“The first felon-stroke of the sword he had longtime prepared for us -
Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.”
Good description of the first hours of D-Day.
This phrase describes the launch of the German Scheifflen Plan through Belgium into France. The British were woefully unprepared for World War I and had to sacrifice the British Expeditionary Force to stop the Germans while they mobilized an army that could defeat the German Army.
D-Day was the culmination of a massive mobilization of an American Army that would defeat both the Germans and the Japanese. The sacrifices that bought time with their lives were in the Philippines and at Guadalcanal.