
00:24:18codenamed Exercise Tiger.
00:24:22It had all gone horribly wrong.
00:24:25Air cover had failed, landing craft were late, and there was confusion on the beachhead.
00:24:30Amphibious tanks had either sunk or wounded their own men as they landed.
00:24:41The next day, the aircraft had returned to the port.
00:24:46It was a training exercise in which no one should have died.
00:24:50Instead, 749 soldiers and sailors have been lost.
00:24:57It is a warning.
00:24:59If things can go this badly in a rehearsal,
00:25:02who is to say what will happen on the day itself?
00:25:07Tuesday, May 30th, 1944.
00:25:10Seven days to D-Day.
00:25:16Cottesmore Airfield, 9 a.m.
00:25:19The Allies are preparing for the invasion of Europe.
00:25:22The American 82nd Airborne is preparing for the invasion of the United States.
00:25:28Cottesmore Airfield, 9 a.m.
00:25:31The Allies are preparing for the invasion of Europe.
00:25:34The American 82nd Airborne, with them Bill Tucker,
00:25:38have reached their final staging post in the English Midlands.
00:25:43We still don't know where we're going.
00:25:45There's all kinds of speculation that it'll be someplace like Norway or Holland.
00:25:51Military police stay with each company at all times, front side and back.
00:25:55No personnel on the airdrome is allowed to come within 20 feet of us.
00:25:59I don't understand all this as none of us knows where we're going as yet.
00:26:06Marshalling Area C, 10 a.m.
00:26:10Later that morning, the men of the Canadian Regina Rifles are summoned to a briefing.
00:26:15At ease, gentlemen.
00:26:17The weeks of speculation and waiting are finally over.
00:26:21This is the French coast where we're landing.
00:26:24Names of the rivers and the town are in code.
00:26:27Familiarize yourselves with this detail, gentlemen.
00:26:30There is no doubt now that Glenn Dickon is going into battle
00:26:34and that he will be one of the first ashore on D-Day.
00:26:39The area to the east will receive the second wave of our advance group.
00:26:43Now this is an area of key importance both to this operation and that of the whole war effort.
00:26:49Any questions?
00:26:54No.
00:26:59Godspeed, gentlemen.
00:27:05The Canadians have a special reason to dread D-Day.
00:27:12In August 1942, 5,000 men of the 2nd Canadian Division
00:27:17had spearheaded an Allied raid on Dieppe with terrible consequences.
00:27:25Only 2,000 men returned.
00:27:28The rest were killed, captured or wounded within the first few hours.
00:27:33In terms of the percentage lost, it was comparable to the first day of the Somme in 1916.
00:27:44Churchill, too, is haunted by memories of the bloodbath at Dieppe.
00:27:48So great are his fears of more terrible slaughter on the beaches
00:27:52that he has ordered British hospitals to be emptied,
00:27:55ready and waiting for the wounded from D-Day.
00:28:02Hendon, North London, 7 p.m.
00:28:07A crucial means of reducing casualties is to achieve surprise.
00:28:14If Juan Pujol's messages do not fool the Germans,
00:28:17then the entire military operation that everyone has been working towards will be in jeopardy.
00:28:22The Allies could easily have another Dieppe on their hands.
00:28:28Tuesday, 30th May 1944.
00:28:31Message sent 1910 hours GMT.
00:28:33Large runways across Drome and hangars east of Ipswich and Norwich roads.
00:28:36Saw 30 liberators and much activity.
00:28:38Message sent 1944 hours GMT.
00:28:41American 8th Air Force personnel and vehicles.
00:28:43Few American 9th Air Force personnel.
00:28:46Some 6th Army men.
00:28:50There is one other thing that could disrupt even the best laid plan.
00:28:54The weather.
00:28:56That evening, it changes.
00:29:06By dusk, the clouds have parted and clear skies have returned.
00:29:10But it is an omen.
00:29:12The British climate, upon which, as much as anything, the success of the invasion depends,
00:29:17is an unpredictable master.
00:29:24Wednesday, 31st May 1944.
00:29:27Six days to D-Day.
00:29:34For more than a year, the fortunes of war have been shifting in favor of the Allies
00:29:38after the great victories in North Africa and at Stalingrad.
00:29:43In Italy, the British and Americans are getting ever closer to the gates of Rome.
00:29:48German troops are surrendering in their thousands.
00:30:00Nantes, France, 10 a.m.
00:30:04No word has reached Walter Schwender, the young German soldier stationed in France,
00:30:08of what's happening in Italy.
00:30:10Let alone the entire world beyond.
00:30:13This morning, he has just had a swim in the Atlantic.
00:30:18Dear all, today I received Mama's letter of the 23rd of this month.
00:30:23Many thanks.
00:30:25So the two parcels have already arrived.
00:30:27Well, that means the third will also still get there.
00:30:30So it is still cold with you.
00:30:32And here, we don't know what to do anymore because it is so hot.
00:30:36Today, we are in bathing trunks.
00:30:39At the Witzan, I was too pale.
00:30:41But I will try again.
00:30:43Well, that's all for today.
00:30:45Lots of love.
00:30:46Walter.
00:30:51Chateau des Bordeaux, France, 2 p.m.
00:30:54Inland from Walter Schwender,
00:30:56British agent Sonia d'Artois is now based in the grounds of a chateau outside Le Mans.
00:31:02She has a job to do, rallying the resistance.
00:31:05Her cover is as a Parisian salesgirl recuperating from bronchitis.
00:31:09The Secret Service is well aware that pretty young women are suited to the world of espionage.
00:31:19If there's two men going or one man going somewhere,
00:31:23he'll attract more attention than if he's with a woman or a girl.
00:31:28And she can flutter her eyelashes and give him a smile.
00:31:32And it's normal to see a couple.
00:31:36Le Mans, France, 6 p.m.
00:31:39Later that day, Sonia d'Artois goes for a stroll.
00:31:43Even though she has a Colt pistol in her handbag,
00:31:46it is vital that she is seen out and about, behaving normally.
00:31:52There was a table with a German officer sitting there.
00:31:56And if I had refused, it would have made it obvious.
00:32:02So the best thing to do was to sit down with them.
00:32:06I went to sit and my purse slid down onto the floor.
00:32:10And I knew that I had my Colt in it.
00:32:14And he bent down, being a very polite German gentleman, to pick it up.
00:32:20And luckily I managed to get it before he did when I picked it up.
00:32:26And I just put it behind me after that,
00:32:29so that he wouldn't be aware of what was in it.
00:32:34Thursday, June 1, 1944.
00:32:37Five days to D-Day.
00:32:44Back in Britain the following morning, it seems everything is in place.
00:32:48The weather is good. The fleet is ready.
00:32:53As officer in charge of the seaborne invasion,
00:32:56Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay has 6,483 vessels under his command
00:33:01and responsibility for the lives of all who sail in them.
00:33:06He writes home to his wife.
00:33:09Thursday, June 1. Darling Meg.
00:33:14The country is really looking lovely and the gardens so gay.
00:33:19It is a tragic situation that this is just the scenery of a stage
00:33:25set for terrible human sacrifices and sufferings.
00:33:29But if out of it all comes peace and happiness,
00:33:33who would have it otherwise?
00:33:38It will be one of Admiral Ramsay's ships
00:33:40that transports Glenn Dickon across the Channel to face the enemy.
00:33:44He, too, writes home.
00:33:46Dear Mom, I suppose all the spring work will be in full progress by now.
00:33:51I hope you have had the rain you have been eating so badly.
00:33:55So you still haven't had the veranda painted.
00:33:58I guess I'll have to get at that as soon as I get home.
00:34:05Erwin Rommel, commander of the forces opposing Glenn Dickon,
00:34:09has requisitioned the ancient Chateau de la Roche
00:34:12overlooking the River Seine as his headquarters.
00:34:15Now the pressure is on for him to work out
00:34:18exactly when and where the invasion will come.
00:34:22Roche-Guillon, France, 1 p.m.
00:34:26He believes the Allies will land at high tide,
00:34:29giving the men the shortest possible distance to run ashore under fire.
00:34:33Why would Eisenhower do it any other way?
00:34:38The only possible chance will be on the beaches.
00:34:41The major moments of weakness will occur during the actual landings
00:34:45and shortly afterwards.
00:34:50Rommel consults moon and tide tables
00:34:53and sees nothing to convince him the invasion is imminent.
00:34:57Danke.
00:34:59But Rommel is wrong.
00:35:01For once, his military instinct tells him
00:35:04The Allies have deliberately chosen low tide.
00:35:07Although it leaves the invasion force further from the beaches,
00:35:10it reveals all the treacherous underwater obstacles
00:35:13placed in their way by none other than Rommel himself.
00:35:20And there is something else,
00:35:22something to flabbergast the Allied planners, should they ever find out.
00:35:26Rommel hopes to make a surprise visit home to Germany
00:35:29for his wife and children.
00:35:31He hopes to make a surprise visit home to Germany
00:35:34for his wife's 50th birthday.
00:35:38The next combination of high tide and full moon is weeks away.
00:35:42Perfect timing to leave his post for a short break
00:35:45to celebrate Lucy's birthday on Tuesday, June 6, 1944.
00:35:52D-Day
00:35:57Thursday, June 1, 1944.
00:36:00Five days to D-Day.
00:36:06In England, everything is ready for D-Day.
00:36:09The troops are poised and armed.
00:36:11The fleet assembled.
00:36:16In utmost secrecy, the location for the invasion has been agreed.
00:36:20The coast of Normandy.
00:36:28British inventors have come up with secret weapons
00:36:31to win the battle for the beaches.
00:36:36The flail tank for clearing mines.
00:36:39Flame-throwing tanks to spearhead the landings.
00:36:42The bobbin for laying paths across sand, shingle and barbed wire.
00:36:47And the floating prefabricated mulberry harbors.
00:36:51Giant concrete boxes to be towed across the channel
00:36:54and used as docks to supply the invading troops.
00:37:00But there is a problem.
00:37:02The unpredictable British weather.
00:37:04The heat wave, expected to last for two weeks, is faltering.
00:37:09Low pressure is gathering over the Atlantic.
00:37:13If this pattern moves east,
00:37:16it will collide with the high pressure
00:37:18still hovering over Britain and the French coast.
00:37:21It will bring storms and a channel too rough to cross.
00:37:25There is no contingency plan to deal with the problem.
00:37:33South of England, 3 p.m.
00:37:37Now it's all up to one man,
00:37:39the Allied Chief Meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg,
00:37:43who, with his American colleague Donald Yates,
00:37:46is summoned that afternoon to Supreme Allied Headquarters.
00:37:51With the difference among the experts unresolved
00:37:54and bearing down as a heavy load on our minds,
00:37:57Yates and I returned that Thursday afternoon
00:38:00to the Advanced Command Headquarters
00:38:02for the final series of briefings.
00:38:05Both of us were too preoccupied with what lay ahead
00:38:08to notice much of what was going on along our route.
00:38:15In Normandy, there is as yet no sign of a break in the sunshine.
00:38:19The French resistance is on its highest state of alert,
00:38:22waiting for the message to swing into action to support the invasion.
00:38:29Caen, Normandy, 5 p.m.
00:38:34Later that afternoon, André Heinz, the French resistance fighter,
00:38:37goes down into his cellar to listen to the BBC,
00:38:40a capital offense in the eyes of the Gestapo.
00:38:48His crystal set is hidden inside a tin of spinach.
00:38:52Despite the poor reception,
00:38:54he is able to tune in secretly to London.
00:38:58The BBC was a great moral booster,
00:39:01thanks to the news they gave in French,
00:39:04news that we couldn't read in our newspapers,
00:39:07which were limited to the German communiqué.
00:39:11But also there was what we called
00:39:14les Français parlent au français,
00:39:17that were giving orders, advice and so on.
00:39:24André Heinz is waiting for one particular message.
00:39:27The time to fight is coming.
00:39:31In the evening, listening to the news in French,
00:39:35at last I heard, l'heure du combat viendra,
00:39:40which was the sign meaning that we had to listen in
00:39:44very carefully after that, during the following days,
00:39:49because then we would get the orders for sabotage.
00:39:55André Heinz must tell his network that D-Day is imminent.
00:39:59But if the invasion is stopped by bad weather,
00:40:02the French partisans will be caught in a death trap.
00:40:06I had to send a postcard from Bayeux,
00:40:09showing the tapestry, one scene of the tapestry,
00:40:12and I had to sign like a visitor,
00:40:15saying bon baiser, signing with the girl's name.
00:40:18And of course it had been arranged so that they knew
00:40:21that it meant they had to do their best
00:40:24to try and join us here,
00:40:26to be part of the little group of the resistance
00:40:31that wanted to try and do things at the time of the landings.
00:40:37Supreme Allied HQ, 5.30 p.m.
00:40:41Half an hour later,
00:40:43Stagg and Yates arrive at the Supreme Allied headquarters.
00:40:48Came to command headquarters in time
00:40:50for the long-range development conference at 5.30 p.m.
00:40:54Fairly optimistic,
00:40:56but obviously a very marginal and difficult situation.
00:41:05The meeting ends with the outcome still undecided.
00:41:09A bad storm could stop the troops from even reaching France,
00:41:12in which case it would be suicidal to proceed.
00:41:15And yet, with everything geared up for the invasion to begin,
00:41:19not to go ahead feels like madness.
00:41:22James Stagg is in a difficult position.
00:41:25Get it sorted out, he has been told by the Americans.
00:41:28General Eisenhower is a very busy man.
00:41:31But as a meteorologist, Stagg can't invent the weather.
00:41:38Friday, June 2, 1944, four days to D-Day.
00:41:46This morning, a convoy leaves Hiltingbury Camp
00:41:49in Hampshire for the south coast.
00:41:52Then, unexpectedly, there's a hold-up.
00:41:57D-Day is coming, but for Britain's farmers, life goes on.
00:42:08Nothing can stop the invasion now,
00:42:11not even a herd of English cows.
00:42:14You all right there? You need a hand?
00:42:19After a week of uncertainty for Glen Dicken and the Canadian farm boys,
00:42:23here's something they know how to do.
00:42:32Come on, boys!
00:42:45Throughout the day, convoys are on the move.
00:42:48The Regina rifles will join thousands of infantry
00:42:51already loaded onto their transports and waiting in port.
00:42:55There have been rehearsals before,
00:42:58but now it's clear to everyone that this is the real thing.
00:43:03By early evening, Glen Dicken's convoy has joined hundreds of others
00:43:07in the densely-crowded ports along the Channel Coast.
00:43:10Once on board ship, they will be confined to their quarters,
00:43:14waiting for the Allied fleet to set sail.
00:43:17This is the last they will see of England for some time.
00:43:22Supreme Allied HQ, 9.30 p.m.
00:43:25Admiral Ramsay attends the evening weather briefing.
00:43:29Commander's meeting at 21.30.
00:43:32The weather story showed no improvement, but also no deterioration.
00:43:37So the operation was allowed to continue.
00:43:40The weather was good.
00:43:43The weather was good.
00:43:46The weather was good.
00:43:50James Stag is asked for an update.
00:43:53In the last 24 hours, there's been no clear indication
00:43:57as to how it will go, better or worse.
00:44:00But at the best, the weather in the Channel for the next 3 or 4 days
00:44:04will at least be very different from what we'd hoped for.
00:44:08What's your personal view?
00:44:11If I were to answer that, sir,
00:44:13it would make me a guesser, not your meteorological Таксткер
00:44:16So that, sir, it would make me a guesser, not your meteorological advisor.
00:44:23Saturday, June 3, 1944, three days to D-Day.
00:44:33Southampton Docks, 8.30 a.m.
00:44:36Glen Dicken is now one of thousands of men confined to their troopships.
00:44:41After months of training, there are only days to go.
00:44:51Cottesmore Airfield, 9.30 a.m.
00:44:54One hour later, Bill Tucker is summoned to a briefing
00:44:57with his fellow paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division.
00:45:02Each platoon came in with a platoon commander.
00:45:07When the captain was there, and he could see the town of St. Mary Glees,
00:45:12underneath it said Normandy.
00:45:15I can remember that all my days.
00:45:19A few guys like me were taking a long shot.
00:45:22I'd come up with some weird idea that we'd go to Yugoslavia or something like that, you know.
00:45:30So we talked a lot about it, and then I think way down deep
00:45:34until we all knew we would go to France.
00:45:39Later that day, the commander's meeting is not going well.
00:45:44The weather picture is now full of menace for the 5th of June.
00:45:49Is there any chance you might be more optimistic tomorrow?
00:45:53No, sir. There's no chance of that now.
00:45:58Thank you, gentlemen.
00:46:03As he was leaving, A.C.M. Tedder said pleasant dreams, Stag.
00:46:07Pleasant dreams, old chap.
00:46:09Medell Smith caught me and said we must think about postponement
00:46:12with later times of assault landing.
00:46:15It is extremely unfortunate that this situation should have come about just now.
00:46:20It is the worst, the most uncertain during the whole time in 1944
00:46:25that I have been in this job.
00:46:28The weather could not have changed at a worse time.
00:46:32The invasion troops are due to sail the following day.
00:46:36They will reach the French coast early on Monday, June 5th.
00:46:42Eisenhower faces the toughest dilemma of his military career.
00:46:48Probably no one who does not have to bear the specific and direct responsibility
00:46:55of making the final decision can understand the intensity of these burdens.
00:47:05The following morning, the planners meet at dawn.
00:47:08Once again, James Stag brings bad news.
00:47:15In all the charts for the 40 or 50 years I have examined,
00:47:20I cannot recall one which at this time of year resembles this chart
00:47:25in the number of depressions it portrays at one time.
00:47:30The outlook is more like winter than summer.
00:47:34This means that my ships will not have sufficient air cover.
00:47:40Can we really go ahead on this basis?
00:47:46Two hours later, the historic signal goes out.
00:47:49Eisenhower had made his decision.
00:47:52The invasion will be postponed for 24 hours.
00:48:02Sunday, June 4th, 1944, two days to D-Day.
00:48:10At the 11th hour, Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander,
00:48:14has postponed the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe because of bad weather.
00:48:20Supreme Allied HQ, 6 a.m.
00:48:26If he doesn't go within 48 hours, then the next date,
00:48:30with the right moon and tide, is two weeks away.
00:48:34He cannot wait that long.
00:48:38His troops are at an advanced state of readiness.
00:48:41Their morale must be maintained.
00:48:43Hiding vehicles, ships and planes from the Germans will be impossible.
00:48:48They must go soon, or not at all.
00:48:55Roche-Guillon, France, 7 a.m.
00:48:59On this day, German Commander Erwin Rommel makes a decision that he will always regret.
00:49:05His experts have told him the weather is far too uncertain for the Allies to land.
00:49:10He is firmly convinced that the tides and moon are wrong for an invasion.
00:49:16He leaves his headquarters, climbs into his staff car and heads for Germany.
00:49:23Rommel has decided to return home for his wife Lucy's 50th birthday, which is two days away.
00:49:29At the critical moment, the man in charge of repelling the invasion is absent from his post.
00:49:39In Britain, as the day goes on, the clouds start to gather.
00:49:43It is clear that Eisenhower has made the right decision to postpone the invasion.
00:49:47Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey, commander of the naval operation, notes this in his diary.
00:49:53The weather got progressively worse from midday, having been lovely at 0415,
00:49:59making the decision to postpone more difficult.
00:50:03As the day went on, the forecast became more fully justified.
00:50:09Hampshire, England, 2 p.m.
00:50:13The order to stand down for 24 hours has now filtered through to all the Allied troops.
00:50:19It is received with mixed emotions by commando Cliff Morris.
00:50:24Orders came for moving and everyone is keyed up.
00:50:28Excitement at fever pitch.
00:50:30However, orders are postponed at the very last minute as weather is unfit for airborne operations.
00:50:38This is a real blow to us and dashes our hopes to the ground.
00:50:44We wanted to go, whatever the weather.
00:50:46It would be no surprise if we were there too long.
00:50:50We wanted to get on with the job.
00:50:52Because the longer we were in that camp there, the more the Germans were going about us.
00:50:57They were bound to have people on the inside who had never been spotted and could relay things out.
00:51:06Nantes, France, 4.30 p.m.
00:51:11Across the channel, unaware that these are the last days of unchallenged occupation,
00:51:17German soldier Walter Schwender has been swimming with friends.
00:51:23He believes, should the invasion come, it will pose no threat to Germany.
00:51:30Prost!
00:51:32His commanders have been encouraged in this belief by the Allied deception plan.
00:51:41Hendon, North London, 6 p.m.
00:51:45Back in Britain, Juan Pujol, the double agent codenamed Garbo, is the front man for this ingenious strategy.
00:51:53Garbo is in the pay of the British, but the Germans think he is on their side.
00:51:58He is part of an elaborate deception plan to confuse the enemy using dummy ships and vehicles to mislead their aerial reconnaissance.
00:52:07Garbo's job is to send messages convincing the Germans that the invasion force will land near Calais, not in Normandy.
00:52:16Today, he spins an even more far-fetched yarn, that the Allies might not land in France at all, but in Norway.
00:52:28Whitehall, London, 7 p.m.
00:52:32That evening, Winston Churchill is in his underground bunker from where he has watched the progress of so many battles.
00:52:39It is now he realizes that he is not alone.
00:52:43It is now he receives the latest news from the Allied campaign in Italy.
00:52:51He is told that the Allied forces have entered the Piazza Venezia in the center of Rome.
00:52:56The Italian capital has officially fallen.
00:53:02When the American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is informed, he tells reporters,
00:53:08The first of the Axis capitals is now in our hands. One up and two to go.
00:53:15Now, everything depends on D-Day.
00:53:18Only its success will secure Paris and Berlin for the Allies, and absolute victory in the European war.
00:53:29Chateau de Bordeaux, 7.30 p.m.
00:53:32In France, British secret agent Sidney Hudson perfects his false identity.
00:53:37If he is stopped by the Gestapo, his papers, those of a traveling cosmetic salesman, will hopefully save him.
00:53:45My first name was Jacques Laroche.
00:53:51Laroche is apparently a French name, but from the east of France.
00:53:57So that I knew if I didn't quite fit in, that I could say I was from the east, which I did on occasion.
00:54:05Sidney's job is to run a network of French patriots.
00:54:09Night after night, they cut telephone wires and blow up railway lines.
00:54:13Anything to undermine the Germans' ability to function.
00:54:19Caen, Normandy, 8 p.m.
00:54:22100 miles to the north, Andre Heintz is with his friends, but he has other things on his mind.
00:54:28When will the Allies arrive?
00:54:33I waited anxiously for the next messages.
00:54:37It seemed a very long time, and I don't know why we had thought that the landings might take place on a Sunday.
00:54:46So I had refused to go to a dance to which I had been invited by some of my friends.
00:54:53But on Sunday, when nothing happened, I was so depressed that I decided to go to the party all the same.
00:55:01I felt like a little god, because I was the only one who knew the future.
00:55:09I would have liked so much to tell all those friends.
00:55:13I would have liked so much to hide or to leave Caen, to be on the safe side,
00:55:19because in a city you were more in danger than in the countryside.
00:55:24But I couldn't even tell them that, and I was just thinking,
00:55:28well, how many will be still alive after it is all over?
00:55:39The fate of the people of France is with General Eisenhower.
00:55:43Two hours later in England, he has brought the incredible news of a break in the bad weather.
00:55:53The terrible storm in the channel will lift.
00:55:57The depression will move off to the east,
00:56:00and the weather in a day and a half should be clear for the landings.
00:56:05It's nothing short of a miracle.
00:56:10Mercifully, almost miraculously, the almost unbelievable happened about midday.
00:56:17A lull between two depressions that would offer a 36-hour window of opportunity.
00:56:23By the morning of Tuesday, the 6th of June, the winds will slacken,
00:56:27the sea get calmer, and the cloud cover might lift.
00:56:32At midnight, as a storm rages outside, James Stagg notes in his diary the paradox of the weather.
00:56:40When the weather was good early this morning, D-Day was postponed.
00:56:45Now it is bad, it has the go-ahead.
00:56:48It all looks a little mad.
00:56:51But mad though it may be, there is no turning back now.
00:56:56There is no turning back now.
00:57:06Monday, June 5th, 1944. One day to D-Day.
00:57:14Supreme Allied HQ, 4.15am.
00:57:18First thing in the morning, the commanders attend their final weather briefing.
00:57:24I believe the forecast given last night to be accurate.
00:57:28It is now that Eisenhower utters the historic words.
00:57:33Okay. We'll go.
00:57:40Two hours later, officers in the Army, Navy, and Air Forces open their sealed orders.
00:57:47These are the final instructions for the next day.
00:57:51Glenn Dickon, waiting on board ship, is told he will land on Juneau Beach,
00:57:56in front of the small port of Coursois-sur-Mer.
00:57:59His commanders know his job will be difficult and dangerous.
00:58:03This is a known stronghold of the German infantry.
00:58:09Hampshire, England, 7am.
00:58:13The news comes through to Cliff Morris after morning roll call.
00:58:185th of June. Then came the orders to move.
00:58:22And after forming up, we are again inspected,
00:58:25to make sure that everything is in order and nothing missing.
00:58:32We are then handed pamphlets to read, which are, in effect, a message from General Eisenhower.
00:58:38And these pamphlets, although given out in moments of great excitement,
00:58:43are kept and treasured by many of the lads.
00:58:48Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force,
00:58:54you are about to embark on the Great Crusade.
00:58:58The eyes of the world are upon you.
00:59:01You will bring about the destruction of the German war machine,
00:59:05the elimination of the Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe,
00:59:10and security for ourselves in a free world.
00:59:15We will accept nothing less than full victory.
00:59:22Nantes, France, 2pm.
00:59:25At Nantes, on the Channel Coast, Walter Schwender still has no inkling
00:59:29that the subjugation of France is about to come to an end.
00:59:34Dear all, thanks very much for the 40 marks travel expenses I received today.
00:59:40This time, it took rather a long time for it to get here.
00:59:44This was, of course, the situation with the Postal Service.
00:59:48Nor is it any wonder.
00:59:50Otherwise, everything is still absolutely fine for me,
00:59:53and I hope the same goes for you.
00:59:55Lots of love to all. Walter.
01:00:05By the end of the afternoon, the biggest armada the world has ever seen
01:00:10is leaving England's south coast.
01:00:13Among more than 150,000 troops on board is Commando Cliff Morris.
01:00:19Time is now 1800 hours,
01:00:22and the crew starts to lift anchor, and we proceed to move.
01:00:29Everyone is now on deck, laughing and shouting,
01:00:32with the radio playing away with swing music.
01:00:36What a feeling.
01:00:38I do not think that at this moment anyone has a care in the world.
01:00:47Caen, Normandy, 7 p.m.
01:00:50That evening, Andre Heintz tunes in as usual to the BBC.
01:00:56On Monday the 5th, at last I heard,
01:01:00Les dés sont sur le tapis, in French,
01:01:04which means the dice are on the table,
01:01:08which was the order for the Green Plan.
01:01:11It was mostly the job of the railway people
01:01:14that had to blow up trains or blow up rails or unscrew rails
01:01:20to stop transportation along the railway lines.
01:01:25So the next message was for the Purple Plan.
01:01:29It was ne faites pas de plaisanterie, don't make any jokes,
01:01:34which was the order for cutting telephone lines,
01:01:38and I must say that those that did the best job,
01:01:41well, the people working in the post office in the section,
01:01:45telephone section, that knew which lines were used by the Germans
01:01:50and who modelled as many lines as they could.
01:01:55Chateau de Bordeaux, France, 8 p.m.
01:01:58Further south, Sidney Hudson and Sonia d'Artois
01:02:01also hear the message for the Purple Plan.
01:02:04It is their job to pass on to the French resistance
01:02:07the order to cut German telephone wires.
01:02:10We had different groups and I would be the one
01:02:13to relay the instructions to one group to another
01:02:17and transport some of the weapons
01:02:20with the help of the French people.
01:02:23Well, we just did what we had to do.
01:02:26We'd bicycle around and do the jobs we had to do
01:02:30and there was no question of hiding except being careful,
01:02:34very aware of security.
01:02:43Whitehall, London, 9.30 p.m.
01:02:46In London, after dinner, Churchill tells his wife...
01:02:51Do you realise that by the time you wake in the morning,
01:02:5620,000 men may have been killed?
01:03:00Eisenhower, meanwhile, has left his headquarters.
01:03:04He has driven through the summer twilight
01:03:07to watch the first of the paratroopers depart.
01:03:10Afterwards, there are tears in his eyes.
01:03:16Cottesmore Airfield, England, 10 p.m.
01:03:20The great plan to liberate France has now swung into action.
01:03:2413,000 British and American paratroopers
01:03:27are the first to go.
01:03:30They will be dropped behind enemy lines
01:03:33ahead of the seaborne troops.
01:03:36Among them is Bill Tucker.
01:03:39As it gets late in the day,
01:03:41there's a sense of tremendous anticipation,
01:03:44a quiet feeling in the air.
01:03:46I'm thinking, as is everyone else, whether I'll make it
01:03:50or how many of us will make it.
01:03:52But there doesn't seem to be any apprehension,
01:03:55it's more of a feeling that everyone shares
01:03:58of being part of a monumental historical undertaking.
01:04:03The Great Plan
01:04:22I had a real sense that I was involved in the Big Plan history.
01:04:26I don't mean to be dramatic about that,
01:04:29but we had to make up that I was able to sense,
01:04:32hey, this is big, you know.
01:04:41I don't think that we would have said it was an honor,
01:04:45but I know damn well we were thinking it was.
01:04:48Nobody was looking to be the first guy
01:04:51over the top of the trenches, you know,
01:04:54unless it was some nut.
01:04:56But we had a sense of honor at being the battalion
01:05:00that would take St. Miracles.
01:05:03There's no question about that.
01:05:07Tuesday, June 6, 1944.
01:05:11D-Day.
01:05:14The Great Plan
01:05:26800 aircraft carrying British and American paratroopers
01:05:30crossed the French coast.
01:05:32There was egg-egg explosions,
01:05:35and some of us thought we could see traces.
01:05:39I thought I saw a trace that hit the plane.
01:05:42We had the order to stand up and hook up.
01:05:45I mean, the plane's shaking like hell.
01:05:47So when it says to me, Jesus Christ, Tucker,
01:05:50we don't get paid enough for this job,
01:05:53I think that those were immortal words.
01:05:56One of the first people to see them land
01:05:59is Henri Renaud, then a 10-year-old schoolboy.
01:06:03He still lives in the village of St. Marie-Glise.
01:06:07During the night,
01:06:09we have seen paratroopers landing on the square,
01:06:13but we don't know if it was American
01:06:19or English paratroopers.
01:06:25As scores of American paratroopers continue to land
01:06:28in and around St. Marie-Glise,
01:06:30Henri decides to have a closer look,
01:06:33but nothing can prepare him for what he finds.
01:06:37He was hanging,
01:06:39and his foot was at maybe one meter from the soil,
01:06:45and I touch his foot,
01:06:48and I remember that the body was swinging
01:06:52at the hand of the parachute,
01:06:54and one American soldier was there,
01:06:57and he say me, don't do that, get out.
01:07:07As it grows light, the news comes through
01:07:10that the Germans appear to have deserted their posts.
01:07:15By 5 a.m., the Americans are in control of the town,
01:07:19but Bill Tucker's job isn't over yet.
01:07:22The German infantry are planning a counterattack.
01:07:25At the other side of town,
01:07:27we gather in a small closed-in apple orchard.
01:07:30We stay there for some time before getting orders.
01:07:33It gets pretty hot, and I realize how tired I am.
01:07:36I don't feel like doing much talking.
01:07:39Just before we move out, someone starts firing at us.
01:07:42It certainly is lucky that none of us is killed.
01:07:48Little do the Germans know
01:07:50that the full contingent of the invasion troops
01:07:53lie waiting in the channel just off the French coast.
01:08:00As dawn breaks on the morning of D-Day,
01:08:03the Allied fleet, which the night before set sail from England,
01:08:07approaches France.
01:08:09Along with more than 150,000 other young men,
01:08:12British commando Cliff Morris faces the longest day of his life.
01:08:176th of June, 1944.
01:08:21Time is now approximately 5.30 in the morning,
01:08:24and the sergeant major has come round rousing us.
01:08:27Under his eagle eye,
01:08:29the young man on our boat washes and shaves, then cleans his boots.
01:08:33He says that if it is the last thing we do,
01:08:36we will go in spic and span.
01:08:41We had the feeling that if we were smarter than they and anybody else,
01:08:45nothing could stop us.
01:08:47It was all going to be part of the great plan.
01:08:50We would be smart, we'd be on the ball, and we'd make it.
01:08:54Now all the big guns open up with a huge barrage
01:08:58to soften up the German emplacements and beach defences.
01:09:05The noise of the bombardment can be heard 6 miles inland, in Caen.
01:09:10This is when the German occupiers exact their own terrible vengeance.
01:09:17It was said that the nearly 100 prisoners,
01:09:22members of the resistance that the Germans still held in jail,
01:09:26were already singing the Marseillaise.
01:09:29But the Gestapo, that was ruthless,
01:09:32decided they couldn't keep those people.
01:09:35The Germans shot 87 of them in the early hours of D-Day.
01:09:43They were probably among the very first victims of that day.
01:09:49To the memory of the prisoners shot by the Germans
01:09:53here on the 6th of June, 1944,
01:09:57the oppressor, by killing them,
01:10:00thought he had made them die forever.
01:10:03In fact, he immortalised them.
01:10:13Time is now approximately 0800 hours,
01:10:17and the standby order is given.
01:10:20Though, on looking over the side,
01:10:23there seems to be a hell of a lot of water between us and the beach.
01:10:27Anyway, the next move is by the navy.
01:10:30At 8.15 we hear it.
01:10:32Ramps down, and they begin to slide into the water.
01:10:37We move at the same time,
01:10:39and we are on the ramp before it has settled into the water,
01:10:42and we are sliding and running down it.
01:10:45We are only poised in mid-air for a split second,
01:10:48but it really is the feeling of a duck being held up for a target,
01:10:53and all the guns in creation being fired at you.
01:11:00Sword Beach, Normandy, 8.15am.
01:11:05We wade as hard as we can.
01:11:08The water now chest high and very hard going with all this kit on.
01:11:12The water having filled our rucksacks and in our blouses.
01:11:16And we curse.
01:11:18Curse Jerry and anyone else we can lay a tongue to.
01:11:22Soon we begin to reach shallower water,
01:11:25but we feel more of a target and wish we were back in deeper waters again.
01:11:31Juno Beach, Normandy, 8.30am.
01:11:35For 50 miles along the Cherbourg Peninsula,
01:11:38Allied assault troops pour ashore.
01:11:41Among them, B Company of the Regina Rifles.
01:11:44Glenn Dickett is one of the first.
01:11:47He knows this is no time to be afraid,
01:11:50just to hit the beach and run like hell.
01:11:55Somehow, the enemy is on the move.
01:11:59Somehow, he makes it to safety.
01:12:02Others are not so lucky.
01:12:10Despite the ferocity of their response,
01:12:12the Germans have been caught completely off guard.
01:12:15Rommel, in charge of the channel defenses,
01:12:18is hundreds of miles away at home in Germany.
01:12:23Convinced the landings are weeks away,
01:12:26he's taken a few days off.
01:12:28The telephone had first rung at 6.30am,
01:12:31his chief of staff reporting early sightings of the Allied fleet.
01:12:35A second phone call confirmed the worst.
01:12:41Rommel is soon in his car en route to France.
01:12:45This has been the greatest misjudgment of his career.
01:12:50Every hour of his desperate rush to Normandy
01:12:53has yet more invasion troops ashore.
01:12:56The gods are smiling on the Allies.
01:13:05Tuesday, June 6th, 1944.
01:13:08D-Day.
01:13:10At 12 noon on D-Day,
01:13:12Winston Churchill goes to the Houses of Parliament
01:13:15to make the announcement that everyone has been waiting for.
01:13:19During the night and in the early hours of this morning,
01:13:22the first of a series of landings in force upon the European continent
01:13:26has taken place.
01:13:28In this case, the liberating assault is upon the coast of France.
01:13:33This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult
01:13:38that has ever taken place.
01:13:41So far, each assault has reached its immediate objective,
01:13:45with only one exception.
01:13:48The Americans, landing at Omaha Beach, have met severe resistance.
01:13:53The planners want to have 34,000 men safely ashore here by nightfall,
01:13:58but the soldiers are pinned down at the cliff face,
01:14:01each wave of men sitting ducks for German machine guns.
01:14:05Only the liberation of targets immediately inland
01:14:08would clear the way for the American assault.
01:14:11But at Saint-Marie-Église, just a few miles from the beaches,
01:14:15a fierce German counterattack is underway.
01:14:18American paratrooper Bill Tucker has been on the move for eight hours.
01:14:23Never in all of our maneuvers of the past do we chase around a circle so much.
01:14:28It's a horrible experience, tearing through hedgerows and thickets.
01:14:32We're crawling, and it's hot as hell.
01:14:34The firing begins to get heavier up to our right.
01:14:37We're pinned down in a ditch and can't even lift our heads up.
01:14:40Finally, there's no choice but to find some place to get across the road.
01:14:44We make a dash and into another little sunken orchard.
01:14:47So we got out of there, and then we were told to head back.
01:14:52We were told to go back to the beach,
01:14:54and we were told to go back to the beach,
01:14:56and we were told to go back to the beach,
01:14:58and we were told to go back to the beach,
01:15:00and we were told to head back through the hedgerows.
01:15:04To come out on this road, we had to cross the south side of the back of the town
01:15:10through all kinds of yards, hedgerows.
01:15:13Jeez, it was exhausting.
01:15:18To the eastern end of the Allied bridgehead,
01:15:21the men of No. 6 Commando also have an inland target to secure.
01:15:25Their objective?
01:15:27A bridge at Ben Uviel over the River Orne, codenamed Pegasus.
01:15:33Here, Cliff Morris finds that British paratroopers have got there first.
01:15:38Their fight has been every bit as fierce as on the beaches.
01:15:42It is a sight never to be forgotten.
01:15:45Again, everywhere is confusion.
01:15:48The area is still under heavy fire,
01:15:50so all movement is made either at the double or by crawling.
01:15:54Both Jerry and Airborne dead and wounded lie sprawled in the road and in trenches.
01:15:59The whole area is pitted with shell and mortar holes,
01:16:02and the air reeks of smoke and cordite.
01:16:05Also littering the area are the crash gliders.
01:16:08Some have landed almost intact,
01:16:11but others have crashed into the trees, the bridge itself,
01:16:15and many other obstacles.
01:16:19By 1 p.m., No. 6 Commando, now reinforcing the British 6th Airborne,
01:16:24has achieved its first objective.
01:16:27Ben Uviel has fallen to the Allies.
01:16:32Lance Corporal Cliff Morris has survived.
01:16:38D-Day continues to wrong-foot the Germans.
01:16:41Field Marshal von Rundstedt, in overall charge of the Western Command,
01:16:45prevaricates.
01:16:48Against Rommel's advice, he has held back two panzer divisions near Paris
01:16:52and only agrees to release them at 2.30 p.m.
01:16:56It is much too late.
01:17:02In London, a special service is to be held at St. Paul's Cathedral.
01:17:06At Westminster Abbey, people pray at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
01:17:11The mood on both sides of the Atlantic is somber and serious.
01:17:15People stand in line at newsstands.
01:17:18Theaters and bars are half-empty.
01:17:24By now, 1,374 Allied aircraft
01:17:28have dropped 6,000 tons of bombs on Normandy.
01:17:32A key target is the hometown of Andre Heintz and his family.
01:17:37Call Normandy, 4 p.m.
01:17:41In the confusion of a shattered city,
01:17:44Andre Heintz desperately tries to find his sister, a nurse at the hospital.
01:17:49I went to see my sister, who was in the operating theater,
01:17:53and she was almost trembling because she said,
01:17:57some bombs have fallen on the hospital.
01:18:00She said, well, we must do something.
01:18:04Look, the operating sheets are red with blood.
01:18:07We'll take four of them.
01:18:09Some were not really completely red,
01:18:12so we dipped them in the pails of previous operations,
01:18:16full of blood, those pails were.
01:18:19And we took those four sheets,
01:18:22and as we were going to stretch the fourth side of that big red cross,
01:18:27a plane came out again of the hospital.
01:18:31A plane came out again of the clouds,
01:18:34and we looked at one another,
01:18:37thinking, shall we run away or finish the job?
01:18:40But we decided to finish the job,
01:18:43and we had the surprise to see the plane rocking its wings.
01:18:47We realized it was a reconnaissance plane,
01:18:50and the pilot wanted to show us
01:18:53that he had taken notice of the red cross,
01:18:56and indeed, they respected the place.
01:19:04So effective has the Allies' strategy been,
01:19:07and so skilled their deception plan,
01:19:09that many German troops,
01:19:11even those capable of turning back the advance,
01:19:14have been caught off guard.
01:19:17Those that are able put up a magnificent defense throughout D-Day,
01:19:21as the Allied soldiers know to their cost,
01:19:24but others never even receive the order to move.
01:19:27The German chain of command has let them down.
01:19:36Nantes, France, 5 p.m.
01:19:41Walter Schwender, too, has been let down by his commander,
01:19:44though he doesn't know it yet.
01:19:46For now, he has been reassigned to a switchboard
01:19:49and is unaware of the magnitude of what's happening to the north.
01:19:54Dear all, as I am on telephone duty today
01:19:57and therefore have a lot of time,
01:19:59I want to write a few lines to you again.
01:20:02Everything here is completely fine.
01:20:05We have heard that the English have apparently landed in the night
01:20:08up on the Channel Coast.
01:20:10We are likely to hear more about that in the next few days,
01:20:13but they will be beaten back straight away.
01:20:16They certainly won't have anything to smile about.
01:20:19For today, lots of love to you all.
01:20:22Walter.
01:20:28Normandy, France, 5.30 p.m.
01:20:33The River Meux is a tree-lined ribbon of water
01:20:36winding its way through the Normandy countryside.
01:20:39Glenn Dickon and two comrades follow its course,
01:20:42picking their way inland.
01:20:48They have been sent on a reconnaissance mission,
01:20:51seeking out hidden enemy positions.
01:20:53Their target is the village of Fontaine-en-Ride,
01:20:56a few miles to the south.
01:21:00Like thousands of other invasion troops
01:21:02starting to fan out through occupied France,
01:21:05the horrors of the beach landings
01:21:07now give way to the dangers of enemy terrain.
01:21:12Lieutenant Glenn Dickon, Major Frank Peters,
01:21:15and rifleman Alan Kennedy
01:21:17have no idea they are about to go into battle.
01:21:27It is still Tuesday, June 6, 1944.
01:21:35It is 7 p.m.
01:21:37With two comrades, Glenn Dickon of the Regina Rifles
01:21:40approaches the church of Fontaine-en-Ride,
01:21:43inland from the Normandy beaches.
01:21:46They cannot know that that peaceful church tower
01:21:49is in the firing line
01:21:51between the beach and the inland defenses.
01:21:57They approach the church.
01:21:59They can turn either way.
01:22:01To the right, the cemetery.
01:22:04To the left, more ancient graves.
01:22:08The three Canadians turn left
01:22:10onto the flagstones beneath the church tower.
01:22:17What happens next is recalled in a letter
01:22:20written to Glenn Dickon's mother
01:22:22by Graham Jameson, the regimental chaplain.
01:22:27Dear Mrs. Dickon,
01:22:29I hope that Glenn has mentioned his padre in his letter's home
01:22:33so that you may feel, to some extent at least, you know me.
01:22:37For my expression of sympathy is a very personal one,
01:22:41knowing Glenn as I have done
01:22:43ever since he joined the regiment overseas.
01:22:49With Major Peters and Rifleman Kennedy,
01:22:52he went on the evening of the 6th of June
01:22:54to the top of a hill next to a church
01:22:57to spy out the enemy positions in that particular area.
01:23:00Within a few minutes of their arrival,
01:23:03they were heavily shelled by enemy artillery.
01:23:13Small comfort though it be,
01:23:15I can assure you that Glenn could not have suffered.
01:23:19He was killed instantly.
01:23:22When I went to find him the following morning,
01:23:25I am at a loss for words to convey what I want to.
01:23:28All three were completely covered with flowers.
01:23:32The French civilians, overjoyed to see our army of liberation,
01:23:36had expressed their feelings by lavishing flowers
01:23:39on the first to fall in their little village.
01:23:43I am enclosing a small piece of the French tricolor ribbon
01:23:47used to tie the sheaf of flowers on the grave.
01:23:50I ask their permission to send it to you.
01:23:53May God bless you all, and all Glenn's family and friends.
01:23:58Please convey my sympathy to them all.
01:24:01Very sincerely, Graham M. Jameson.
01:24:07At Saint-Mère-Église, the 82nd Airborne is still under fire.
01:24:12Bill Tucker is lucky to be alive.
01:24:17By now things are really humming.
01:24:19There's firefighting all around us.
01:24:21German prisoners are being brought in
01:24:23and they all seem very proud or arrogant.
01:24:25It now seems apparent to all of us that we're surrounded.
01:24:31Saint-Mère-Église, 9 p.m.
01:24:35There's an outhouse or shack about 15 yards to my left
01:24:38and someone is crawling around the side of it.
01:24:41Apparently it's a German.
01:24:43I looked to the left and I saw this guy crawling
01:24:48and it seemed to me that I could see the outline of his helmet.
01:24:54But it wasn't one of our guys.
01:24:57And then he comes out in front of it and keeps crawling towards me.
01:25:01I raise my carbine, pull the trigger,
01:25:03the ball goes halfway forward and stops.
01:25:07It's completely clocked up.
01:25:09This gives me an instant of terror.
01:25:11And while I'm working on the bolt, I guess the German hears and takes off.
01:25:15From then on I never would use a magazine-fed gun.
01:25:19I'd get rid of it and swap it for a rifle.
01:25:23So much for the German to get away.
01:25:32As the day draws to a close, against all odds,
01:25:36the Stars and Stripes still flies over St. Mère-Église.
01:25:40German resistance has been tougher than anyone anticipated,
01:25:43but the American paratroopers have held out.
01:25:47So how did I feel?
01:25:49I felt worn out, apprehensive as to what was going on at the beach
01:25:55and what our next job was.
01:25:58I always was apprehensive about the next job.
01:26:03Although nowhere have the Allies penetrated more than 10 miles inland,
01:26:08the Normandy front stretches for 50 miles and is secure.
01:26:14More than 150,000 men are safely ashore at a cost of 10,000 casualties,
01:26:21only half the number that Churchill had feared.
01:26:27I thank God for having survived.
01:26:32And on the day of the liberation, which was the most beautiful day of my life,
01:26:39I thought of all my friends who had not that luck
01:26:45and were still in concentration camp
01:26:48or who had been shot during the German occupation.
01:26:57When dawn breaks on June 7, D-Day plus one,
01:27:01another huge and irresistible wave of invading troops
01:27:04will come ashore on the Normandy beaches,
01:27:07beginning the push to Berlin.
01:27:11In England, Juan Pujol continues his deception efforts,
01:27:15helping to convince the Germans that another Allied invasion will land in Calais.
01:27:22Across the North Sea, nearly 400,000 German soldiers are kept out of action
01:27:28as they wait in Norway till the end of the war for an invasion that never arrives.
01:27:45For six weeks after D-Day,
01:27:47Sonia d'Artois and Sidney Hudson carried out numerous sabotage missions
01:27:51against German telephone lines and cables.
01:27:56Only half of Bill Tucker's comrades made it home,
01:28:00among the highest percentage of casualties of all American units.
01:28:05Today, he still lives in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts,
01:28:10but he's known and loved in St. Mary Glees.
01:28:16Walter Schwinder continued to write blithe letters home
01:28:20until he was killed later in 1944 when fighting in France.
01:28:27Cliff Morris lives in Lansing, England.
01:28:31This is the first time his D-Day diary has been made public.
01:28:37Andre Heintz still lives in the same street in Caen.
01:28:41His crystal radio set is now a museum piece.
01:28:50James Stagg became president of the Royal Meteorological Society.
01:28:54He died in 1975.
01:28:59Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey was killed before the war ended in an aircraft accident in France.
01:29:08Juan Pujol was honored by becoming a member of the British Empire in 1944,
01:29:13having already been awarded the Iron Cross by Germany
01:29:16for his supposedly reliable intelligence reports.
01:29:19He died in Venezuela in 1988.
01:29:23Glenn Dickens' body was buried in the Canadian War Cemetery in Calvados, France.
01:29:29In his family, every firstborn son is named Glenn.
01:29:38It would take 11 months after D-Day cost hundreds of thousands more lives
01:29:44before the war in Europe was finally over.
01:29:48But D-Day is remembered as the first step on the long road to Berlin and victory.
01:30:07For more UN videos visit www.un.org
01:30:10And don't forget to like this video and subscribe to All Things UN

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