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General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) for the last five months of planning for D-Day. During that time he achieved much more than the oft repeated portrayal of someone managing a political/military alliance. Though he never led troops in combat, his leadership sustained many unprecedented initiatives for the successful Normandy landings. The air assault exemplifies the frightful uncertainties plaguing this “Day of Days”. The night before D-Day, 20,400 American and British paratroopers dropped behind the Normandy beaches from 1,250 C-47 aircraft plus gliders. This massive assault was attempted just 17 years...

June 6 will forever be the anniversary of one of the most fateful days in modern history: the Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy. By day’s end American, British, and Canadian troops had breached Germany’s Atlantic Wall defenses and established a foothold in Western Europe. With Soviet armies rolling in from the east Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime was caught in a gigantic vise. Its defeat was now only a matter of time. Considering the pivotal nature of June 6, 1944, how did Hitler react to the attack? Did he rant, did he rail? Did he move with focused calm to try...

Few narrative historians have been able to capture the essence of war quite like Stephen Ambrose. The Eisenhower biographer published several books on the war later in his life, including Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, and perhaps the best one volume treatment of the Normandy invasion, D-Day: June 6, 1944. One theme running through all of those books was the sheer ordinariness of the American GI and how, when confronted by the greatest challenges of their lives, outperformed, outfought, and outsmarted the seemingly invincible Nazi war machine. From a blurb advertising D-Day: They wanted to be throwing baseballs, not hand...

President Reagan's Address at a United States-France Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion/D-Day - 6/6/84

Editor's note: The following is the speech, delivered on June 6, 1984, that President Ronald Reagan gave 31 years ago today in Normandy, France -- the 40th anniversary of D-Day. The text was provided by the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum. "We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue....

D-Day was arguably the most significant and well-known event in military history. The Allies landed more than 150,000 troops in Normandy, involving 11,590 aircraft and 6,939 naval vessels. There were thousands of casualties. The staggering size of these numbers can actually make it difficult for our brains to truly comprehend the devastation. That’s why these artists set out to create a simple art project with a powerful message. By simply agitating the sand on the beach, they provided a true scale of the lives lost on June 6th, 1944:

General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) for the last five months of planning for D-Day. During that time he achieved much more than the oft repeated portrayal of someone managing a political/military alliance. Though he never led troops in combat, his leadership sustained many unprecedented initiatives for the successful Normandy landings. The air assault exemplifies the frightful uncertainties plaguing this “Day of Days”. The night before D-Day, 20,400 American and British paratroopers dropped behind the Normandy beaches from 1,250 C-47 aircraft plus gliders. This massive assault was attempted just 17 years...

I watched all of part 1 before posting

On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard...

Riding in the van of the American air spearhead which covered the landing of American Rangers on the coast of France, this reporter had a panoramic view this morning of the D-Day invasion and saw the first Americans come ashore from smoking landing boats which had ridden through a curtain of German gunfire to reach the beach a few minutes before. Deep behind the invaded beach, American paratroops and glider-borne Rangers were locked in battle along a wide, irregular front. Airborne units had landed soon after dawn and were engaged with the enemy when warships of the Unite Nations steamed...

Late on the night of June 5, 1944, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain commanded by Lt. Col. John M. Donalson launched with 15 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division on board. They were the very tip of the Allied invasion spear, leading a formation of hundreds of aircraft carrying thousands of troops. Just after midnight on June 6, That’s All, Brother navigated through intense German fire and low clouds to drop the first Allied troops to land in Normandy, France, on D-Day, commencing Operation Overlord. Seven decades later, Staff Sgt. Matt Scales of the Alabama Air National Guard was researching Donalson’s...