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00:07It is hard to imagine that this quiet stretch of beach was once the scene of some of the fiercest
00:13fighting in World War II.
00:20This is Omaha Beach, the landing area for the U.S. First Army on June 6, 1944.
00:28The memorials to many of those gallant young men who fell on that fateful day still silently mark time.
00:34Today, it is monuments like these and the few crumbling relics of Hitler's Atlantic Wall which provide the last visual
00:42clues that remain to remind us of the greatest military undertaking of the war.
00:48In June, 1944, these same beaches resounded to the titanic clash of arms which marked Operation Overlord and the beginning
00:57of the end for the Nazi regime in the West.
01:00The seeds of victory and freedom were sown here, in Normandy.
01:08The End
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01:48In September 1939, Adolf Hitler unleashed the modern German armies on the first Blitzkrieg Campaign.
01:55The power, scale and strategic brilliance of the armoured thrusts quickly brought Poland to her knees.
02:06The Polish adventure was followed by an ambitious series of devastating campaigns by land, sea and air which led to
02:13the capture of most of Europe, North Africa and Russia during 1940 and 1941.
02:19In December 1941, Hitler's allies, the Japanese took the concept of lightning warfare, copied, adapted and improved it to become
02:29the architects of massive strategic movements even greater in scope than Hitler's which rapidly engulfed the Pacific in a new
02:36Japanese empire.
02:48On December the 7th, 1941, with a force of 350 aircraft flying from six aircraft carriers, Japan launched an undeclared
02:58war against the West.
03:11As America reeled under the fury of the surprise attack against its Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, reports came flooding
03:18in of simultaneous attacks throughout the Pacific.
03:25News came of Japanese landings in Malaya and Thailand.
03:29The American Central Pacific Island of Guam was invaded and Japanese troops had landed in the new territories of Hong
03:35Kong.
03:40With her combined force of devastating power and enormous reach, Japan was following in the wake of her German allies.
03:49The offensive was on a massive scale.
03:52The first truly global war was now underway and the combined armed force was at its spearhead.
03:59From now on, there would be no barriers between war on land, sea or air.
04:05Conflict was total and the divisions between them blurred into one.
04:10In the first five months of their war, the Japanese swept through Southeast Asia and the Pacific with a ruthlessness
04:17and efficiency that mesmerized their enemies.
04:23On Christmas Day, Hong Kong capitulated.
04:27By the middle of February, Malaya had been overrun and Singapore was captured.
04:35In the Philippines, lightning airstrikes had again caught the Americans off guard.
04:41Within weeks, the Americans and their Filipino allies were driven into the Bhutan Peninsula,
04:46and from there onto the fortified island of Corregidor, which soon fell in turn.
04:53Throughout the length of Southeast Asia, the great European empires had collapsed before the ferocity of the Japanese assault.
05:00A new empire had been born.
05:03In the Philippines alone, 120 million Filipinos were now subjects of Japan.
05:10All of this had been achieved because, for the first time, Japanese sea power was used, not just to transport
05:16troops,
05:17but as a cohesive unit which, together with air power, combined to form an amphibious assault from land, sea and
05:23air,
05:24the like of which had never been seen before.
05:29In the dark hours of 1942, the British in particular still had much to learn if the Axis tide was
05:36to be rolled back.
05:38Their recent experience of seaborne invasions was not altogether good.
05:43This is the Bay of Gallipoli, scene of the amphibious landings made by the Allied forces making a surprise seaborne
05:50attack on Turkey in World War I.
06:09The British, Australian and New Zealand troops fighting here became locked in a dogged and bloody stalemate which claimed the
06:17lives of thousands of Allied troops.
06:22The architect of the Gallipoli fiasco was one Winston Churchill, and the lessons learned would prove invaluable when British forces
06:31were again called upon to undertake a new form of seaborne invasion.
06:35But there was still a long road to travel, and the first glimmer of the possibility of success in the
06:41same style amphibious warfare practiced by the Axis came from the American forces in the Pacific.
06:48Despite their overwhelming early successes, the Japanese had not broken American naval power.
06:54It was severely damaged, but the Pacific fleet had not been destroyed at Pearl Harbor.
07:01The American aircraft carriers escaped damage altogether, and around these a naval task force was assembled which, in time, would
07:09visit destruction upon the Japanese Empire out of all proportion to their own early offences.
07:16In America, the attack on Pearl Harbor had united a divided nation.
07:22Isolationism evaporated in universal outrage. An industrial giant had been awoken.
07:29Japan could never hope to compete with the rapid production of planes, tanks and ships.
07:33In a little over three and a half years, the might of America's industry and its immense reserves of materials
07:41and manpower would roll back the empire of Hirohito to the very shores of Japan itself.
07:48The first taste of that power was seen at Guadalcanal.
08:00In the summer of 1942, on the island of Guadalcanal, amongst the southernmost reaches of their territory, the Japanese were
08:09building an airstrip from which to mount attacks upon the shipping lanes between Australia and the West.
08:20Warned of the airfield's construction, the Allies took the decision to attempt a seaborne invasion of Guadalcanal.
08:28Codenamed Operation Watchtower, a task force of 80 ships assembled off the Fiji Islands.
08:35On board were the 18,500 troops of the first U.S. Marines, troops specially trained in amphibious assault.
08:44Steaming northward, bad weather in the Coral Sea hid their approach from the Japanese.
08:49And on the morning of August 7th, the fleet's warships began a bombardment of the airfield and the landing zones
08:56on the island.
09:05As the Japanese retreated westward under a hail of shells, the Marines began wading ashore.
09:11But the Japanese responded quickly, sending a force of bombers and fighters south from Rabul.
09:17Alerted to the Japanese approach, Admiral Fletcher ordered his carriers lying off to the south to send up combat patrols
09:24to meet them.
09:28As fighters wheeled overhead, the task force manoeuvred to avoid the Japanese attacks.
09:39In the battle for Guadalcanal, the Straits of the Southern Solomons became so littered with the hulls of ships, both
09:46Allied and Japanese,
09:47that they were nicknamed Iron Bottom Sound.
09:54In the first engagement, the Japanese were routed.
09:58Three American ships were damaged, one sunk, and 18 aircraft were lost.
10:03The Japanese losses were considerably higher.
10:13A Japanese battle fleet was dispatched from Rabul, and Admiral Fletcher, fearing for the safety of his carriers, ordered them
10:20out of range.
10:21The commander of the task force warships resolved to withdraw at first light.
10:26The approaching Japanese fleet, although heavily outnumbered, had already succeeded in dispersing the task force and isolating the Marines on
10:35the beachhead.
10:36In the waters off Guadalcanal, the American warships weighed anchor, ready to leave in the morning.
10:42But the Japanese fleet, sailing southward, was specially trained in the techniques of night fighting.
10:49Using star shells, parachute flares, and new high-performance torpedoes, the Japanese inflicted a crushing blow on the task force.
11:03By daybreak, two heavy cruisers had gone down, and two more were sinking.
11:11A new balance of power had been struck in the Solomons.
11:15By day, the Allies would bring supplies to the beachhead, retreating southwards at nightfall.
11:20At night, the Japanese brought fresh troops and equipment to reinforce the island, shelling the beachhead before they departed.
11:38On the second day, the Marines captured the airfield and the Japanese base.
11:43But finding themselves short of supplies and reinforcements, they were unable to move against the remaining Japanese troops,
11:49who were, by now, regrouping in the west of the island.
11:56After thirteen days of heavy fighting, the Marines had completed repairs to the airfield,
12:01and a small force of light aircraft, fighters, and dive bombers had been flown in.
12:06Throughout August, both sides raced reinforcements to the island,
12:11the Japanese with such regularity that their nighttime convoys became known as the Tokyo Express.
12:20On September 12th, the Japanese launched their first major offensive on the island.
12:26In what was to become known as the Battle of Bloody Ridge, Japanese troops, supported by naval gunfire,
12:33launched a night attack against fixed American positions to the southwest of the airfield.
12:46Although the Americans were pushed back, the Japanese were unable to capture the airfield,
12:51control of which was seen as crucial to the battle for Guadalcanal.
12:55It took months of bitter fighting before the Japanese were finally forced to relinquish the island.
13:00The remaining Japanese, exhausted or wounded, were evacuated as stealthily as they had arrived.
13:11The tide was also turning against Hitler.
13:23At the Arcadia Conference in Washington, it was decided that the main effort of Allied arms
13:28would be first directed not against Japan, but at Germany, the senior Axis partner.
13:39Under Operation Bolero, American ground and air forces, their equipment and supplies were to be shipped to Britain
13:46for an invasion of the continent of Europe at the earliest practical opportunity.
13:55American planners believed an invasion of France would become a possibility by the autumn of 1942.
14:01Military and civilian morale demanded it.
14:06With the lessons of Gallipoli still relatively fresh in their minds,
14:10the British knew that such course of action could end in disaster.
14:14The capabilities of American troops was untested, their experience non-existent.
14:19The shipping alone for such an operation would take two years to build.
14:25In order to satisfy American demands for action and test the abilities of their troops and commanders,
14:31a less ambitious operation was planned.
14:34The invasion by sea of the Vichy French coast of Africa.
14:39Despite the complex diplomatic situation with the Axis powers,
14:43America had maintained official contact with the Vichy French regime in Morocco and Algeria.
14:49Through these contacts, intelligence had been obtained of beach and coastal defences,
14:55tide and surf conditions, and of the French disposition to fight in what was effectively the Axis cause.
15:02Approaches had been made to the French colonial authorities,
15:05but unreasonable French demands had made the prospect of French cooperation uncertain.
15:11On November 7th 1942, the Allied invasion of North Africa began with seaborne landings near Algiers, Oran and Casablanca.
15:21Fortunately, the only real enemies the Allies encountered were disorganisation and confusion.
15:28But at Casablanca, these were augmented by fierce resistance from French naval units.
15:36As the Allied battle fleet engaged the French force, the confusion on the beaches became critical.
15:43By nightfall, more than half the landing craft had been destroyed by broaching and collisions.
15:49Only 40% of the troops had been landed, and the smallest fraction of supplies and equipment had been brought
15:55ashore.
15:56The will of the French fleet at Casablanca was soon broken by Allied sea power.
16:02Six French warships were destroyed in the battle, and with them, the French will to resist.
16:13In Algiers, with his forces unwilling or unable to fight, Admiral Dahlan agreed to an armistice.
16:21In the newly captured ports, the unloading of troops and supplies could be resumed.
16:29Despite the impatience of the American commanders and the enthusiasm of their troops,
16:33it would take more than six months to drive the Germans from Africa.
16:41On the road to Tunis, crack panzer divisions under Jurgen von Armim and Erwin Rommel
16:46inflicted a series of costly and humiliating defeats upon the inexperienced American troops at Kessarine Pass.
16:56Eventually, General Montgomery, arriving from the east, defeated Rommel in a decisive battle near the town of Medina.
17:04From the experience of the Allied landings in North Africa, it was clear that more time was needed.
17:11Meeting in Casablanca, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to postpone the invasion of France until the spring of 1944.
17:20However, in order to maintain Allied momentum and to relieve the pressure on Russia,
17:24an invasion in the Mediterranean was planned for the summer of 1943, beginning with the invasion of Sicily.
17:42On July 10th 1943, the invasion was finally launched.
17:57In Sicily, 300,000 Italian troops were supported by 50,000 of their German allies.
18:04But vital German armoured divisions and naval units had been transferred to Sardinia and to Greece by German high command,
18:10who had been fooled into believing that the attacks would come there.
18:21With the element of surprise in their favour, the Allies quickly established strong positions in the south of the island.
18:28But at Gala, the American 7th Army, under General Patton, was counterattacked by a strong German division supported by the
18:35giant 56-ton Tiger tanks.
18:38It was a critical situation.
18:41The Tigers were finally stopped only a mile from the sea, when naval gunfire from the battle fleet forced their
18:47retreat.
18:56As the fighting continued, worrying reports reached Hitler in Germany.
19:02Entire garrisons of Italian troops in Sicily had capitulated without a fight,
19:06and the Italian navy had still not put to sea.
19:10Hitler ordered the transfer to Italy of elite divisions from the Eastern Front,
19:14but the transfers were too late to save Sicily,
19:17and the Wehrmacht, hopelessly outnumbered and unable to rely on its ally,
19:21began a retreat towards the Straits of Messina,
19:24and the eventual evacuation of the island.
19:28The collapse of Sicily, coupled with the unwillingness of the Italian forces to engage the enemy,
19:34led to anger and recrimination in Rome.
19:36On July 25th, Mussolini was dismissed from power and arrested,
19:42and a new government under Marshal Badalio was formed.
19:47With the prospect of invasion imminent,
19:50Marshal Badalio began secret negotiations that would lead to his country's unconditional surrender to the Allies.
20:06With German reinforcements pouring into northern Italy,
20:09the Allies knew an Italian surrender could provoke a German coup.
20:14Marshal Badalio warned them of this possibility,
20:16and requested an invasion to the north of Rome.
20:19But Rome was then out of range of Allied air cover,
20:22and the area of Salerno, just south of Naples,
20:26was selected as the next point for the invasion of Europe.
20:30The Adriatic coast was as peaceful in 1943 as it is today.
20:35But in 1943, it was a deceptive air of peace.
20:40The Italian surrender was broadcast on September 8th,
20:44as the invasion fleet was underway.
20:47On board, some of the anxieties and fears of the assault troops
20:50were dispelled in a wave of euphoria and relief.
20:53Now there would be only one enemy to fight.
20:57With the element of surprise in their favour,
21:00and the prospect of little Italian resistance,
21:03no preliminary bombardment of the beaches was carried out.
21:07But in Italy, the Germans had already taken over,
21:10and at Salerno they were ready and prepared.
21:29From out of the sky, enemy fighters and bombers screamed down on the invaders.
21:38Panzer formations surged forward across the plain.
21:42In reply, the Allied naval batteries erupted into life.
21:49In the crossfire, the transports raced men and equipment to the beaches.
21:55And gradually, by sheer weight of numbers, the beach heads were established.
22:04The German commander in Italy, Field Marshal Kesselring,
22:08was convinced he could push the invaders back into the sea.
22:12He rushed reinforcements to Salerno from all over Italy,
22:16and by September 12th, over 600 tanks and mobile guns had been assembled
22:21for a major attack against the precarious Allied lines.
22:28For three days, the Germans pressed the weight of their attack
22:32against the Americans at the mouth of the Seal River.
22:35Troops and armour rolled westwards down the river valley,
22:39pushing the Americans back to within two miles of the beach.
22:49The Luftwaffe, aware of the crucial role being played by the naval guns,
22:54shifted its attack from the beachhead to the ships.
22:58Radio-controlled glide bombs appeared out of nowhere,
23:01released from high-altitude German bombers.
23:08As the warships and transports weaved in the water below,
23:12fighters vied for control in the air.
23:23On the beachhead, fear and exhaustion sapped morale.
23:28General Clark, fearing the worst, drew up plans for an evacuation.
23:33But on the third day, the warships finally halted the German advance.
23:38With mounting losses in men and armour, Kesselring ordered a withdrawal
23:43and began a fighting retreat northwards to fortified positions
23:47between Naples and Rome.
23:50The Germans, in spite of being outnumbered by almost three to one,
23:55had inflicted heavy losses on the Allies
23:57and thousands of prisoners had been taken.
24:01Reports of the fighting at Salerno again spoke
24:04of the inexperienced American troops.
24:07Though they had been driven back by overwhelming force,
24:11the Wehrmacht rightly considered their actions at Salerno
24:14to have been a success.
24:17It reaffirmed their determination to fight for every foot of Italy.
24:22On October 1st, the Allies entered Naples,
24:26only 100 miles from Rome.
24:30But the terrain and the weather now favoured the German defenders.
24:35Throughout October and November, Kesselring fought slowly northward
24:39while he prepared his defences at the Gustav Line.
24:45In December, as winter set in, the Allies reached Kesselring's line of defence
24:50at the town of Cassino.
24:57Above the town, guarding the Liri Valley and the road to Rome,
25:01stood the ancient abbey of Monte Cassino,
25:04a monstrous fortress and the pivot of the German defences in Italy.
25:09Fought to a standstill, the Allies knew it would take supreme efforts
25:13to break through the German lines before the spring.
25:17On Churchill's initiative, a daring operation was planned to break the deadlock in Italy.
25:25Confident that this would not be a repeat of the Gallipoli debacle,
25:29he urged that a strong and mobile force be landed at the town of Anzio,
25:32between Cassino and Rome.
25:35By striking quickly to the Alban hills,
25:39the road and rail links to the south could be taken
25:41and supplies to the Gustav Line cut off.
25:44A major surprise assault on the rear of their lines
25:48would surely have a great chance of success,
25:50as the German forces in Italy were already stretched desperately thin.
25:57On the 17th of January, the offensive was launched.
26:04It began with a traditional frontal assault.
26:08Allied troops attacked along the length of the Gustav Line
26:10with the secondary objective of drawing German reserves in the rear
26:14away from the region of Anzio.
26:16In this respect, they were entirely successful.
26:25On the 22nd, after a long detour by sea,
26:29the invasion force arrived at Anzio.
26:39On the first day, nearly 40,000 troops, with their supplies and equipment,
26:45were landed in one of the smoothest operations of the war.
26:52A rapid push towards the Alban hills would have been largely unopposed,
26:56but General Clark had rewritten the original operation orders
27:00and advised caution to General Lucas at Anzio.
27:07It was four days before Lucas ventured forth from his beachhead positions.
27:13Kesselring, caught by surprise, reacted quickly.
27:17Rushing a skeleton force to the area to act as observers,
27:20he called for reinforcements.
27:23Not from his beleaguered forces in the south,
27:25but from the north and west,
27:27from as far as France and Yugoslavia.
27:32Within days, Kesselring had 40,000 men in the area.
27:37Within a week, he had six divisions of some 120,000 men.
27:42They were supported by the latest tanks and artillery.
27:46Together, they advanced towards the beachhead,
27:48pushing the Allies back to shorter and shorter lines.
27:58To add to the maelstrom, a giant railway gun,
28:02firing 560-pound shells over 40 miles, bombarded the beachhead.
28:15Holding the interior position,
28:17the Germans were able to reinforce their attack along shorter lines of communication.
28:22And metre by metre, in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war,
28:26they drove the Allies back into a narrow salient around the town.
28:32Echoes of Gallipoli must have sounded in the mind of Winston Churchill.
28:36But at Anzio, as at Salerno,
28:39the German drive was checked at the last moment
28:41by massive naval gunfire and by air support,
28:44which the beleaguered Germans no longer possessed the means to counter.
28:49Although the German advance had been stemmed at Anzio,
28:53the force that Churchill had unleashed had become stranded.
28:59There were three more months of bitter attrition
29:02before the beachhead was finally relieved by Allied troops from the south.
29:20It was clear that the preparations for the planned invasion of Europe
29:24would need to be made on a much greater scale.
29:27To give more time, the promised invasion was delayed until 1944.
29:32It would become the largest undertaking ever mounted in military history.
29:38This time, it had to succeed.
29:42Experience in Sicily and at Salerno had shown the need for overwhelming weight of arms,
29:47and to ensure success in the coming invasion,
29:50vast arsenals of equipment were being amassed.
29:53General Eisenhower was appointed commander
29:56of what was to be the greatest Allied operation of this or any other war.
30:03In October 1943, Field Marshal von Rundstedt convinced Hitler
30:09that an invasion in the west in the spring had become inevitable.
30:14From now on, he argued, the drain of men and equipment from the German forces in France must cease.
30:22To prepare for this decisive engagement of the Allied and German armies,
30:27Hitler ordered Rommel to conduct an inspection of the Atlantic coastal defences.
30:32He demanded that every beach from Denmark to Brittany must be made impassable.
30:40Using impressed French labour, a line of impregnable fortifications was built.
30:46This was Hitler's Atlantic Wall.
30:56Even today, more than 50 years later, the sad remains, built at a great cost of blood and human misery,
31:04still linger on the peaceful beaches of Normandy.
31:11Thousands of new pillboxes for anti-tank and infantry guns were to be constructed by April at the latest.
31:18But von Rundstedt knew that the task was too great for the time allowed.
31:23The Atlantic coast was too long to be effectively buttressed against a determined invader,
31:28and many of their defences existed only on paper.
31:32To engage the Allied warships offshore, and to maul the flotillas of transports and troopships,
31:38naval guns were housed in indestructible bunkers.
31:41Behind the line, tracks were laid for railway guns, many capable of firing huge shells as far as England.
31:50The experiences of Salerno and Anzio had convinced von Rundstedt that armoured formations could not be driven against the beachheads
31:58themselves,
31:58and that the decisive battle must be fought inland and out of range of the massive guns of the Allied
32:04fleet.
32:06The mobile and armoured divisions, he insisted, must be held in a central reserve,
32:12a panzer army to be known as Panzer Group West.
32:16But Rommel, the master tactician of Blitzkrieg, had grave doubts about Rundstedt's strategy.
32:24Having suffered defeat at the hands of the Desert Air Force in Africa, and having seen his panzers routed,
32:30he knew that without air support there could be no mobile war for the Wehrmacht in France.
32:38He knew that the promise of thousands of new jet fighters could not be kept.
32:44Rommel argued that the armoured divisions must be held close to the coast.
32:48The decisive battle for France could only be fought at the water's edge.
32:53To appease both field marshals, Hitler ordered a compromise which had the benefits of neither plan and the shortcomings of
33:01both.
33:03Rommel was to command only three panzer divisions.
33:06Three were to be deployed in southwest France.
33:10The remaining four, including three elite SS divisions, were to be placed under von Rundstedt in Panzer Group West,
33:18but committed only on Hitler's personal orders.
33:22By this fateful decision, the Germans lost the few tactical advantages they held.
33:38Under the transportation plan agreed by Eisenhower and his air chiefs,
33:42the main weight of the bombing offensive was to be shifted from Germany to the Low Countries in France.
33:48Unlike Italy, the terrain in the west allowed rapid deployment of men between fronts.
33:53Rail, road and canal networks were extensive and efficient.
34:06The objective of the transportation plan was the total destruction of the communication systems in France.
34:18To win supremacy in the air for the Allies, the Luftwaffe in France was attacked in an unremitting and remorseless
34:25campaign.
34:26By 1944, the Luftwaffe was technically outclassed as well as hopelessly outnumbered.
34:33It was simply overwhelmed.
34:40By May, Rommel's worst fears were brutally realised. The Luftwaffe was virtually wiped out in the west.
34:50Since the autumn of 1940, British agents had been infiltrating the lands under Axis occupation.
34:56Resistance networks had been established, and from them came much of the intelligence necessary for Allied planning.
35:02Intelligence such as details of troop strength and concentrations, and of fortifications and defences.
35:11Throughout France and the local countries, the networks were briefed.
35:15An invasion of France was to be expected sometime in the coming year.
35:21Coded messages broadcast by the BBC would give the time, but not the place, of the attack.
35:30Arms and explosives were flown in. A campaign of sabotage was to be mounted.
35:38The transportation plan was to be pursued on the ground as well as from the air.
35:44By May, the French railway system was in ruins, and every bridge over the Seine between Paris and the sea
35:51was destroyed.
35:56In Britain, a major campaign of deception was mounted.
36:00It was designed to convince the Germans that the attack would come further north, in the Pas-de-Calais area.
36:07On the east coast of Britain, as far north as the Firth of Forth, a mock army was assembled.
36:13Its equipment largely constructed out of canvas, rubber and wood.
36:18Transmitters were erected to simulate the radio transmissions of the fifteen non-existent divisions,
36:23which were destined, the Germans believed, for Paris de Calais.
36:28To complete the deception, aerial reconnaissance was far greater over that area than over any other sector of the front.
36:36Allied planners already knew the attack was to be made on the beaches of Normandy to the west.
36:46Codenamed Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy was scheduled for June 5th.
36:53From all over southern England, the convoys of men and materials, fuel and equipment, began to make their way to
37:00the ports of the south coast.
37:04By the evening of June 3rd, the Great Embarkation was complete.
37:09But on the 4th, the weather forecasters predicted a heavy channel storm.
37:14High winds, low clouds and heavy seas combined in the target area on the 5th.
37:19Air support was impossible.
37:22Landing of troops hazardous.
37:24And in the heaving seas, naval gunfire would be very inaccurate.
37:32Eisenhower agreed to a postponement of 24 hours.
37:36No further postponement would be possible.
37:39If the Armada did not sail on the 6th, it would not be able to sail for at least another
37:44fortnight.
37:45Ships at sea would have to return to port for refuelling.
37:48And not until the 20th would the tides again be favourable.
37:52Men would need to be disembarked and morale would suffer.
37:56Above all, the element of surprise was likely to be lost.
37:59But the forecasters predicted a slight break in the weather for the morning of the 6th.
38:05The weather window was not expected to last for more than 24 hours.
38:11It was just enough.
38:13Eisenhower took the decision to go.
38:25In ports all over southern England, the Great Armada weighed anchor and began to move out into the Channel.
38:36Warships and convoys, marking time at sea, converged to join it.
38:42During the night, 5,000 ships crossed to an assembly point just off the French coast.
38:48The Germans could not detect its approach, their radar system having been all but destroyed by tactical airstrikes.
38:55In France, messages broadcast to the French resistance, alerting the networks of the coming invasion, were intercepted by the Germans.
39:03And the powerful 15th Army, guarding the Part de Calais, was put on alert.
39:10But no one warned the 7th Army guarding Normandy.
39:13And no one warned Rommel, who had only just left for Germany to ask Hitler for reinforcements to bolster the
39:20dangerously weak Normandy sector.
39:26As dawn approached, the first phase of the Great Invasion began.
39:31Three full airborne divisions began a series of landings by glider and by parachute in the Bocage countryside of Normandy.
39:40Their task was to seize vital centers of communication in the rear of the German lines,
39:45to disrupt reinforcement and resupply of the Atlantic World defenses,
39:49to hold essential bridges and causeways for an Allied advance.
39:55At dawn, the naval bombardment began.
40:00From airfields in southern England, and from carriers lying offshore,
40:04wave after wave of airstrikes were launched in an onslaught of unprecedented fury.
40:16Steaming shoreward, landing craft unleashed barrages of rockets.
40:21Behind them, seasick and anxious, came the men who would secure the beaches for the following waves of troops,
40:28and for the Sapatines, who would clear the beaches of mines and obstacles.
40:36This is Omaha Beach, where the American First Army was to land.
40:41Further along the coast was Utah Beach.
40:45To the east, the British and Canadians were to establish lodgements at Gold, Juno and Sword beaches.
40:54At Utah, the beach defenses were quickly overcome.
40:58But here, at Omaha, the Americans met fierce resistance from first-line German troops,
41:05manning the most formidable fortifications that the Allies would assault throughout the entire course of the war.
41:11The battle for Omaha quickly became a battle between the warships and the guns of the Atlantic Wall.
41:23In the British sector, the landings were much easier.
41:27Inferior troops manning weaker fortifications were quickly overwhelmed.
41:32Armour and equipment was brought ashore, and the advance inland began.
41:41From his home in Germany, Rommel ordered his deputy to mount a counter-attack against the British positions to the
41:48north of Cannes.
41:53This is Cannes today.
41:56Only a very few traces of the events of 1944 remain, as mute monuments to the ferocity of the fighting
42:03which all but destroyed the town.
42:08As the British pressure increased, Rommel asked von Rundstedt for the immediate deployment of Panzer Group West.
42:15But the power to commit these divisions was not von Rundstedt's.
42:20They could be released only on Hitler's orders.
42:26It was late afternoon before Hitler agreed to the release of Panzer Group West.
42:33At Omaha, after bitter fighting and many casualties, the beachhead was finally secure.
42:40With advance units pressing nearly two miles inland, fresh troops and equipment could be brought ashore.
42:48By the end of the first day, more than 150,000 men were landed by sea and by air,
42:55and with them thousands of tanks, guns and vehicles of all kinds.
43:01Although the invasion forces were well short of their targets for that day,
43:05the beachheads had been established.
43:07And when Rommel returned to France, he knew that the war was already over for Germany.
43:14By the end of the second day, less than 70 German fighters were operational in France,
43:19while thousands of Allied fighters and bombers scoured the West,
43:24disrupting reinforcements and supplies with their incessant aerial bombardments.
43:30This is a surviving fighter-bomber, now housed in the Imperial War Museum,
43:35still proudly displaying the famous D-Day markings of black and white stripes on the wings.
43:46Facing an ever-expanding Allied beachhead, Rommel asked for mobile divisions from the 15th Army,
43:52from the Pas de Calais, to be transformed to the Normandy sector.
43:56But Hitler was still convinced that the invasion of Normandy was merely a feint,
44:00to draw troops away from the Pas de Calais where the main invasion would take place.
44:04The 15th Army, he insisted, must remain in defensive positions.
44:11By the 12th, the Allied lodgements in Normandy had joined into one continuous beachhead,
44:17and artificial harbours were being constructed.
44:27On the 16th, the Americans began a drive across the Merderet River and the continent peninsula,
44:34to isolate the port of Cherbourg to the west.
44:39To the east, Montgomery mounted a further attack towards Cannes.
44:44A breakthrough at Cannes would have led to the plains of central France,
44:48and a rapid drive towards Paris.
44:51But Rommel had chosen to make his stand at Cannes,
44:54and elements of six panzer divisions had been assembled there.
44:58The British were thrown back with heavy losses,
45:01but the defence of the city had drawn the bulk of German reserves and armour to the area.
45:11Now rebuilt and peaceful, the city is as prosperous as many in France.
45:17In 1944, it was a hell on earth.
45:31On the 10th of July, Cannes finally fell to the British,
45:34and with it any prospect of a decisive victory for the Wehrmacht in the west.
45:40With the city in allied hands, an eastern sector of the beachhead was now secure.
45:46Holding the superior position, the British continued to pin down German armour and reserves.
45:58A major allied offensive was now planned.
46:02On the 18th of July, the allies captured the town of St. Lowell,
46:07and began a drive to the south.
46:10Breaking quickly into open country,
46:12armoured divisions under General Patton overran the stretched German defences,
46:17and seized the town of Avranches, the gateway to Brittany and the south of France.
46:32Hitler, against all the advice of his commanders,
46:36ordered a counter-attack against the flank of the allied advance.
46:40Using divisions withdrawn from the region of Cannes,
46:43the attack was launched through the town of Falaise.
46:47With the German lines of containment now reduced,
46:51Montgomery was at last able to break out from Cannes.
46:56In danger of being cut off and captured, and attacked continuously from the air,
47:01the Germans began a retreat towards the Seine.
47:05But the encirclement was quickly completed.
47:0850,000 German troops were left behind,
47:11and with them most of the equipment of ten German divisions.
47:21Within a month, the allies entered Paris.
47:24Within a year, Berlin.
47:25As Rommel had predicted, without air support,
47:29no German counter-attack could prevail.
47:32Once the beachhead had been established,
47:35overwhelming allied air and naval power had ensured it remained.
47:39The battle for France had indeed been decided at the water's edge.
47:56In the long and grisly battle for Guadalcanal,
47:59the failure of the Japanese Navy ensured the ascendancy of American sea power in the Pacific.
48:10Against the vast resources of American industry, the Japanese could never hope to compete.
48:15The capture of Guadalcanal itself provided the first step in a series of seaborne conquests
48:21throughout the islands of the Pacific to the home waters of Japan herself.
48:28The fierce Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal had come as a shock to the Americans.
48:33The withdrawal, a relief.
48:36But there were to be very few tactical withdrawals by the Japanese.
48:42In their advance through the islands,
48:44the Americans found that Japanese tenacity and will to resist became stronger the closer they got to Japan.
48:52On the island of Saipan, in the Marianas,
48:5530,000 Japanese troops lost their lives rather than surrender.
48:598,000 Japanese civilians clutching their children threw themselves from cliffs into the sea.
49:11At late Gulf, in the Philippines, with the aid of the kamikaze pilots,
49:16the remnants of the Japanese Navy struck for one last time.
49:21Suffering horrendous losses in ships and men, the sea power of Japan was finally broken.
49:30The ability to protect her home waters ended.
49:41On Iwo Jima, the Americans found a fanatical enemy manning extensive fortifications.
49:48Through February and March 1945, 7,000 Americans were killed, fighting on Iwo Jima.
49:55And of more than 20,000 Japanese defenders, only 216 were captured alive.
50:06On Easter Sunday 1945, the Americans landed on Okinawa,
50:11in what was to become known as history's greatest madhouse.
50:17Nearly 150,000 Japanese soldiers lost their lives.
50:23Swarms of kamikaze pilots swept down on the invasion fleet,
50:26in a last vain bid to save the island.
50:34During the battle, nearly 1,500 kamikaze attacks were made on the fleet,
50:39with only very minor success.
50:47It became clear that an invasion of Japan would result in an appalling loss of life,
50:52too great for Allied planners to countenance.
50:55To break the will of Japan, and to demonstrate the hopelessness of her situation,
51:01another means of ending the war was tried.
51:11On August 6th, at Hiroshima, a city died.
51:16A new and terrible era of mass destruction had dawned.
51:43A new and terrible era of mass destruction had dawned by the
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