- 2 days ago
For educational purposes
Throughout World War II, there were many dramatic and spectacular seaborne invasions, some of which would have a major bearing on the course and eventual outcome of the conflict.
Much blood was spilt as men attacked beachheads from Tunisia to Normandy, Amphibious Warfare is a remarkable record of seaborne invasions throughout World War Two.
The programme features powerful action footage, including extensive images from the decisive Normandy landings and brand new state-of-the-art computer graphics.
Throughout World War II, there were many dramatic and spectacular seaborne invasions, some of which would have a major bearing on the course and eventual outcome of the conflict.
Much blood was spilt as men attacked beachheads from Tunisia to Normandy, Amphibious Warfare is a remarkable record of seaborne invasions throughout World War Two.
The programme features powerful action footage, including extensive images from the decisive Normandy landings and brand new state-of-the-art computer graphics.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:07It is hard to imagine that this quiet stretch of beach was once the scene of some of the
00:13fiercest fighting 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.
00:35Today, it is monuments like these and the few crumbling relics of Hitler's Atlantic Wall,
00:41which provide the last visual clues 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
00:56and the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime in the West.
01:01The seeds of victory and freedom were sown here, in Normandy.
01:08The End
01:09The End
01:17The End
01:26The End
01:49In September 1939, Adolf Hitler unleashed the modern German armies on the first Blitzkrieg campaign.
01:56The 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,
02:13which led to the capture of most of Europe, North Africa and Russia during 1940 and 1941.
02:20In December 1941, Hitler's allies, the Japanese, took the concept of lightning warfare, copied, adapted and improved it
02:29to become the architects of massive strategic movements, even greater in scope than Hitler's,
02:34which rapidly engulfed the Pacific in a new Japanese empire.
02:48On December the 7th 1941, with a force of 350 aircraft flying from six aircraft carriers,
02:57Japan launched an undeclared war against the West.
03:11As America reeled under the fury of the surprise attack against its Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor,
03:17reports came flooding in 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,
03:33and Japanese troops had landed in the new territories of Hong Kong.
03:41With her combined force of devastating power and enormous reach,
03:45Japan 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,
03:56and a combined armed force was at its spearhead.
04:00From now on, there would be no barriers between war on land, sea or air.
04:06Conflict was total, and the divisions between them blurred into one.
04:11In the first five months of their war,
04:13the Japanese swept through Southeast Asia and the Pacific
04:16with a ruthlessness and efficiency that mesmerized their enemies.
04:24On Christmas Day, Hong Kong capitulated.
04:27By the middle of February, Malaya had been overrun and Singapore was captured.
04:36In 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,
04:47and from there onto the fortified island of Corregidor, which soon fell in turn.
04:54Throughout the length of Southeast Asia, the great European empires had collapsed before the ferocity of the Japanese assault.
05:01A new empire had been born.
05:04In 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,
05:16not just to transport troops, but as a cohesive unit which, together with air power,
05:21combined to form an amphibious assault from land, sea and air, the like of which had never been seen before.
05:30In the dark hours of 1942, the British in particular still had much to learn if the Axis tide was
05:37to be rolled back.
05:38Their recent experience of seaborne invasions was not altogether good.
05:44This is the Bay of Gallipoli, scene of the amphibious landings made by the Allied forces making a surprise seaborne
05:51attack on Turkey in World War I.
06:10The British, Australian and New Zealand troops fighting here became locked in a dogged and bloody stalemate,
06:16which claimed the lives of thousands of Allied troops.
06:23The architect of the Gallipoli fiasco was one Winston Churchill,
06:28and the lessons learned would prove invaluable when British forces were again called upon to undertake a new form of
06:34seaborne invasion.
06:35But there was still a long road to travel, and the first glimmer of the possibility of success,
06:41in the same style amphibious warfare practiced by the Axis, came from the American forces in the Pacific.
06:49Despite their overwhelming early successes, the Japanese had not broken American naval power.
06:55It was severely damaged, but the Pacific fleet had not been destroyed at Pearl Harbor.
07:00The American aircraft carriers escaped damage altogether, and around these a naval task force was assembled,
07:07which in time would visit 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.
07:23Isolationism 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.
07:35In a little over three and a half years, the might of America's industry,
07:39and its immense reserves of materials and manpower, would roll back the Empire of Hirohito to the very shores of
07:46Japan itself.
07:48The first taste of that power was seen at Guadalcanal.
08:01In the summer of 1942, on the island of Guadalcanal, amongst the southernmost reaches of their territory,
08:08the Japanese were building an airstrip from which to mount attacks upon the shipping lanes between Australia and the west.
08:21Warned of the airfield's construction, the Allies took the decision to attempt a seaborne invasion of Guadalcanal.
08:29Codenamed Operation Watchtower, a task force of 80 ships assembled off the Fiji Islands.
08:36On board were the 18,500 troops of the first US Marines, troops specially trained in amphibious assault.
08:45Steaming northward, bad weather in the Coral Sea hid their approach from the Japanese,
08:50and 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.
09:18Alerted to the Japanese approach, Admiral Fletcher ordered his carriers lying off to the south to send up combat patrols
09:25to 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,
09:48that they were nicknamed Iron Bottom Sound.
09:55In the first engagement, the Japanese were routed.
09:58Three American ships were damaged, one sunk, and 18 aircraft were lost.
10:04The Japanese losses were considerably higher.
10:13A Japanese battle fleet was dispatched from Rabul,
10:17and Admiral Fletcher, fearing for the safety of his carriers, ordered them out of range.
10:22The commander of the task force warships resolved to withdraw at first light.
10:27The approaching Japanese fleet, although heavily outnumbered,
10:31had already succeeded in dispersing the task force and isolating the Marines on the beachhead.
10:36In the waters off Guadalcanal, the American warships weighed anchor, ready to leave in the morning.
10:43But 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.
11:12A 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.
11:21At night, the Japanese brought fresh troops and equipment to reinforce the island,
11:26shelling 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,
12:02and 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.
12:21On September 12th, the Japanese launched their first major offensive on the island.
12:27In what was to become known as the Battle of Bloody Ridge,
12:31Japanese 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.
12:56It took months of bitter fighting before the Japanese were finally forced to relinquish the island.
13:01The 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
13:29would 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 for an
13:47invasion 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.
14:02Military and civilian morale demanded it.
14:06With the lessons of Gallipoli still relatively fresh in their minds, the British knew that such course of action could
14:13end in disaster.
14:14The capabilities of American troops was untested, their experience non-existent.
14:20The 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, a less ambitious
14:32operation was planned.
14:34The invasion by sea of the Vichy French coast of Africa.
14:39Despite the complex diplomatic situation with the Axis powers, America had maintained official contact with the Vichy French regime in
14:47Morocco and Algeria.
14:50Through these contacts, intelligence had been obtained of beach and coastal defenses, tide and surf conditions, and of the French
14:58disposition to fight in what was effectively the Axis cause.
15:03Approaches had been made to the French colonial authorities, but unreasonable French demands had made the prospect of French cooperation
15:10uncertain.
15:11On November 7th, 1942, the Allied invasion of North Africa began with seaborne landings near Algiers, Oran and Casablanca.
15:22Fortunately, the only real enemies the Allies encountered were disorganization 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.
15:50Only 40% of the troops had been landed, and the smallest fraction of supplies and equipment had been brought
15:55ashore.
15:57The 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 Dahlen 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, it would take more than six months
16:36to drive the Germans from Africa.
16:41On the road to Tunis, crack panzer divisions under Jurgen von Armim and Erwin Rommel inflicted a series of costly
16:49and 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, an invasion in the Mediterranean was
17:27planned 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 Otecans.
18:02In Sicily, the German army had been transferred to their German allies.
18:04But vital German armoured divisions and naval units had been transferred to Sardinia and to Greece by German high command,
18:11who had been fooled into believing that the attacks would come there.
18:22With 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 counter-attacked by a strong German division supported by
18:36the giant 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
18:48retreat.
18:57As the fighting continued, worrying reports reached Hitler in Germany.
19:02Entire garrisons of Italian troops in Sicily had capitulated without a fight, and the Italian navy had still not put
19:09to sea.
19:10Hitler ordered the transfer to Italy of elite divisions from the Eastern Front, but the transfers were too late to
19:16save Sicily.
19:17And the Wehrmacht, hopelessly outnumbered and unable to rely on its ally, began a retreat towards the Straits of Messina,
19:25and the eventual evacuation of the island.
19:29The collapse of Sicily, coupled with the unwillingness of the Italian forces to engage the enemy, led to anger and
19:35recrimination in Rome.
19:37On July 25th, Mussolini was dismissed from power and arrested, and a new government under Marshal Badalio was formed.
19:47With the prospect of invasion imminent, Marshal Badalio began secret negotiations that would lead to his country's unconditional surrender to
19:56the Allies.
20:06With German reinforcements pouring into northern Italy, the Allies knew an Italian surrender could provoke a German coup.
20:14Marshal Badalio warned them of this possibility, and requested an invasion to the north of Rome.
20:19But Rome was then out of range of Allied air cover, and the area of Salerno, just south of Naples,
20:26was selected as the next point for the invasion of Europe.
20:31The Adriatic coast was as peaceful in 1943 as it is today, but in 1943 it was a deceptive air
20:39of peace.
20:40The Italian surrender was broadcast on September 8th, as the invasion fleet was underway.
20:47On board, some of the anxieties and fears of the assault troops were dispelled in a wave of euphoria and
20:53relief.
20:54Now there would be only one enemy to fight.
20:57With the element of surprise in their favour, and the prospect of little Italian resistance, no preliminary bombardment of the
21:05beaches was carried out.
21:07But in Italy, the Germans had already taken over, and 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.
21:50In the crossfire, the transports raced men and equipment to the beaches.
21:55And gradually, by sheer weight of numbers, the beach heads were established.
22:05The German commander in Italy, Field Marshal Kesselring, was convinced he could push the invaders back into the sea.
22:13He rushed reinforcements to Salerno from all over Italy.
22:17And by September 12th, over 600 tanks and mobile guns had been assembled for a major attack against the precarious
22:24Allied lines.
22:28For three days, the Germans pressed the weight of their attack against the Americans at the mouth of the Seal
22:34River.
22:36Troops and armour rolled westwards down the river valley, pushing the Americans back to within two miles of the beach.
22:49The Luftwaffe, aware of the crucial role being played by the naval guns, shifted its attack from the beach head
22:56to the ships.
22:58Radio controlled glide bombs appeared out of nowhere, released from high altitude German bombers.
23:09As the warships and transports weaved in the water below, fighters vied for control in the air.
23:23On the beach head, 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.
23:39With mounting losses in men and armour, Kesselring ordered a withdrawal and 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, had inflicted heavy losses on the Allies and
23:58thousands of prisoners had been taken.
24:01Reports of the fighting at Salerno again spoke of the inexperienced American troops.
24:08Though they had been driven back by overwhelming force, the Wehrmacht rightly considered their actions at Salerno to have been
24:16a success.
24:16It reaffirmed their determination to fight for every foot of Italy.
24:23On October 1st, the Allies entered Naples, only 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 while he prepared his defences at the Gustav Line.
24:45In December, as winter set in, the Allies reached Kesselring's line of defence at the town of Cassino.
24:57Above the town, guarding the Liri Valley and the road to Rome, stood the ancient abbey of Monte Cassino, a
25:05monstrous fortress and the pivot of the German defences in Italy.
25:09Fought to a standstill, the Allies knew it would take supreme efforts to break through the German lines before the
25:16spring.
25:18On Churchill's initiative, a daring operation was planned to break the deadlock in Italy.
25:25Confident this would not be a repeat of the Gallipoli debacle, he urged that a strong and mobile force be
25:31landed at the town of Anzio, between Cassino and Rome.
25:36By striking quickly to the Alban Hills, the road and rail links to the south could be taken and supplies
25:42to the Gustav Line cut off.
25:45A major surprise assault on the rear of their lines would surely have a great chance of success, as the
25:51German forces in Italy were already stretched desperately thin.
25:57On the 17th of January, the offensive was launched.
26:05It began with a traditional frontal assault. Allied troops attacked along the length of the Gustav Line, with the secondary
26:12objective of drawing German reserves in the rear, away from the region of Anzio.
26:16In this respect, they were entirely successful.
26:25On the 22nd, after a long detour by sea, the invasion force arrived at Anzio.
26:39On the first day, nearly 40,000 troops, with their supplies and equipment, were landed in one of the smoothest
26:46operations of the war.
26:53A rapid push towards the Alban Hills would have been largely unopposed, but General Clark had rewritten the original operation
27:00orders,
27:01and 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, he called for reinforcements.
27:23Not from his beleaguered forces in the south, but from the north and west, from as far as France and
27:29Yugoslavia.
27:32Within days, Kesselring had 40,000 men in the area.
27:37Within a week, he had six divisions of some 120,000 men.
27:43They were supported by the latest tanks and artillery.
27:46Together, they advanced towards the beachhead, pushing the Allies back to shorter and shorter lines.
27:58To add to the maelstrom, a giant railway gun, firing 560-pound shells over 40 miles, bombarded the beachhead.
28:15Holding the interior position, the 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, they drove the Allies back into a
28:29narrow salient around the town.
28:32Echoes of Gallipoli must have sounded in the mind of Winston Churchill.
28:36But at Anzio, as at Salerno, the German drive was checked at the last moment by massive naval gunfire and
28:44by air support,
28:45which the beleaguered Germans no longer possessed the means to counter.
28:50Although the German advance had been stemmed at Anzio, the force that Churchill had unleashed had become stranded.
29:00There were three more months of bitter attrition before the beachhead was finally relieved by Allied troops from the south.
29:20It was clear that the preparations for the planned invasion of Europe would need to be made on a much
29:26greater scale.
29:27To give more time, the promised invasion was delayed until 1944.
29:33It 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,
29:48and to ensure success in the coming invasion, vast arsenals of equipment were being amassed.
29:54General Eisenhower was appointed commander of what was to be the greatest Allied operation of this or any other war.
30:03In October 1943, Field Marshal von Rundstedt convinced Hitler that an invasion in the west in the spring had become
30:12inevitable.
30:15From now on, he argued, the drain of men and equipment from the German forces in France must cease.
30:23To prepare for this decisive engagement of the Allied and German armies, Hitler ordered Rommel to conduct an inspection of
30:30the Atlantic coastal defences.
30:32He demanded that every beach from Denmark to Britain must be made impassable.
30:41Using impressed French labour, a line of impregnable fortifications was built.
30:46This was Hitler's Atlantic wall.
30:57Even today, more than 50 years later, the sad remains, built at a great cost of blood and human misery,
31:05still linger on the peaceful beaches of Normandy.
31:12Thousands 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, and many of their defences existed
31:30only on paper.
31:32To engage the Allied warships offshore, and to maul the flotillas of transports and troopships, naval guns were housed in
31:39indestructible bunkers.
31:42Behind 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, a panzer army to be known
32:14as Panzer Group West.
32:17But 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,
32:31he 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.
32:49The decisive battle for France could only be fought at the water's edge.
32:54To appease both field marshals, Hitler ordered a compromise which had the benefits of neither plan and the shortcomings of
33:02both.
33:03Rommel was to command only three panzer divisions.
33:07Three 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,
33:43the main weight of the bombing offensive was to be shifted from Germany to the Low Countries in France.
33:49Unlike 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.
34:44The Luftwaffe was virtually wiped out in the west.
34:50Since the autumn of 1940, British agents had been infiltrating the lands under Axis occupation.
34:57Resistance networks had been established and from them came much of the intelligence necessary for Allied planning.
35:03Intelligence such as details of troop strength and concentrations, and of fortifications and defences.
35:12Throughout France and the local countries, the networks were briefed.
35:16An 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.
35:33A campaign of sabotage was to be mounted.
35:39The 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.
35:48And every bridge over the Seine, between Paris and the sea, was 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,
36:24which 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.
36:37Allied 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,
36:59began to make their way to the 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.
37:15High 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.
37:46Ships at sea would have to return to port for refuelling.
37:49And not until the 20th would the tides again be favourable.
37:53Men would need to be disembarked and morale would suffer.
37:56Above all, the element of surprise was likely to be lost.
38:00But 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.
38:14Eisenhower 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.
38:56In France, messages broadcast to the French resistance, alerting the networks of the coming invasion, were intercepted by the Germans.
39:04And the powerful 15th Army, guarding the Pas de Calais, was put on alert.
39:10But no one warned the 7th Army guarding Normandy.
39:14And no one warned Rommel, who had only just left for Germany, to ask Hitler for reinforcements to bolster the
39:21dangerously weak Normandy sector.
39:27As dawn approached, the first phase of the Great Invasion began.
39:32Three 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, to disrupt reinforcement and
39:47resupply of the Atlantic wall defenses, to hold essential bridges and causeways for an allied advance.
39:56At dawn, the naval bombardment began.
40:00From airfields in southern England, and from carriers lying offshore, wave after wave of airstrikes were launched in an onslaught
40:08of 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, and
40:29for the Sapatines who would clear the beaches of mines and obstacles.
40:36This is Omaha Beach, where the American First Army was to land.
40:42Further along the coast was Utah Beach.
40:45To the east, the British and Canadians were to establish lodgements at Gold, Juno and Sword beaches.
40:55At Utah, the beach defenses were quickly overcome.
40:59But here, at Omaha, the Americans met fierce resistance from first-line German troops, manning the most formidable fortifications that
41:08the Allies would assault throughout the entire course of the war.
41:12The battle for Omaha quickly became a battle between the warships and the guns of the Atlantic Wall.
41:24In the British sector, the landings were much easier.
41:28Inferior 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 Caen.
41:53This is Caen 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.
42:09As the British pressure increased, Rommel asked von Rundstedt for the immediate deployment of Panzer Group West.
42:16But 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.
42:34At Omaha, after bitter fighting and many casualties, the beachhead was finally secure.
42:41With advance units pressing nearly two miles inland, fresh troops and equipment could be brought ashore.
42:49By the end of the first day, more than 150,000 men were landed by sea and by air, and
42:56with them thousands of tanks, guns and vehicles of all kinds.
43:01Although the invasion forces were well short of their targets for that day, the beachheads had been established.
43:08And 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.
43:20While thousands of Allied fighters and bombers scoured the West, disrupting 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 from the Pas de Calais
43:54to be transformed to the Normandy sector.
43:56But Hitler was still convinced that the invasion of Normandy was merely a feint to draw troops away from the
44:02Pas de Calais where the main invasion would take place.
44:05The 15th Army, he insisted, must remain in defensive positions.
44:11By the 12th, the Allied lodgements in Normandy had joined into one continuous beachhead and artificial harbours were being constructed.
44:28On the 16th, the Americans began a drive across the Merderet River and the continent peninsula to isolate the port
44:36of Cherbourg to the west.
44:39To the east, Montgomery mounted a further attack towards Kahn.
44:44A breakthrough at Kahn would have led to the plains of central France and a rapid drive towards Paris.
44:51But Rommel had chosen to make his stand at Kahn and elements of six panzer divisions had been assembled there.
44:59The 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, Kahn finally fell to the British and with it any prospect of a decisive victory
45:37for 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.
45:59A major allied offensive was now planned.
46:03On the 18th of July, the allies captured the town of St. Lowell and began a drive to the south.
46:10Breaking quickly into open country, armoured 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, ordered a counter-attack against the flank of the allied advance.
46:40Using divisions withdrawn from the region of Kahn, the attack was launched through the town of Falaise.
46:48With the German lines of containment now reduced, Montgomery was at last able to break out from Kahn.
46:57In danger of being cut off and captured, and attacked continuously from the air, the Germans began a retreat towards
47:04the Seine.
47:05But the encirclement was quickly completed.
47:0950,000 German troops were left behind, and with them most of the equipment of ten German divisions.
47:21Within a month, the allies entered Paris. Within a year, Berlin.
47:26As Rommel had predicted, without air support, no German counter-attack could prevail.
47:33Once the beachhead had been established, overwhelming allied air and naval power had ensured it remained.
47:40The battle for France had indeed been decided at the water's edge.
47:56In the long and grisly battle for Guadalcanal, the failure of the Japanese Navy ensured the ascendancy of American sea
48:04power in the Pacific.
48:10Against the vast resources of American industry, the Japanese could never hope to compete.
48:16The capture of Guadalcanal itself provided the first step in a series of seaborne conquests throughout the islands of the
48:23Pacific to the home waters of Japan herself.
48:29The fierce Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal had come as a shock to the Americans, the withdrawal a relief.
48:37But there were to be very few tactical withdrawals by the Japanese.
48:42In their advance through the islands, the Americans found that Japanese tenacity and will to resist became stronger the closer
48:50they got to Japan.
48:52On the island of Saipan, in the Marianas, 30,000 Japanese troops lost their lives rather than surrender.
49:008,000 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, the remnants of the Japanese Navy struck
49:19for one last time.
49:22Suffering horrendous losses in ships and men, the sea power of Japan was finally broken.
49:30The ability to protect her home waters ended.
49:42On 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.
49:56And of more than 20,000 Japanese defenders, only 216 were captured alive.
50:06On Easter Sunday 1945, the Americans landed on Okinawa, in what was to become known as history's greatest madhouse.
50:18Nearly 150,000 Japanese soldiers lost their lives.
50:23Swarms of kamikaze pilots swept down on the invasion fleet in a last vain bid to save the island.
50:34During the battle, nearly 1,500 kamikaze attacks were made on the fleet, with only very minor success.
50:47It became clear that an invasion of Japan would result in an appalling loss of life too great for Allied
50:54planners to countenance.
50:56To break the will of Japan, and to demonstrate the hopelessness of her situation, another means of ending the war
51:04was tried.
51:12On August 6th at Hiroshima, a city died.
51:17A new and terrible era of mass destruction had dawned.
51:43A new and terrible era of mass destruction had died in a year's memory of the building.
51:44A new era of mass destruction had died by the решил-kisses of the building.
51:53A new era of mass destruction had died by the
51:54invaders of the building.
51:54A new era of mass destruction had died by the sea.
51:56A new era of mass destruction had died by its origin in one another.
52:04The island was in the 8th at Hiroshima and a living room.
Comments