[intense music]
By the late fall of 1943,
the Western Allies and the Soviet Union
have dealt the Third
Reich multiple blows.
The Allies have dislodged the Germans
from North Africa and Sicily,
and are fighting their
way up the Italian boot.
While the Red Army,
after victories at
Stalingrad and Kursk,
pushes West towards Germany.
The next step for the Allies
is the long anticipated
invasion of Northern Europe.
[intense music]
All wars change the world,
but none of them changed the world like
the Second World w*r did.
Japan's on the march.
Germany's on the march.
No one can imagine the nightmare
they're about to unleash
the most destructive
w*r in human history.
Suddenly the world
is turned upside down
and all hell is let loose.
[intense music]
The West is stunned by
the speed of the advance.
You get the Allies
led by The Big Three,
Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin,
men who are dealing with
immensely complicated questions.
It's the biggest military
operation of human history.
The Allies have to come together,
not just militarily,
but industrial scale.
It's a global perspective.
They have to fight
in every climate from the Arctic
to the jungles of the Pacific,
to the deserts of Africa,
and the depths of the ocean.
[intense music]
But there was no certainty of victory.
It was going to be a
horrific bloodbath.
We see humans at their absolute worst,
how they treat other human beings,
and we see them at their absolute best,
willing to give their lives
that others might live.
World w*r II was a struggle
in which there could be one victor
and one vanquished.
[intense music]
[expl*si*n blasting]
[air siren wailing]
[plane engine buzzing]
[intense music]
[Reporter] Rings over the mountains
by Baghdad and the Dead Sea.
Three planes from the supreme
headquarters of Britain,
the United States, and the USSR
bring to the capital
of Persia the leaders
of the w*r against Germany.
This is for the three-way conference
so long expected, so often postponed.
[intense music]
Tehran is a hugely
important conference.
It's the first time The Big
Three get together in person.
You've got Joe Stalin,
leader of the Soviet Union.
You've got Roosevelt,
President of the USA.
And you've got Prime
Minister Winston Churchill,
the warlord of the British Empire.
This is the central organizing brain
for the Allied w*r effort,
and they're gonna establish
at this conference
the roadmap, the blueprint
for how they're gonna defeat the axis
in the Second World w*r.
[g*ns blasting]
[Tom] Since the US entry into the w*r,
American and British
military strategists
have debated the best way
to defeat n*zi Germany.
The British wanna prosecute this w*r
as they have prosecuted past ones,
mastery of the sea,
control of commerce,
raids around the periphery
until the enemy simply collapses.
[g*ns blasting]
[Tom] The British advocate
for campaigns in North
Africa and the Mediterranean,
but American military leaders,
along with the Soviets,
want the Allies to directly attack.
[g*ns blasting]
The Red Army's been carrying
the burden of the land w*r for years.
[expl*si*n blasting]
Millions, literally millions
of casualties on a thousand-mile front.
And so to the big concern for Stalin
is when are you going
to open a second front?
[intense music]
So the Americans are looking
at the map and saying,
"We can cross the channel
from Britain, hit France.
Why wouldn't you just do that?"
[intense music]
For the British Empire,
they could think of nothing worse.
[intense music]
Churchill's entire generation
of British politicians
either fought in or commanded
in the First World w*r and was scarred.
And so the idea of gambling everything
on a cross channel
invasion into France,
the exact place, by the way,
that so many terrible things happened
in trench warfare back
in the First World w*r,
all that mattered was
we don't do that again.
[intense music]
[Dan S.] Winston Churchill is thinking,
"Maybe we land in
Greece and Yugoslavia.
Maybe we push up through Slovenia.
Maybe we land in Norway."
Stalin says, "I don't care
about any of this stuff.
It's nonsense.
Get in some ships, cross
the English Channel,
land in France,
and open up that proper second
front against the Germans."
If you think about Allied leadership,
it looks as if it's The Big Three,
but what Roosevelt understands,
what Stalin understands,
and what Churchill,
to his great anguish,
is coming to understand
is that there's only room
for two people at the summit
and that the fate of his nation
was to be somewhat in eclipse.
[intense music]
[Robert] At Tehran, the
Americans and the Soviets
finally get their way,
a big American-dominated
invasion of Western Europe,
Operation Overlord.
[intense music]
[Tom] Operation Overlord
will be a massive coordinated invasion
by air, land, and sea
scheduled to launch in May, 1944,
a mere six months away.
[intense music]
If it succeeds, the Western
Allies and the Red Army
will be able to advance on
Germany from two fronts.
But who is to command
this enormous effort?
The obvious choice is George Marshall.
George Marshall is the
army chief of staff
and he is unquestionably the
most respected military man,
certainly in the United States
and maybe even the world.
[Sarada] And so everybody
assumes that he's gonna get it.
What becomes clear, though, is that
Roosevelt realizes that he can't have
Marshall out of Washington.
He needs him too much
to be sort of running
the entire w*r effort.
And so then the question is, "Who?"
[Dan S.] Montgomery,
Churchill's star general,
is absolutely certain
that there is one man perfectly suited
to be supreme commander
of the Allied effort,
and that is Montgomery himself.
[intense music]
[Tom] But with
the American contribution
in men and material about to
dominate the Allied effort,
it's clear that an American
must be placed in command.
[intense music]
President Roosevelt selects
General Dwight Eisenhower,
a protege of George Marshall
and the successful commander
of the campaigns in
North Africa and Sicily.
[intense music]
[Michel] Roosevelt sees in Eisenhower
the kind of political skill and savvy
that's going to be necessary
to keep the alliance together
and to pull off
what is going to be one of the most
high-risk military operations
in all of human history.
[intense music]
[Dan S.] At the same time,
Eisenhower did not have a
huge CV of combat experience.
He hadn't served in France
during the First World w*r,
and so, many of his competitors
looking around going,
"How did this guy get the job?"
[intense music]
[Sarada] British General
Montgomery maybe encapsulates
the criticism of
Eisenhower when he says,
"Nice chap, no soldier."
[intense music]
[Tom] Hitler and his high command
know the Western Allies are
going to invade Northern Europe,
but they don't know when
and they don't know where.
[intense music]
[Robert] Hitler is not surprised
that an invasion is coming.
He said so at the end of 1943.
"They'll be here next year.
We have to be ready to meet them."
In his own mind,
he was willing this
cross channel invasion
because he said, "You
know, whenever they come
and wherever they come,
we're gonna beat them."
[intense music]
An amphibious Landing is
a very demanding operation,
and so he thinks he will
throw his reserves to the west
and push the Allies back into the sea.
[Geoffrey] He'd then be
able to win the w*r
by turning everything he has
against the Soviet Union in the east.
[intense music]
[Tom] Under the direction
of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel
the Germans accelerate the construction
of the Atlantic Wall,
[timber cracking]
a network of bunkers,
minefields, and beach obstacles
stretching several thousand
miles from France to Norway.
Much of the work is performed
by conscripted French labor.
[intense music]
[Robert] Rommel is already
a known commodity.
He's beloved by the German people.
He's young, he's
unorthodox, he's energetic.
He's a man very much
to the Fuhrer's taste.
He wakes up early.
He works hard all day.
He gets the job done.
And choosing Rommel tells the West,
"You've got your work cut out for you."
[intense music]
[Tom] By January, Operation Overlord,
the joint British American plan
to invade Northwest Europe,
has been largely mapped out.
[intense music]
The coast of Normandy is
chosen as the landing site
because of its long, flat
beaches, numerous access roads,
and proximity to the deep
water port of Cherbourg.
When Eisenhower and his staff
take control of Overlord,
they look to expand
the scale and scope
of the entire operation.
[Craig] From the very beginning,
it was clear to Eisenhower
that a three-division
invasion in northern France
would not be adequate.
The Allies use six
divisions to invade Sicily.
[Dan S.] Eisenhower realizes
if you've got one shot at this,
you've gotta cross this
brutal stretch of water
and land on a heavily
defended coastline
manned by one of the
best armies in history,
you need to bring overwhelming force.
You go for the king, you best not miss.
[intense music]
[Geoffrey] But he has to
somehow get the Brits
to come around and agree.
His act of genius is to name Montgomery
commander of the ground
forces in the invasions.
He says, "Monty, will you do this?"
Monty says, "Yes."
And then Eisenhower says, "But I
think three divisions is a bit small.
Shouldn't it be bigger?" Monty
says, "Oh, should be much bigger."
It's a perfect example of
Eisenhower's leadership style.
He gets buy-in from people
and then get whatever
he wants done, done.
[intense music]
[Tom] Overlord
increases to five beaches
and six divisions,
which delays the operation for a month.
[intense music]
[Robert] Eisenhower knows that
in delaying Overlord,
he's running a risk,
and the risk is he's gonna use
that extra month for preparation.
But, of course, so is his adversary.
[boots clomping]
With each passing day,
German defenses are
going to get stronger.
[intense music]
[intense music]
[Tom] Field Marshall
Erwin Rommel believes
the first 24 hours
of the invasion will be decisive.
He will say to an aide,
"The fate of Germany
depends on the outcome.
For the Allies as well as Germany,
it will be the longest day."
[Geoffrey] Rommel thinks that
you have to defeat
the Allied invasion
when it comes at the water's edge.
[intense music]
But the thing is, there's so many
points that the Allies can invade.
[intense music]
They've scattered
fortifications everywhere.
So he's like, "How do I take this
incomplete Atlantic wall
and fill in the gaps?"
And the way you do it is you do it
with things that are relatively cheap,
like tank obstacles, like mines.
[expl*si*n blasting]
[intense music]
[Tom] Rommel's
strategy is to stop the Allies
on the beaches.
He can then bring in his
panzers where necessary.
[Robert] Rommel has a lot of experience
fighting the Western powers.
He knows this isn't gonna be easy.
Every minute he prepares,
he believes is a minute
closer to a German victory.
[intense music]
[Tom] In Britain,
the Allies amass resources
for Operation Overlord.
The United States sends
soldiers, tanks, aircraft,
and large amounts of supplies.
[Geoffrey] You have to coordinate
this massive Allied coalition,
which by now is entirely
dominated by the Americans,
you know, on the supply side, right?
Gotta ship over all the
oil, all the material,
all the vehicles.
[intense music]
The scale of Operation
Overlord is just enormous.
You are talking about nearly
You are talking about tens of
thousands of a*tillery pieces.
You are talking about
hundreds of thousands of men.
But what that means is that Britain,
for the last two and a half years,
has just been turning into one
huge great big military camp.
[intense music]
[Tom] To deceive the Germans,
the Allies devise and
execute a deception plan.
Operation Fortitude is a
false army operation created
to trick the Germans
into thinking the Allies
will land at Pas-de-Calais,
which is the shortest root
across the English Channel.
[Dan C.] The elements
that were involved
in trying to convince the Germans
that the attack was
coming in another place,
another direction, another location...
...it's massive.
[intense music]
False radio traffic.
The creation of false armies.
They used dummy vehicles,
balloons, and rubber
tanks, and aircraft.
[Geoffrey] This is all part of
the deception campaign to keep
the Germans guessing
until the last second.
[intense music]
[Tom] Eisenhower hopes Fortitude
will prompt the Germans
to concentrate their forces near Calais
rather than Normandy.
[intense music]
[Michel] The Germans have about
three quarters of a million men
who are poised to be able to mobilize
to wherever the Allies
invade in northern Europe.
And so he knows that this
is going to be a race.
It's going to be the Allies over water
and the Germans over land,
and the Germans are always going
to have an advantage
in moving over land.
And so Eisenhower needs
to slow them down.
The only tool that Eisenhower
has at his disposal
are the bombers.
[intense music]
[plane engines buzzing]
Eisenhower knows from
previous experience
he can't pull off an amphibious
invasion and keep it ashore
without dominance in the air.
Unless Allied air power
is there for Eisenhower,
this landing is never gonna happen.
[intense music]
[Tom] Starting in 1944,
Allied Air Force strategy
focuses on destroying the Luftwaffe
so that troops can land
in Normandy without fear
of German air attacks.
[plane engines buzzing]
But Eisenhower also wants to hit
railways and transportation
hubs throughout France.
[intense music]
[Dan S.] Eisenhower wants
the roads destroyed.
He wants the bridges destroyed.
He wants the railway yards destroyed.
He does not want one German unit moving
two miles down the road without
him having to build another bridge.
And so Eisenhower says,
"Those very valuable b*mber formations
need to be working to my plan."
[plane engines buzzing]
Now, the b*mber commander is like,
"No, we've got our own
way of winning this w*r."
[Dr.Grant] Everybody wants to support
the landings in Normandy,
but the Allied Air Forces argue
that the best way to do that
is to continue with more
heavy attacks on Germany.
[intense music]
[Michel] This becomes a
knockdown drag out fight.
So Eisenhower, you know,
basically threatens to resign,
if he's not given control
over all the air forces.
He's fighting day in and day out
with the British, with the French,
with his own bosses back in Washington
on every little detail of the w*r.
And everyone is throwing up
nothing but obstructions,
and he just doesn't have
time for this anymore, right?
He is at his wits end.
[Dan S.] He needs overwhelming
strength to guarantee success
because you know what?
You've got one of history's
most effective armies,
Hitlers panzers, who will be hurled
at those Allied landing forces
so they can chop you
down in the shallows
and turn the waters
red with your blood.
[intense music]
[intense music] [horn blaring]
[Tom] Early spring 1944.
Supreme Allied Commander
Dwight Eisenhower
has now been given full command
of all Allied air forces.
[Dr. Grant] In the end, he's
got the air power weapon
he needs to attack the
French transportation system.
That's roads, railways, and bridges
that the Germans will
use to move forces
to oppose the landings.
[intense music]
[Geoffrey] And so he wins, and
we take that for granted,
but it wasn't easy, you know?
He had to like wrestle
with all these powerful
figures and powerful egos,
not only within the US military,
but the British military as well.
It's another example
of Eisenhower's real
quality as a leader.
[plane engines buzzing]
And so for 90 days before D-Day,
you've got thousands of sorties.
[Pilot] Bombs away.
[intense music]
[expl*si*n blasting]
By P-47 and B-26 marauders
that are flying behind the German lines
in the Pas-de-Calais in Normandy
is just absolutely punishing
the road and rail network.
[expl*si*n blasting]
[intense music]
[expl*si*n blasting]
[intense music]
[Tom] Defending multiple fronts,
the resources of Hitler
and his Third Reich are stretched thin.
[intense music]
[Dr. Lieb] For the Germans in 1944,
their last big trump
card are the tanks.
[g*n blasting]
[intense music]
[g*n blasting]
Rommel's plan is to
deploy them as close
as possible to the beaches.
The advantage is that
you can bring them in
much quicker as reinforcements,
but this idea runs against
traditional German doctrine.
It's totally the opposite.
[tank motor buzzing]
[Robert] The orthodox approach
amongst German commanders
is to group your tank divisions
into a concentrated mass,
let the Allies land,
and then, as they stumble
into the French interior,
hit them at a time and
place of your choosing.
[g*n blasting]
[Geoffrey] But Rommel says, "Look,
realistically we can't maneuver
against them when they come inland
because they have total air superiority."
[Dr. Lieb] The only person
who can decide which option
will be the better one
is Hitler himself.
But Hitler never wants to give
too much power into one hand.
[Tom] Suspecting that the Allies
will land near Calais,
Hitler spreads his panzers
along Northwestern France,
but he reserves operational
control for himself.
[Robert] They can only be released
into combat by Hitler's express order,
which is probably the
Achilles' heel of that plan.
[intense music]
[horn blaring]
[Tom] In the spring of 1944,
there are over two and
a half million troops
from multiple Allied nations
crowded into Southeast England.
[intense music]
The invasion would send
ashore combat experienced troops
who had participated
in landings previously
as well as troops who
had never done it before.
[Michel] So the way you
prepare is you have exercises.
You have rehearsals
just like in a play.
So a series of exercises are undertaken
to include something
called Exercise Tiger.
[intense music]
Exercise Tiger is going to invade
a beach called Slapton Sands.
And Slapton Sands is
a British resort town
that remarkably looks exactly
like parts of the Normandy coast.
[Tom] Secrecy is vital
for this training mission.
evacuated from the area.
Operational security
is absolutely paramount.
The Allies have to
have tactical surprise
on the morning of D-Day,
so the Germans must be
completely blindsided.
[g*ns blasting]
[Tom] It's a practice run for D-Day,
but from the start,
things go horribly wrong.
Because of a breakdown
in communication,
the navy fires on its own men.
[Martin] As if that tragedy
wasn't bad enough,
the next day something
even worse happens.
[intense music]
[Michel] In the middle of
the night, the LSTs,
these large ships that have
personnel and tanks in them,
are preparing to do their
part in Exercise Tiger
and circling about to do
the second landing wave.
And then, all of a sudden,
a pack of German fast
boats, or E-boats,
stumbles upon these LSTs.
[Craig] And the Germans began firing,
and tracer b*ll*ts are
flying across the ships,
and some of the men on board thought,
"Wow, this is a pretty
realistic exercise."
And it wasn't really
until the torpedoes began
to explode against
the sides of the LSTs
that they realize this is
not a realistic exercise.
This is an attack.
[intense music]
[Geoffrey] They sink three LSTs,
which are really
precious by this point.
They need every one.
[Craig] More than 700 men were
k*lled in Exercise Tiger.
So this was a very costly loss of life.
[Michel] If a, you know,
well-controlled, dress rehearsal
goes this badly under the
best of possible conditions,
what's going to happen
when they can't just
stroll ashore on a British resort town,
but are being fired at by German g*ns?
[intense music]
[Tom] Operation
Overlord has been planned down
to the closest detail,
but there's one crucial
element no one can anticipate,
the weather.
[intense music]
[Michel] They have a three-day window,
June 5th to June 7th.
If they delay the
invasion past that window,
the moon is no longer going to be right
for the airborne operation,
the tides are no longer
going to be right
for the landing forces,
and this delicate ballet of
air, ground, and naval forces
won't have the necessary
weather conditions
to coordinate and hit the
beach with full force.
[intense music]
[Tom] Eisenhower and his staff
rely on Group Captain James Stagg
and his team of meteorologists
to provide the most
accurate advice possible.
[boat motor buzzing]
[Michel] The weather leading
up to the original D-Day
is gorgeous,
and it's so good that it
almost feels like an omen.
It's two days before the invasion.
They're gearing up to launch
on June 5th as scheduled,
and James Martin Stagg
comes to Eisenhower
as part of the command conference
and says,
"There's been a turn in the weather.
A storm is a-brewin'."
[intense music]
[Paul] It's just frankly terrible news.
channel, high winds,
unpredictable seas, rolling fronts
coming in from all directions,
and it's just the last thing
they can possibly deal with.
[intense music]
[Dan S.] Amphibious operations
are a total nightmare,
and on top of that,
the English Channel
is a rough stretch of water.
You get winds that
howl up that channel,
that kick up a swell, that
make it impossible to operate,
you know, ships near the coastline.
[Craig] Eisenhower had to
consider what that meant.
And he said, "Well, we'll
postpone making a decision
until four o'clock in the
morning when you'll know more."
[intense music]
Four o'clock in the morning on the 4th.
Stagg came in looking not happy
and said "It's gonna be worse.
We'll have to postpone
until the 6th of June."
[intense music]
[Paul] The pressure's
really there now to,
well, we really want to try and
get this done in this window
or they've gotta wait again
for all the situations to coalesce,
the weather, and the
tides, and the moon.
It might be a few weeks.
It might be months.
And the problem is you've got all these
hundreds of thousands of men
in camps who've been
sharpened to this edge
of ready to go in and get their job.
Then, you've gotta say to them,
"Actually, no, sorry lads.
We're gonna back down again."
[intense music]
[Tom] Even the
Germans think the conditions
are unsuitable for an invasion.
[Dr. Lieb] Rommel gets his
weather report
on the 4th of June,
and doesn't look very good,
and he thinks there
will be no opportunities
for the Allies to land
for the coming days,
and so he decides to go to Germany
and celebrate his wife's birthday.
The problem, though, is
that the Germans don't have
meteorological stations
in the Atlantic, in
contrast to the Allies.
And where does the weather
in Europe mostly come from?
From the Atlantic.
[intense music]
[Tom] Late in the evening on June 4th,
the Allies receive a report
from a weather station in Ireland.
[intense music]
[Martin] Captain Stagg is
gonna come in and go,
"Alright, the weather conditions
look like they're going to improve,
such that in the afternoon
on Tuesday, June 6th,
you might be able to pull it off."
[intense music]
[Tom] Eisenhower polls his commanders.
[intense music]
But the final decision is his alone.
[Martin] Eisenhower will
ultimately reflect on this
and he'll say that he felt
like the loneliest man
in all of England.
And what must have run
through that man's mind was...
"Well, the gliders are not gonna
do well in winds that are this high.
The paratroopers are all
gonna be blown off course."
[intense music]
He had to recognize all of the things
that are going to go wrong,
not things that might go wrong,
but definitely gonna go wrong.
[intense music]
"But at the same time, I
can't come back next month.
I can't come back in August.
It's now or never."
[intense music]
[Michel] And he is sitting there
listening to the wind howling around,
and he says, "Okay, let's go."
[intense music]
[Tom] Operation Overlord, D-Day,
is the largest amphibious
invasion in history,
and it's being attempted by
a coalition of many nations,
some of which have lived
under the n*zi yoke for years.
The whole world awaits the outcome.
[Dr. Grant] As the invasion got closer,
Eisenhower got more tense.
He's smoking four packs
of cigarettes a day.
He's barely sleeping.
[Michel] He has nothing left to do,
but wait to hear whether or not
he made the right call
in the middle of the
night, sleep deprived.
[intense music]
But the most important
thing though, I think,
he does in that period,
is he goes out and personally visits
the 101st Airborne.
[intense music]
[Tom] The 101st Airborne,
along with the 82nd Airborne,
and the British 6th Division
will be the first to
land behind enemy lines.
The job of the Airborne
is to seize the causeways
and cover the flanks
of the landing troops.
They will be the first soldiers
to fight the Germans in Normandy.
[Michel] Eisenhower with no fanfare,
just walks among all these young men,
all of whom are no older,
really, than his own son,
and he makes a point
of looking each one of them in the eye
as he shakes their hand.
[somber music]
He gets an estimate that about 50%
of the paratroopers
are gonna be k*lled.
And so as he's shaking hands,
every other soldier is someone
who he has every reason
to believe he has sent to their death.
[somber music]
The most important thing he could do
in that moment was just...
...be there for them.
[men laughing]
And he spends all night doing that,
goes up to the roof nearby,
watches the whole thing take off.
[somber music]
That's how he begins D-Day.
[intense music]
[Tom] Under a full moon
paratroopers, including
the 101st Airborne,
start dropping behind enemy lines.
[plane engines buzzing]
[intense music]
Before dawn landing crafts
are lowered into the water,
and troops start to board.
[intense music]
At sunrise, a fleet of warships
launch a naval barrage.
[g*ns blasting]
[Dan S.] Ultimately, the ground troops
are gonna land on five beaches,
two American beaches, Omaha and Utah,
a Canadian beach, Juno,
and then Gold and Sword,
the British beaches.
They're then gonna try and
link up those different beaches
and then push inland
to take on and destroy
the might of the German army in France.
[intense music]
[Paul] The morning of during the trip,
the weather patterns
are still chopping about
and the wind is still blowing.
It's not an ideal situation
to start plowing these boats
towards the coast there.
[Geoffrey] Right from the jump,
the weather's a huge issue.
I mean, there's a six
foot swell on D-Day.
[intense music]
[Paul] The waves are
swamping over the sides.
You're standing in freezing cold water.
You are there with 30 other guys.
If one vomits, you all vomit.
Sea spray is lashing
into your face there.
You can't see. Your eyes are stinging.
[somber music]
The longer that goes on,
the more you are thinking to yourself,
"What is gonna happen
when that ramp goes down?"
[intense music]
[plane engine buzzing]
[Tom] Omaha is the
largest of the beaches,
a strip of the Normandy
coast six miles wide.
[Geoffrey] It's different from
all the other beaches in that
it's almost like an amphitheater.
You know, you've got these high bluffs
overlooking the beach,
almost like a extended bowl.
[intense music]
You'd be coming in, gray
skies, smoke, noise.
Ramp would drop,
and then there's this just
absolute massive fire.
[ramp thuds]
[g*ns blasting]
[Col. Douds] 85 machine g*ns
laying down
[g*ns blasting]
[somber music]
People start getting shot and k*lled.
You see dead people
floating in the water.
[somber music]
You're soaking wet.
You don't run up the beach.
You stagger up the beach.
Guys are trying to clear obstacles.
You're trying to move ahead.
[plane engine buzzing]
Your senses are overwhelmed
with all the things going around you.
[intense music]
[Paul] That first wave is
getting mowed down
in great numbers.
It's roughly 85% k*lled or wounded
in the as*ault waves on Omaha.
[intense music]
[Craig] Eisenhower is receiving only
intermittent reports,
except, of course, that on Omaha Beach,
it's not going as planned.
While he tried to project
a confident demeanor,
you know that inside him
he's just roiling with concern.
[intense music]
[Dan C.] Failure is another Dunkirk.
Failure's the loss of
all your equipment.
Failure is your troops being
marched off into captivity.
If everything goes wrong,
it means a longer w*r.
[Tom] The day before the landings
General Eisenhower, knowing the risks
and understanding the responsibility,
penned a brief note.
"My decision to attack
was based upon the best
information available.
The troops did all that bravery
and devotion to duty could do.
If any blame or fault is
attached to the attempt,
it is mine alone."
[g*ns blasting]
[plane engine buzzing]
[intense music] [plane engine buzzing]
[g*ns blasting]
[Tom] On the morning of the
Normandy invasion,
the first wave of American
troops at Utah Beach
land almost a mile
south of their target,
but quickly regroup and
manage to take the beach
and push inland.
[men chattering]
The British landings at
Gold and Sword beaches
go better than expected.
But at Juno Beach,
the first wave of Canadian troops
meets tough German resistance.
[g*ns blasting]
And at Omaha Beach, rough
seas and intense German fire
wreak havoc on the
first American troops.
[intense music]
[g*n blasting]
But more men are on their way.
[intense music]
[Geoffrey] The German
defenders on the Atlantic wall,
they look out that morning,
and they're stunned by what they see.
I mean, they see the biggest fleet
ever gathered for an invasion.
The Germans all talked about how
they were so densely packed.
It looked like you could
just walk from ship to ship.
[g*ns blasting]
[Dr, Lieb] For the average
German soldier on D-Day,
the experience is
something totally new.
[g*n blasting]
This naval bombardment-
[g*n blasting]
It really shakes up the
psyche of the German soldiers.
[intense music] [g*ns blasting]
[plane engine buzzing]
[g*ns blasting]
[Robert] There are two crucial
German command failures.
One is that Rommel isn't there.
He's back in Germany
celebrating his wife's birthday.
When he hears that the
landing has happened,
he says something along the lines of,
"How could I have been so stupid?"
Even more important is Hitler.
[intense music]
[Col. Douds] The morning of
the invasion, June 6th, 1944,
Adolf Hitler is asleep,
but nobody will dare wake him up,
even though word has come in
about this invasion starting.
[Robert] So in the crucial
five or six or seven hours
when the Germans might have landed
some quick blow against the Allies,
those Panzer divisions
in the central reserve
that can only be released into combat
by Hitler's express order
are pretty much without a commander.
[Dr. Lieb] As a consequence,
the German's reactions on D-Day
end up a big mess.
[intense music]
[Tom] By midday,
the troops at Gold, Sword,
Juno, and Utah have
started to push inland,
and momentum finally
shifts at Omaha Beach.
The sheer scale of the
invasion helps turn the tide,
but it also comes down to
individual acts of bravery.
[intense music]
At Pointe du Hoc
US Army Rangers scale
[intense music]
At Utah Beach, Brigadier
General Teddy Roosevelt Jr,
the son of former president
Theodore Roosevelt,
leads a division that
lands south of the target.
[James] They came ashore and
he suddenly realized
that they were in
completely the wrong bit.
And he said, "To hell with it.
The w*r starts here."
[Tom] Roosevelt's son,
Captain Quentin Roosevelt II,
is in the first landing wave at Omaha.
They're the only father son duo
who will land on the beaches that day.
[intense music]
Corporal Waverly Woodson,
a medic with the 320th
Barrage Balloon Battalion
is wounded before he
even hits the beach.
[Col. Douds] But he will treat
almost 200 members
of the US Army, Navy, and British Navy
as they come ashore on Omaha Beach,
all the while under intense
mortar and machine g*n fire.
[gulls squawking]
[somber music]
[Tom] By the end
of the day on June 6th,
the Allies have secured
all five beaches
and have pushed inland.
[somber music]
In the coming days,
they will link up with
the airborne forces
to create a continuous,
connected front along the coast.
[Dan S.] It was Eisenhower who meshed
all of the different nationalities.
He brought 'em together,
and Eisenhower deserves
a lot of credit.
[Col. Douds] He's accountable.
He's responsible.
That's what leaders do
in good times and bad.
Right man for the job.
[Michel] Eisenhower understands,
probably better than anyone,
now the real hard fighting
on the continent of Europe
is about to begin.
And at the same time,
there's a ray of hope.
Allied victory is increasingly
going to become possible.
The US theory of how you can wage w*r
has now been proven correct.
You can have a multinational alliance
pull off the most complex
military operation
the world had ever seen.
[Col. Douds] It's not just the
infantry.
It's all the airmen
that set the conditions.
It's all the Coast Guardsmen
and the sailors that drew the ships.
It's all the people who manufactured
all the stuff back in Detroit.
It's a global effort
to make D-Day work.
[somber music]
[President Roosevelt]
My fellow Americans,
in this poignant hour,
I ask you to join with me in prayer.
Almighty God, our sons,
pride of our nation,
this day have set upon
a mighty endeavor,
a struggle to preserve our republic,
our religion,
and our civilization,
and to set free a suffering humanity.
[intense music]
[Jon] President Roosevelt
says in his D-Day prayer,
"Our forces will be thrown back.
Their road will be long and hard."
[Roosevelt] But we shall
return again and again.
And we know that by thy grace
and by the righteousness of our cause,
our sons will triumph.
[Tom] On D-Day, the 101st Airborne,
just hours after being
addressed by General Eisenhower,
parachuted into occupied France.
Despite being scattered
across enemy territory,
these men clear the
path for American forces
to emerge off Utah Beach and
begin the advance on Germany.
A second front is firmly established
on the continent of Europe.
In the Pacific w*r, the
boundaries are enormous,
ranging through Asia and
into numerous remote islands
across the ocean.
Attacking this new front
will require the most advanced
aircraft ever built.
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01x13 - Overlord
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Explores WWII from Germany's invasion of Poland through the atomic age, examining pivotal battles, wartime leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt, and the human cost of total w*r.
Explores WWII from Germany's invasion of Poland through the atomic age, examining pivotal battles, wartime leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt, and the human cost of total w*r.