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01:08This is Aromanche, on the coast of Normandy.
01:11Ten years after the battle, Pilgrims returned to the beaches where Allied forces opened a second front,
01:18to the scene of Operation Overlord.
01:42On D-Day plus ten years, memory is turning into history.
01:55These were the D-Day plans.
01:57Above the strategy of armada and land attack, was drawn, like tracing on a map,
02:03the operation of a third force, the air plan for Overlord.
02:08A year before D-Day, reconnaissance units began work on a portrait of occupied France.
02:13They photographed the whole coast from Belgium to Spain and much of the land beyond.
02:19In France, the sound of Allied aircraft was growing more familiar.
02:23There seemed to be hope in the sky, although there was still tyranny on the ground.
02:32Hitler was moving in troops to a strength of 60 divisions,
02:36and of his 7,000 front-line planes, more and more were shifted to the west.
02:41France would be the battlefield when the second front opened.
02:47From the sky above, we watched the enemy strengthen his defences.
02:51In the two months before D-Day, over 3,000 sorties were flown by camera aircraft.
02:56Every move and change that could be seen from the air was fixed upon film
03:00and brought back for our intelligence.
03:16The Allied air forces flew other missions after the sun went down.
03:23And we were where French had a special part to play.
03:26What couldn't be seen from overhead was discovered by underground means,
03:32by our French resistance movement.
03:35By night, we flew in agents and equipment from Britain.
04:03Those who waited for us on the ground
04:05were peaceful farmers or townsfolk by day, citizens of Vichy.
04:11But in the dark, they waged a dangerous and ruthless war.
04:16For us, the liberation of our country began among these shadows.
04:31The Allied Expeditionary Air Force began their attack.
04:34By April, the air commander was operating 700 bombers and 2,000 fighters over France.
04:41The Allied bomber commands had already forced the Luftwaffe onto the defensive.
04:46Now, we could use our air supremacy to paralyze the enemy's ground forces,
04:50to batter his communications to a standstill.
05:11By the spring of 1944,
05:13our bombs had torn a line of destruction
05:15across the roads and railways leading into Normandy
05:18and had sealed off the battlefield
05:20before our first troops landed.
05:22épídly
05:33yetもうぴ。えてねん
05:37Oh, my God.
06:10Oh, my God.
06:37Oh, my God.
06:54As the weeks passed, the weight of our attack closed in on the channel.
06:58Heavy guns guarded every mile of Hitler's Atlantic wall,
07:02and radar stations stood along the whole French coast to give warning of our approach.
07:06These were next on our list.
07:35As D-Day drew near,
07:37the channel itself was cleared of the enemy.
07:39The last German ships were swept from the narrow seas.
07:43Let's go.
07:45Let's go.
07:45I'm going to go.
07:46time.
08:16Until the landings began, our air bombardment covered the whole Channel coast, for the enemy must not know what beaches
08:23we had chosen for the assault. Nothing could hide our intention, but at least the time and place could be
08:31kept secret behind a cannonade of bombs.
09:35Then, one morning, early in June, everything started moving. Every service vehicle in the country seemed to be underway to
09:44the south coast, and we knew it was beginning.
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10:27And finally one of us down, love is heard, a discouraging word.
10:51By June the 2nd, everything was ready.
10:54The Allied Expeditionary Air Force put on its war paint.
10:58The white star of the Allies was about to fly over Europe.
11:03At the invasion ports, 130,000 troops and 20,000 vehicles
11:08were leaving English soil without let or hindrance from the Luftwaffe.
11:12June the 5th was the appointed day when moon and tide would be right
11:16and all could go forward if the weather held.
11:30The Armada, fully charged, lay uneasily at anchor as time ticked by.
11:37Now all hung on the decision of one man.
11:39On June the 3rd, Eisenhower, warned of bad weather, postponed the sailing for 24 hours.
11:47The ships, the planes, the soldiers, waited.
12:06For Eisenhower, another postponement meant cancelling the invasion for at least a month,
12:11when time and tide might wait on him again.
12:14But the weather reports remained bad, and a sail now might bring disaster on the beaches.
12:20The final order came on June the 5th. D-Day is tomorrow.
12:25The first assault was mounted by airborne troops.
12:28On June the 5th, they were briefed.
12:30The British 6th Airborne Division would drop on the left flank of the landing area near Caen.
12:35The American 82nd and 101st Divisions on the right flank at the base of the Cherbourg Peninsula.
12:43Takeoff time was set for dusk on the eve of D-Day.
12:48Operation Overlord had begun.
12:51The five reactions of the sixth airman regarding the sost fright.
12:54The piercing of the着, and the strobing of the river,
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14:03That night as we set sail across the channel we could hear the roar of their engines and sometimes see
14:09their silhouettes dark in the sky above us. The sea was rough, the wind cold, the hour's eternity. But the
14:17order of the day still sounded in our ears.
14:20To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history and in the
14:26better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings. Let us pray that the Lord mighty
14:33in battle will go forth with our armies and that his special providence will aid us in the struggle. Let
14:40us go forward to victory.
14:42Further north, aircraft of bomber command were orbiting above a phantom fleet in the Straits of Dover. To make the
14:49Germans believe our attack lay there, they circled all night dropping clouds of tinfoil which registered as an armada approaching
14:57Calais on the German radar screens. The enemy's radar along the Normandy coast lay broken, recording nothing. And they first
15:04knew our fleet's position when they saw it in the morning.
15:14We saw land in the first sight. We saw land in the first light. It was quiet and unreal. Bomber
15:19command had plastered the shore batteries before dawn. But all the same there was bound to be someone at hand
15:24to welcome us.
15:25And they said, what?
15:39That's right.
15:45What you think of the
15:57The Navy engaged the remaining coastal guns, shells, bombs, rockets were loosed against
16:02the beaches and our landing craft moved in to the assault.
16:06Our fighters gave continuous cover but the Luftwaffe never appeared, our only air losses
16:12were from shore based flak.
16:14As we approached the beaches our fighter bombers flew in to give close support, erected by
16:20control ships to their targets.
16:22It was a long rough ride in the assault craft, it got worse as it went on.
16:28Then we hit the beach and we were there.
16:54Our beaches were codenamed Gold Sword Juno.
16:58We attacked with one Canadian, two British divisions.
17:02Away to our right, three American divisions were fighting their way ashore on beachheads
17:07Utah and Omaha.
17:08The battle spread 50 miles along the Normandy coast.
17:12Everywhere we met resistance.
17:14We'd have made a wonderful target for the Luftwaffe, but the Luftwaffe had been pushed
17:19out of the sky.
17:20In a few hours we had a firm footing ashore.
17:23We were tired.
17:25We were cold.
17:26We were under heavy fire.
17:28But we were back in France.
17:46This is London.
17:48London calling in the home, overseas and European services of the BBC and through United Nations
17:56Radio Mediterranean.
17:57And this is John Snaegg speaking.
18:01Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force have just issued communique number one.
18:08And in a few seconds I will read it to you.
18:16Communique number one.
18:17Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces,
18:25began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.
18:31This ends the reading of communique number one from Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.
18:41Before D-Day ended, reinforcements took off from Britain to support the airborne troops
18:46who had been fighting for hours against German pressure on our flanks in Normandy.
19:23Another wave of Allied planes set out across the channel.
19:26Two hundred and fifty tugs and gliders escorted by fifteen squadrons of fighters.
19:31Two hundred and fifty tugs and flanks and flanks and flanks.
20:01The German Army were also headed north of Caen.
20:02Our paratroops were faced with heavy counterattacks by the 21st Panzer Division, the only German
20:08armour to appear on D-Day.
20:15Within a day of our landing, all three British beachheads were linked.
20:19and the 2nd Army held a continuous front.
20:24Within a few hours of the landings,
20:26work began on the Mulberry Harbour at Aramanche
20:28and by June the 19th, the new port was in service.
20:36Its prime mover, Winston Churchill,
20:39had joined the expeditionary force by then
20:41to see for himself the result of years of effort.
20:48On D-Day plus 10, the King of England set foot in France
20:53and as his news went round the world,
20:56the heads of state and heads of services
20:57reviewed their plans for the next phase of the war.
21:01A foothold in Normandy was not enough.
21:04Before the campaign of France could roll forward,
21:07bases had to be built for the whole tactical air force.
21:11Squadron after squadron left England
21:13for Europe.
21:15Among them, the Lorraine squadron of the Fighting French.
21:19For four years, we have served in exile
21:22in the Middle East, in North Africa, in Britain.
21:26Now, we are going home.
21:28We are going to finish the battle where it began in 1940
21:32in the sky above France.
22:00This time, as we fly across the channel,
22:03before, we see something unusual.
22:05The British call it Pluto,
22:08the pipeline under the ocean.
22:10It will bring us oil and petrol
22:12when we are based again in France.
22:33By the end of June, our ground forces were greatly strengthened.
22:36On the eastern flank, the British 2nd Army was threatening Caen
22:40in a deliberate effort to tie down the reserves of German armour,
22:44while the American 1st Army fought its way westward
22:47across the Cherbourg peninsula.
22:50But by now, the Wehrmacht had collected enough of its scattered forces
22:54to hold up our advance.
22:55The situation was difficult.
23:11The workers were nasty.
23:35We could advance no further.
23:37We were bogged down in the buccage country, all woods and little fields and thick hedges.
23:42The weather was still against us.
23:44We held up our reinforcements and supplies and limited our air support.
23:48We had to sit down and slug it out with mortars and field artillery.
24:05But whenever there was enough visibility to fight, the air force joined the battle.
24:10By now we had 30 squadrons based on Normandy and many more on call from across the sea.
24:16In France, as in Africa and Italy, our air supremacy was complete and was used to the full.
25:11By July, the British 8th Corps had struck out and established a salient south of Caen.
25:17Little by little, all along the front, the Allied line moved forward, eating away the
25:23reserves of German resistance.
25:34Little by little, the Germans are giving up France.
25:38This is only the beginning of another campaign, which must be fought across our country.
25:43But this time, the battle is going the right way, not without pain and death, not without
25:50desolation and destruction.
25:53But the Germans have a debt to pay and they are paying it now.
25:58This is the price of liberation and the price of oppression.
26:44The price of liberation and the joy are both confused.
26:49Like life and death on this battlefield.
26:53But one thing is clear, the Allies are back in France, and an Allied air force a hundred
26:59times stronger than before is here to stay until the war is won.
27:23The gliders are empty, the beaches clear, Operation Overlord is done.
27:31Already it is D-Day plus a month.
27:33And history is turning into memory.
27:37Here it is D-Day.
27:47THE END
28:21THE END
