D-Day in pictures

After a prolonged naval and aerial bombardment of German defenses on the Channel coast of France and the Low Countries, the Allied invasion of Normandy began in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower issued this statement as his order of the day:

Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940–41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory.

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.

Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

In the hours before dawn, thousands of paratroopers descended on the Normandy countryside behind the German defenses. At about 6:30 am some 3,000 Allied landing craft began discharging men onto a stretch of beaches between Cherbourg and Le Havre. The Allied plan was to seize a beachhead within range of fighter coverage from air bases in southern England and then cut in behind the port of Cherbourg. The initial fighting was furious. German coastal batteries and machine guns poured a deadly wall of fire into the troops coming ashore, and the American landings at Omaha Beach, where preliminary bombardments had had little effect on German defenses, were a near disaster.

The chaos at Omaha seemed to be a confirmation of all of Eisenhower’s worst fears. Those sentiments were captured in a short address that he penned on June 5, to be delivered in the event of the invasion’s failure:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. [This sentence originally read “…and the troops have been withdrawn.” Eisenhower struck through the passive language and replaced it with “I have….”] My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

Omar Bradley, commanding general of the landing forces at Omaha, had, indeed, considered evacuating his bloodied force, but by afternoon small groups of men, supported by naval gunfire delivered at point-blank range, had begun to advance. By evening the crisis at Omaha had passed, and tens of thousands of Allied troops had gained a fragile foothold in Hitler’s Fortress Europe.