All language subtitles for World.War.II.in.Colour.S02E01.Overlord.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

1944,
and on the Eastern Front,

Hitler's forces
were being pushed back

towards the German border.

But Germany was about
to face a new threat.

In the west, Allied forces
had been preparing for months

to open a new front
in north-west France.

Training for it
was well underway.

But it was an attack Hitler
had long been expecting.

His problem was knowing
when, and above all,

where it would come.

The stage was set for one
of the greatest battles

of World War Two - D-Day,

the Allied landings along
the Normandy coast of France.

Since the early years
of the war,

Britain's Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill,

had always been certain
that at some point

an Allied invasion of northern
Europe would be necessary.

The only questions were
when, where and how?

To test the waters, British
forces had already mounted

a number of practice operations.

In December 1941,

British Commandos raided
the Vaagso Islands

off the coast
of Nazi-occupied Norway.

It was an attempt to
probe German defenses

and tie down Hitler's
troops in the north.

A fish oil factory and
coastal defenses were blown up

before the Commandos withdrew.

Eight months later, Canadian
and British troops were sent in

to mount a more ambitious raid
on the French port of Dieppe.

It too was designed
to test the defenses

and also to provide combat
experience for the Canadians.

But this time,
it was a catastrophe.

As landing craft approached
the main beach,

they were met by withering fire.

Those troops that made it ashore
were immediately pinned down.

Behind them,
the supporting tanks

became bogged down
in the shingle.

Few managed to scale
the sea wall.

Over 3,000 Allied soldiers
were killed or taken prisoner.

Britain had learnt
an important lesson -

never attempt a direct assault
on a German-occupied port.

Equally importantly,
the Dieppe disaster reinforced

the British view
that an invasion of Europe
could not be rushed.

Churchill understood it would
require careful planning.

Eventually, in April 1943,

at an Allied conference
in Washington,

Churchill and the US President,
Franklin Roosevelt,

agreed upon a date.

D-Day, or Operation Overlord,

as the seaborne invasion
of France was formally called,

would take place
in the summer of 1944.

But by now the Germans were
preparing for it in earnest.

Since the winter of 1941,

they had been building
an Atlantic Wall.

It was a massive series
of fortifications

running along the European
coast from Denmark

to the Spanish border.

Gun emplacements had been
constructed at likely
landing sites.

Beaches had been mined
and covered in barbed wire.

Obstacles had been placed
in strategic places

to block landing craft.

Hitler had boasted:

"I am the greatest builder
of fortifications of all time."

In the summer of 1942, in
the wake of the Dieppe attack,

work on the Atlantic Wall
had been stepped up.

Hitler had also ordered
an increase in troop numbers
in the region.

The German overall commander
in the west,

Field Marshal
Gerd Von Rundstedt,

had been given
15 further divisions.

But the western European coast
stretched for some 2,000 miles.

He didn't have the numbers
to man the entire length.

Von Rundstedt faced
a difficult decision.

Where should he position
his over-stretched forces

to maximize their effect?

The question led to
bitter arguments

inside the German leadership.

Von Rundstedt proposed
holding a large force of Panzers

in reserve north-west of Paris.

He could then send it
in against an invasion

once he knew where
it was happening.

But the hugely respected
Field Marshal, Erwin Rommel,

commander of the troops covering
the sector from Holland

along the French coast to the
Loire, had a different view.

Rommel's concern was
Allied air power.

He'd seen it first-hand when
he'd fought the British
in North Africa

and it had left
a profound impression.

He feared that that any
counterattack would be broken up

by Allied aircraft long before
it could go into action.

Rommel had also inspected
Hitler's Atlantic Wall

and found much of it wanting.

It had forced him to the
conclusion that the best place

to position the Panzers
was as close as possible

to the most likely
landing sites.

That way an invasion could
be immediately pushed back

before it got a foothold.

Hitler compromised.

Rundstedt was given a small
force he could hold in reserve,

though Hitler himself
would have the final say

as to when it could be used.

The rest of the additional
troops were scattered along

the entire Atlantic seaboard in
accordance with Rommel's wishes.

It would turn out to be
the worst of all the solutions.

There were neither
enough reserves

not enough tanks near the coast.

But in the autumn of 1943,
none of this was clear.

In Britain, the Allied planners
were also grappling

with the problem of location.

Where was
the best place to land?

Their chief planner,
General Frederick Morgan,

quickly realized there
were two principle options -

the Pas de Calais and Normandy.

The Pas De Calais was
clearly the favorite.

It offered the shortest
sea crossing.

And it offered the shortest
and most direct way to Germany.

But it was also
the most obvious route,

and Morgan was sure
the Germans were expecting it.

So he decided
to wrong foot them.

Morgan would land in Normandy.

It was the beginning
of a huge gamble

on which the fate
of hundreds of thousands

of soldiers would depend.

In the autumn of 1943,

Allied photo-reconnaissance
aircraft

swept over the beaches
of northern France.

It was part of a huge
planning operation

for the seaborne
invasion of Europe.

The fortifications
of the Atlantic Wall

were monitored by
the French Resistance.

Men crept ashore
to collect sand samples

to test whether armored
vehicles could be landed.

Northern France became
the most reconnoitered coastline

in the history of warfare.

It soon became clear
any landing would need

some kind of port facilities.

But the disaster at Dieppe had
shown that it was too dangerous

to attempt a direct assault
on a German-occupied port.

Britain's planners
were forced to come up with
an ingenious alternative.

Giant, hollow, concrete boxes
were constructed in Britain

that could later be towed
to the French coast.

There they would be sunk
to form an artificial harbor.

They were known by their
codename "Mulberries".

The Mulberries would be supplied
with fuel by a pipe line

unwound from giant reels
and dropped on the seabed.

It would run
for a hundred miles.

The pumping station
on the Isle of Wight

was disguised as
an ice-cream parlor.

But the raid on Dieppe had also
revealed a second problem.

How to get the first
wave of troops off the beaches

and through the German
fortifications.

The man told to solve
that question

was General Percy Hobart,

one of the pioneers
of armored warfare.

Hobart came up with a series
of ingenious devices.

The troops called them
"the Funnies".

They included such
extraordinary machines

as flame throwers
and floating tanks.

Flail tanks for clearing mines.

The "Bobbin" for laying firm
paths across sand or shingle.

An armored ramp
for climbing sea walls.

The Fascine Carrier
for tackling ditches.

And the bridging tank
for wider obstacles.

That left just one problem.

How to stop the Germans rushing
in overwhelming reinforcements

before the Allies had
established a foothold?

The answer was
to keep them guessing

until the very last moment

as to where the invasion
would take place.

Operation Bodyguard was
a massive and complex

deception campaign.

German double agents in Britain

now began sending
back to Germany

huge amounts of carefully
co-ordinated false information.

This emphasized
that the main landings

would be in the Pas de Calais,

although a feint attack
might be launched in Normandy.

To muddy the waters
still further,

the Allied military
created a fictitious army unit,

the so-called
First US Army Group or FUSAG.

It was stationed,
very obviously, in Kent,

bang opposite the Pas de Calais.

The man in charge of it was
the pistol-toting US General,

George Patton, who'd been
removed from action in Sicily

after slapping
shell-shocked soldiers.

Patton was rated by the Germans

as the Allies'
best attacking general,

just the man they expected
to command the invasion
of Western Europe.

Basha 5-2, this is
Basha 1-1 on Alpha...

Radio transmissions mimicked
the wireless traffic
of an army.

For the benefit of any Luftwaffe
reconnaissance aircraft

flying over Britain,
the fields of Kent

were filled
with inflatable tanks...

and carefully faked track marks.

There were dummy aircraft
made of wood and canvas.

Harbors along the Kent coast

were filled with
dummy landing craft.

There were even troops,

though these were,
in reality, back-up units.

In late 1943, the Allies
appointed US General
Dwight Eisenhower

as Supreme Allied Commander
for the invasion of Europe.

British General
Bernard Montgomery would be

in overall command of
the initial assault troops.

D-Day was fixed
for June 5th, 1944.

Two months before the landing,

Eisenhower launched
an elaborate air offensive

to disrupt German links
to the coast.

Once again, it was carefully
planned to give the impression

the Allies' target was
the Pas de Calais region.

As the date of
the invasion approached,

Allied troop numbers in England
reached over two million.

They were supported by
more than 3,000 tanks

and 12,000 aircraft.

The Germans were well aware
an invasion was imminent.

But they had been
completely taken in

by the Allies'
phony preparations in Kent

and were convinced
the most likely landing spot

was the Pas de Calais.

Everything seemed to be
going the Allies way.

The troops were briefed.

Then the weather
turned against them.

Rain lashed down,

visibility was poor
and the Channel was stormy.

Nevertheless on June 4th, 1944,

the assault troops
boarded their landing ships

and the armada of more than
5,000 vessels set sail.

But the rain
continued to lash down

and later that day the
invasion had to be postponed.

The ships returned to port

and the assault troops
faced a nerve-shredding wait.

Early the next morning, the
military leadership met again.

The naval commanders
were keen to go ahead.

But the air chiefs
were doubtful.

They worried the visibility
would still be too poor

to provide,
effective air support.

After a long silence,
Eisenhower looked up.

"Let's go," he said.

Operation Overlord,

the greatest seaborne
invasion ever, was underway.

D-Day had begun.

At 01:15 in the morning
of June 6th, 1944,

British aircraft,
towing gliders,

arrived over the coast
of northern France.

Then the gliders were
released and plunged down

to capture vital bridges
over the Caen Canal

in eastern Normandy.

The Allies had launched
their great gamble

to invade Hitler's empire
in Western Europe.

50 miles to the west,

US paratroops came down around
the village of St Mère-Eglise.

There was a fierce fire fight.

But three hours later,
the village was in US hands.

One of the most crucial battles
of World War Two was underway.

An hour later, horrified
German sentries along
the Normandy coast

saw a vast armada
appear out of the mist.

They had had no warning.

The Allied fleet had sailed
under cover of darkness.

Moreover Allied countermeasures
had confused the German radar

into believing the main weight
of the attack was approaching

the French coast further east,
at the Pas de Calais.

Allied warships off
the Normandy coast

now began pounding
the German defensive positions.

Wave after wave of
aircraft swept overhead.

Under cover of the bombardment,

assault troops
headed for the shore.

But as they closed in,

German artillery and
machine guns opened fire.

A number of
the landing craft were hit.

Others fell foul of
underwater obstructions.

But at 6:30 in the morning,

the first waves of troops
hit the beaches.

At the far western end,
the US 4th Infantry Division

came ashore near at what
they called Utah Beach.

Within two hours, it was linking
up with the US paratroopers

who'd landed at St Mère-Eglise.

Next door, at Omaha Beach,
it was more difficult.

The beach was a defenders'
dream with high cliffs

and few ways inland.

As the US 1st Infantry Division
waded ashore,

they were mown down
by German machine guns.

To make matters worse,

the Americans' amphibious
tanks were swamped.

The troops were
trapped on the beach.

Disaster was looming.

But finally, a few
of the soldiers managed
to scale the cliffs.

Against all the odds, the
Americans hung on to beach-head.

Further east, in the center
of the landing area,

Britain's 50th Infantry Division
came ashore at Gold Beach.

They too met savage fire.

But now the British
deployed their "Funnies".

The troops were soon
moving inland.

At the adjoining
landing spot, Juno Beach,

the Canadian 3rd Infantry
Division faced a similar
situation.

Here too, Britain's Funnies
were vital

in helping the troops
off the beach.

Finally, on the far left flank,
at Sword Beach,

the British 3rd
Infantry Division

met only patchy resistance.

Within hours, its Commandos
had linked up with

the glider-borne troops
at the Caen Canal.

By early afternoon,
the Allies had successfully

established
all of the beach-heads.

The timing of the invasion
had caught the Germans

completely by surprise.

They'd expected the Allies
to wait until the weather
had cleared.

Rommel, the operational
German commander

for the whole of
the north-west French coast,

had taken the opportunity
of bad weather

to visit his family
in Germany.

His immediate subordinate
in Normandy and Brittany,

General Friedrich Dollman,
was over 100 miles away,

taking part in
a war game exercise.

Only the overall German
commander for the whole
of Western Europe,

Field-Marshal Gerd Von
Rundstedt, was at his HQ.

But he needed
Hitler's permission

to move his Panzer reserves
to the battlefield.

However, Hitler was asleep and
his aides wouldn't wake him.

It wasn't until mid-day
that the Fuhrer

finally learnt about
the invasion.

But he didn't take it seriously.

He was still convinced
the main attack

would come in the Pas de Calais.

Normandy, he believed,
was just a feint.

Finally, in the late afternoon,
when the scale of the invasion

was becoming all too clear,
Hitler unleashed his reserves.

But they were too far away
to provide immediate support.

Despite stubborn
German resistance,

the beach-heads around Utah,
Gold and Juno, and Sword
were secure.

Only at Omaha was
the situation more precarious.

Here German resistance
had prevented the US troops

moving more than
a mile inland.

By nightfall on June 6th,

over a hundred thousand
Allied troops

had been landed in Normandy.

It had been an extraordinary
feat of planning,

ingenuity and courage.

The first day of the Allies'
great gamble had paid off.

But it was just the beginning.

Now they had to build up, break
out and push on into Europe.

As the second day dawned

on the greatest seaborne
invasion ever attempted,

thousands of Allied troops had
broken out of their beach-heads

and were moving inland.

But they found the Normandy
countryside hard going.

The patchwork of woodland
and small fields

provided ideal terrain for
German tanks and machine guns.

The Allies suffered
heavy casualties.

Allied air power provided
crucial support.

When Von Runstedt's Panzer
reinforcements arrived,

they'd been so depleted
by the air attacks

that they were unable to
mount a major counterattack.

The German reinforcements
were also hampered

by French Resistance fighters
operating behind German lines.

They ambushed troop convoys
and blew up bridges.

As a result, the
"Das Reich" SS Panzer Division

took over two weeks
to make a journey

which should have lasted
a mere three days.

Its troops took their fury out

on the French
civilian population.

The village of Oradour-sur-Glane

and its 642 inhabitants
were wiped out.

After four days of fighting,
all the Allied beach-heads

were finally able to link up.

But they'd still only managed
to penetrate ten miles inland.

Eventually, six days
after the landing,

the British commander
General Montgomery

launched a major assault

on the strategically
important town of Caen.

The British
7th Armored Division,

the "Desert Rats" advanced.

But its spearhead ran into
four German Tiger tanks.

The Allies Sherman tanks
were completely outclassed.

Their guns were out-ranged
and their shells unable

to penetrate the German armor.

They were
particularly vulnerable

because many ran
on petrol fuel

and were liable to burst
into flames when hit.

The Germans nicknamed
the Sherman the "Ronson"

after the cigarette lighter,

or more macabrely
the "Tommy cooker".

In less than five minutes
more than ten British tanks
were destroyed.

The attack on Caen stalled.

Outmatched by the German tanks,

the Allies relied on
air power and artillery.

But it wasn't enough.

The Desert Rats retreated.

Caen remained in German hands.

Meanwhile further west,

US forces advanced on
the equally important port

of Cherbourg.

It would take them nearly
ten days to get close to it.

They weren't helped
by the weather.

During the first week
of the invasion,

it had been relatively calm

and supplies and
reinforcements had poured in

through the Mulberry
artificial harbors.

But now the weather turned.
Gales swept the English Channel.

The US Mulberry harbor
at Omaha was destroyed.

The other Mulberry,
in the British sector,

was badly damaged and put out
of action for several days.

The flow of
reinforcements slowed.

It meant the port of Cherbourg

was an even more
vital objective.

As the US forces
now approached it,

the German garrison resisted.

There was fierce
house-to-house fighting.

It would take the Allies
a week to secure the city.

But the port had been trashed
by the fleeing Germans.

It would take a further month

before it could be
brought back into service.

Meanwhile, Montgomery launched
another assault on Caen.

But the storms had turned
the fields into a sea of mud.

Low cloud meant air support
was impossible.

To make matters worse,
the newly-arrived elite German

2nd SS Panzer Corps was thrown
into the defense of the city.

After four days the British
were, again, forced to halt.

Then, as the clouds cleared,

nearly 500 Allied bombers
devastated Caen.

British troops fought their way
into the north suburbs.

But the ruins made ideal
defensive positions
for the Germans.

Allied casualties mounted.

After 48 hours, the attack
was, yet again, called off.

Three weeks later, Montgomery
tried for a fourth time.

The plan was to capture
the remaining German strongholds

and then push on south
deeper into France.

After two more days of fighting,
the city was finally won.

The way now seemed open
for the British tanks

to move south,
deeper into France.

But the Germans were waiting
with a large force of Panzers.

The British advance
stopped again.

The Americans in the west,
however,

were having an easier time.

The fighting around
Caen had sucked in

the majority of
the German defenders.

As the American forces prepared
to thrust deeper into France,

they faced only
scattered opposition.

The scene was set for the Allied
forces to break out at last.

At 9:30 in the morning
of July 25th, 1944,

over 1,800 Allied aircraft
carpet bombed

a four mile stretch
of the German frontline

south of Cherbourg.

It was the beginning
of Operation Cobra,

the US breakout into France.

The German defenders were
stunned by the size
of the assault.

But so too were some
of the US soldiers.

The plan had been for the
bombers to fly in from the east,

parallel to the US frontline,

to minimize the risk of
bombing American troops.

But most of the aircraft

came in over the top
of the US lines.

Bombs fell short.

Over a hundred US troops
were hit and killed.

Yet despite the ferocity
of the bombardment,

when the US forces later
picked themselves up

and moved forward they found,
to their astonishment,

substantial numbers of
German troops had survived.

The survivors mounted
a stubborn resistance.

As fighting raged, it looked
as though the Americans

would fail to break
through the German lines.

But then the German
defenses crumbled.

The next morning US
tanks broke through

and moved forward
into open country.

There was now almost no
German resistance left

and the Americans quickly
pushed deeper into France.

The hill town of Coutances fell.

Then the cross-roads town
of Avranches.

As the Allies pressed forward

they were helped
by change and confusion

in the German High Command.

At the beginning of July, three
weeks after the D-Day landings,

Hitler dismissed the German
Commander-in-Chief,

Field Marshal Gerd Von
Rundstedt, for "defeatism".

Von Rundstedt had made little
attempt to hide his belief

that Germany faced
an unwinnable struggle.

He was replaced by Field Marshal
Guenther Von Kluege,

fresh from the Eastern Front,

but with little knowledge
of north-western France.

Two weeks later, Rommel,

the second most senior
German officer on the front,

was severely injured
when his staff car

was strafed
by a British fighter.

Then, with the Nazi command
already in confusion,

there was an assassination
attempt on Hitler's life.

On July 20th, 1944,

a disillusioned
aristocratic war hero,

Colonel Claus Schenck
Graf von Stauffenburg,

planted a bomb
in the planning hut

at Hitler's headquarters
in East Prussia.

Four officers were killed.

But Hitler was sheltered
by a heavy, solid-oak
conference table

and escaped with
only minor injuries.

The plot was swiftly
and brutally put down.

Von Stauffenburg was shot

and his principal
collaborators put on trial.

They would later be hanged.

Hitler put a brave face on it

and visited some of
the wounded in hospital.

But it hardened still further

his distrust
of his senior officers.

He would, despite his
many earlier misjudgments,

demand even greater control
over events on the battlefield.

Back in France,
General George Patton,

back in charge of
a real fighting force,

ordered his troops to fan out.

They took Rennes, Mayenne,

and headed for Le Mans.

They were now moving round
behind the German forces

still battling it out with the
British and Canadians near Caen.

With the Americans
to their south

and the British to their north,

it seemed the German forces
in Normandy

would be surrounded.

Hitler issued his usual order
that there should be no retreat,

but as the Allies
squeezed in on them,

the Germans began to flee.

They were remorselessly
harried by Allied aircraft
and artillery.

The casualties were appalling.

Finally, on August 20th, 1944,

the Allied forces moving in
from both the north
and south met up.

The so-called "Falaise Gap",

named after
the nearby French village,

had been closed.

Large numbers of
Germans were trapped.

Over 10,000 more Germans, caught
in the Allied pincer, died.

A further 50,000
were taken prisoner.

The German army in
Western Europe was in chaos.

Meanwhile, far to the south,

on the French Mediterranean
coast near Cannes,

there was a second
Allied seaborne invasion.

US troops came ashore,
virtually unopposed.

They were helped by paratroopers
from the Free French Army,

men who had escaped from
German-occupied French territory

in Europe and North Africa.

The landing had always
been opposed by the British,

who regarded it as a diversion.

But the United States
had long regarded it

as an essential part of clearing
the Germans out of France.

The troops were greeted by
an ecstatic civilian population.

It was soon advancing
rapidly up the Rhone Valley.

Lyons was liberated
on September 3rd, 1944.

Ten days later,
they reached Dijon

and made contact
with Patton's forces

advancing from western France.

German units stationed
across the region fled.

In barely three weeks
of headlong advance,

the Allied invasion of Europe
had liberated most of France.

That left Paris, where
French resistance fighters

now rose up against
the German occupation.

There seemed little
to prevent the Allied onrush

from continuing
to the German border.