All language subtitles for NOVA.S41E22.720p.HDTV.x264-BAJSKORV

NARRATOR:
Off the coast of France,

an international team is
exploring

a hidden battlefield...

looking for the secrets

of how the greatest naval
invasion in history unfolded.

Buried here is a treasure trove
of ships, tanks,

and potentially
unexploded mines.

These are the wrecks of D-Day...
June 6, 1944.

For years, Hitler had devastated
Europe, killing millions.

Now was the time for the Allies
to make their move.

MAN:
It was an all-out gamble.

It was nothing less than the
history of Western civilization.

NARRATOR:
But the odds were against them.

MAN:
It's hell.

It's about as bad
as combat can get.

NARRATOR:
Three years in the making,

this was the most epic struggle
of the 20th century.

These are the men
who made the difference.

You should understand that.

NARRATOR:
D-Day required the best minds
in the military,

working with scientists
and engineers...

MAN:
D-Day is a triumph

of technology and engineering.

MAN:
The guys that planned
the logistics for this

were unbelievable.

NARRATOR:
...new machines

to break through Hitler's
vicious defenses,

ingenious and untested ways
to deliver an invading army.

MAN:
I always knew it was big,

but I think this makes you feel
how big it is.

NARRATOR:
Today's expedition investigates

how the Allies tipped the odds
in their favor.

Whoa, look at that.

NARRATOR:
And brings veterans back

to the place where they nearly
lost their lives.

MAN:
Bet you never thought
you'd see that again.

No.

NARRATOR:
New technologies and veterans'
memories come together

to reveal this hallowed ground.

The hidden battlefield is one
of our most sacred charges.

NARRATOR:
Right now on NOVA,
"D-Day's Sunken Secrets".

Major funding for NOVA
is provided by the following:

NARRATOR:
Along the north coast of France

is the picturesque region
of Normandy.

(birds chirping)

Charming villages,

farms with their patchwork
of small fields,

and beautiful beaches where
Parisians come for a holiday.

But few realize that just beyond
these tranquil beaches

is evidence of the biggest

and the most dangerous
naval invasion of all time.

The violence of that battle
still lives

in the World War II wrecks
that lie just off the coast.

These wrecks tell the story
of D-Day.

(explosions)

June 6, 1944.

7,000 warships...

11,000 airplanes...

and 200,000 men...

Crossing at dawn from England
to these beaches at Normandy

to liberate Europe
from the Nazis.

Four years earlier, Hitler
had conquered most of Europe,

killing millions

and setting up the most epic
struggle of the 20th century.

All along the north coast
of Europe, the Nazis had built

a vicious wall of defenses
to stop just such an invasion.

D-Day took three years
to organize

and was the Allied Forces'
best chance to retake Europe.

But the odds were against them,

and the future of the free world
hung in the balance.

It has now been 70 years

since this battle
that changed history,

but the magnitude of that
invasion still inspires awe.

How did the Allied Forces
of Great Britain,

the United States and Canada,
depleted by years of war,

manage to pull it off?

NICK HEWITT:
One of the things
we are learning

is to treat the evidence
of 20th century battlefields

as proper archaeology.

NARRATOR:
Nick Hewitt,

an historian at the National
Museum of the Royal Navy,

says that these D-Day wrecks
can tell us things

no official document can.

HEWITT:
The beauty of the D-Day
underwater battlefield

is the evidence is still there.

It's all laid out for us.

All we have to do is interpret
the evidence to tell the story.

NARRATOR:
What is the true story
of this invasion?

It's referred to as D-Day,

but what do these wrecks reveal
about the invasion

and how long it took
to secure a foothold in Europe?

And what tales do they tell us
about the necessary engineering

that made this all possible?

HEWITT:
D-Day is a triumph
of technology and engineering.

And what you see is specifically
engineered solutions

to specific problems.

NARRATOR:
Buried here are inventions

of scientists, engineers,
and even maverick businessmen,

some of the unsung heroes

drafted into this immense
war effort.

These wrecks comprise
one of the largest

underwater archeological sites
in the world,

and it is beginning to get the
closer examination it deserves.

To understand
this hidden battlefield

and these inventions,
an international team

of oceanographers,
historians and archeologists

has set out to examine
the evidence buried here.

This is a new one, yeah.

It's right off of Utah beach.

NARRATOR:
There are hundreds of ships,

as well as tanks, guns, and
potentially unexploded mines.

The expedition team uses
the latest in sonar technology

and even deep-water submarines

to investigate the remains
of this epic naval battle.

Undiscovered evidence
is being charted and explored,

like this American Sherman tank,

one of the iconic weapons
of World War II.

How did this weapon,
intended for a land battle,

end up here,
intact and underwater?

It's mysteries like this that
the expedition will investigate

over the next six weeks.

SYLVAIN PASCAUD:
There are few areas in the world

where you have so many wrecks
concentrated in one area.

NARRATOR:
Sylvain Pascaud,
the director of the expedition,

believes a systematic
exploration

of this "lost fleet"
is necessary

to give a true picture
of what this battle really was.

Oh, look at that.

HEWITT:
When we think
of the D-Day landings,

we think of a land battle.

We think of great movies,
we think of boots on the beach.

But actually, 6th of June 1944

was the biggest, most complex
amphibious landing in history.

(explosions)

NARRATOR:
The expedition starts off
with a sonar-equipped catamaran

named the Magic Star.

Onboard is the latest
neration sonar,

submerged underwater
in the middle of the boat.

Sonar uses sound waves
transmitted through the water

to image what is below
on the ocean floor,

like this British ship.

For a solid month,

the Magic Star
will sail back and forth

in up to 40 miles stretches...

...each pass revealing
long strips

of this hidden battlefield.

It's like mowing a lawn...

a 200-square-mile lawn,
that is...

with each pass
overlapping the last

to make sure
they don't miss a spot...

VoilÃ.

Très bien.

NARRATOR:
...or a ship
on the ocean floor below.

This survey phase
will reveal potential targets

for further investigation,
like the mysterious sunken tank.

We're right at the edge
of the caisson.

NARRATOR:
Onboard is Andy Sherrell, who
leads the team of sonar experts.

Ralph will run you through
our target.

ANDY SHERRELL:
We collect one line
of data at a time,

but as you can see here, we're
combing line by line by line.

We're trying to build
a very large

underwater archeological map
of the whole area.

NARRATOR:
This area covers the site
of the D-Day naval battle

where the Allied Forces,

led by Britain,
the United States, and Canada,

sought to regain a foothold
in Europe.

Four years earlier,

the Nazis had conquered France
along with much of Europe.

(explosions)

Ever since, the Allied Forces
had planned in secret

how to fight back.

They needed to win a toehold
in France,

and then could drive up
to Berlin from the west.

The Soviet Union would push in
from the east,

choking Hitler in the middle.

The stakes
could not have been higher.

HENRY HENDRIX:
What is at stake

was nothing less than the
history of Western civilization.

It was an all-out gamble.

It was pushing
all your poker chips

onto the center of the table.

NARRATOR:
Captain Henry J. Hendrix,

the chief historian
for the U.S. Navy,

says what was involved
in pulling off D-Day

is hard to even imagine today.

HENDRIX:
The Germans had literally years

to prepare the defense
of the beaches.

So they are ready.

They know if Germany
is to be defeated,

the Allies have to reenter
the continent somewhere.

So the question is really where?

NARRATOR:
The options for the invasion
were limited,

and they had already tried
unsuccessfully

in other locations.

Two years earlier in France,

the Allies tried to capture
a port in a town named Dieppe.

That battle against the
fortified German positions there

was a disaster.

More than 60% of Allied soldiers
were killed or captured.

This failure haunted British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill

and changed the course
of the war.

In response to previous
failures,

President Roosevelt
and Churchill

met several times in secret
to create a new strategy.

The plan they devised

was to overtake the region
of Normandy from the Nazis.

And the naval invasion
was just the beginning.

The entire plan was codenamed
Operation Overlord.

And the naval invasion
It would be a surprise.

The Nazis had expected
an invasion at Calais

because it was so close
to England and had a port.

Instead, the decision was to go
further down the French coast

where there were no large ports

and target the beaches
of Normandy

with a massive
amphibious landing...

a much more difficult operation.

RICK ATKINSON:
In an amphibious operation,

generally,
there's no middle ground.

You either succeed or you don't.

You get ashore
and you move inland

or you get thrown back
into the sea,

unlike most battles
where you can retreat

and fight again the next day.

You can't retreat
in an amphibious operation.

Overlord in Normandy
is really the big gamble

about whether democracy
as we know it

was going to continue and
survive and grow and flourish

and that people would be free

as we thought that
they should be free,

or whether Nazism

and the atrocities
that Hitler was committing,

genocide, was going to succeed.

NARRATOR:
In the end, five
landing beaches were chosen:

Two American, one Canadian,
and two British.

They were given code names

of Utah, Omaha, Gold,
Juno and Sword.

But even its chief architect

wasn't sure this plan
would work.

The night before the invasion,

General Eisenhower
wrote a letter

taking the blame if it failed.

EISENHOWER (recording):
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
is attached to the attempt,

it is mine alone.

NARRATOR:
Perhaps the best way
to understand

why Eisenhower was so worried
is to stand on Omaha Beach

and see what the Allies
were up against.

Omaha Beach is an excellent
defensive location.

If you're the Germans,
what you want to be able to do

is kill anything on the beach.

NARRATOR:
Adrian Lewis,
a former Army Ranger,

is a history professor
at the University of Kansas.

And he has taught military
strategy to West Point cadets.

The geographic formations here,

the terrain,
makes it excellent.

From one end
where the landing takes place

to the other end here
is about four miles long.

NARRATOR:
Lewis says any fighting strategy

must begin with understanding
the geography

of the battlefield.

Omaha Beach is banana shaped.

That banana shape is important.

So instead of having your weapon
systems pointing out to sea,

what you would do

is actually have them pointing
into the beach.

So if I put machine gun
positions,

artillery positions
on this flank,

and then I put more
on this flank,

instead of having them
point out to sea,

I'm actually having them
pointing in,

and that's what
the Germans did.

(gunshots)

NARRATOR:
This inward pointing fire,
or interlocking fields of fire,

created a deadly kill zone
on the beaches.

This was a huge advantage
for the Germans.

Excellent terrain
for putting in a defense.

As a matter of fact,
if I were doing this thing,

I'd rather be
on the German side.

NARRATOR:
In addition, the cliffs
that surround the beach

gave the Nazis the high ground.

It seemed that nature
gave them every advantage

in this crucial battle.

HENDRIX:
You're up against the weather.

You're up against the tide.

You're up against the beach.

And when you are dealing
with forces of that size,

it's hard to get it done
in the right way.

NARRATOR:
This area off the coast
is known for unreliable weather

and some of the strongest ocean
tides in the world.

Those conditions
are even difficult

for today's expedition.

PASCAUD:
We've got three challenges:

The weather, the tides,
and the current.

I just cannot imagine
5,000 vessels with 200,000 men

in conditions like that.

If you disregard the weather,
the current and the tide,

you will be going
absolutely nowhere.

NARRATOR:
Ocean levels here

can rise and fall
up to 25 feet a day.

The effects can easily be seen

over the course of a few hours
on the beaches.

Here when the tide is out,
the width of the beach increases

a full 300 yards wider
at low tide.

The significance of that is
it meant the soldiers on D-Day

would be exposed for much longer
to the deadly Germany crossfire.

D-Day planners needed
to understand every detail

about the geography
of this battlefield

to plan for the assault.

But how do you get
that information

when the entire country
is under enemy control?

Evidence of the incredible
effort to figure this out

still exists at the United
Kingdom Hydrographic Office,

one of the world's
leading producers

of navigational charts.

This building was
an important intelligence site,

its location a state secret.

In fact, the building
was camouflaged

to hide it from Nazi bombers.

Inside, top-secret documents
still exist.

"Neptune" was the code name
for the naval operation.

These artifacts aren't
quite like the sunken wrecks

off the coast of Normandy,
but they are important evidence

of ways the D-Day planners found
around the obstacles:

An effort that began
long before the invasion.

CHRIS HOWLETT:
You have mines here.

Barbed wire entanglement here.

NARRATOR:
Cartographer Chris Howlett

explains that mapping
the Normandy region

was an extraordinary
top-secret operation

that required math, science
and daring spy missions.

(cameras snapping)

Low-flying aircraft were
dispatched over the beaches.

And surveillance photographs

were taken at intervals
throughout the day,

documenting the changing tides.

(cameras snapping)

HOWLETT:
These black lines
are where the water line was

on different tides.

NARRATOR:
Why was this useful?

Using those different
tide levels,

mathematicians could calculate

the exact slope
of the different beaches,

necessary to figure out
what vehicles could be used.

Knowing every detail
of the beach was crucial.

At Dieppe, the Allies discovered
only after landing

that their tanks could not get
traction on the beaches there.

Every way of getting information
was used.

Even past vacation postcards
were requested.

HOWLETT:
They put out a public request
for the people of Britain.

"Any postcards you collected

"in your holidays to France
before the war,

send them in to us
and they may be of use."

And millions of postcards
were sent in.

NARRATOR:
These postcards
gave essential information

about what the coast of France,

by now in enemy hands
for four years, looked like.

But not all the necessary
information

could be gleaned
from a safe distance.

Just off the Nazi-controlled
beaches lurks an X-Craft.

Inside this mini-submarine
are five underwater spies.

HEWITT:
Perhaps one of the earliest
phases of the battle

was the survey
and preparatory work

carried out by men serving
aboard miniature submarines...

the X-Craft... who were
effectively secret agents.

NARRATOR:
The X-Craft were 50 feet long
and barely five feet high.

Some missions lasted two weeks
in these cramped quarters.

The surveillance gathered
was used in making these maps,

including some
from the perspective of the sea,

showing visible landmarks
on the beach

like church steeple or houses.

These were crucial
for navigating the landings.

HEWITT:
They came up with a novel idea.

The view at the bottom here

is the view that you
would expect to see

if you were coming in
from a landing craft

at any given point
along this map.

NARRATOR:
Jim Booth was a member
of this elite submarine force,

venturing into mine-filled,
Nazi-controlled waters

with barely any
navigational guides.

BOOTH:
Navigation of course
was difficult

because then,
there were no SAT and air.

A classic old-fashioned
navigational trip:

Pencil and ruler
and gyrocompass.

NARRATOR:
Booth's mission was to go ahead
of the invasion force

and set up light beacons

so the huge armada of Allied
ships would know where to go.

His submarine was assigned
to the British landing beach

codenamed Sword, the furthest
east of the five beaches.

He would be one of the first
soldiers in action on D-Day.

He was in position at 0100...

military terminology
for 1:00 a.m.

Today, Jim Booth
has come back to Normandy

to take part
in the investigation.

(voice over radio)

This is no leisurely
retirement cruise...

the D-Day expedition has
brought in a team from Canada

with two deep-water submarines.

HEWITT:
The veterans who stormed

the beaches of Normandy,

they're the most
incredible people.

No one can bear witness with the
same kind of emotional intensity

that someone who was there can.

We're losing about 600 veterans
every day.

When they slip away,
they are in the shadows forever.

NARRATOR:
For the first time in 70 years,
Jim Booth will go underwater

off the coast of Normandy,
just like he did for D-Day.

There is a very small
amount of worries

because he's 92.

I haven't been in a submarine
at all since then, no.

HEWITT:
I think you will find
you can see a lot better

from that one
than you could in yours.

Well, we had no windows
of course at all.

NARRATOR:
Ironically, this time

the submarine is even smaller
than the X-Craft.

But Jim Booth will only have
to stay in the submarine

for an hour

instead of the four days he did
before D-Day.

Today's dive is
in the exact same location

off of Sword beach.

His shipmate is military
historian Nick Hewitt.

HEWITT:
Any second now,

you're going to be underwater
for the first time in 70 years.

Here we go.

Look at that!

Isn't it amazing?

It's reasonably clear
today too, isn't it?

MAN:
Pickup target
straight ahead.

The wreck's about
15 meters below.

HEWITT:
There's a shadow.

There is something here.

MAN:
Roger, I've got visual.

HEWITT:
Jim's role on the 6th of June

is to mark the safe channel
through the enemy minefields.

So Jim has to go out
with a small group of men

in advance of the landings,

navigate themselves
to exactly the right spot,

surface alongside,
we must remember, a minefield,

and light a beacon

so that the incoming ships
can pass safely through.

So we need to keep
our eyes peeled.

NARRATOR:
It was in this spot
off of Sword beach

that Jim Booth placed
the beacons on D-Day.

HEWITT:
Did you have an understanding

of how enormous
the scale of it all was?

Almost everybody was just
a tiny cog in this vast wheel.

NARRATOR:
His sub surrounded by mines,
Booth and the X-Craft crew

had to find the exact location
to set up the beacons.

But with no lights on shore
or radar, how did they do it?

It was very,
very complicated.

One has to remember that
all of the navigation aides

had been switched off
because of security.

We knew we were in France.

It didn't take very long to
recognize it was a church tower.

We did recognize that.

NARRATOR:
In the end,

Booth and his X-Craft crew
navigated using the landmarks

that had been mapped
by the Hydrographic Department.

Booth says it was the Allies'
attention to detail

in the planning that
made the difference,

and that was a direct result

of the lessons learned
from the disaster at Dieppe.

Dieppe was really intended to be
a test run for Normandy.

It did all the things wrong.

Those lessons were learnt,

and this was put into good force
for Normandy.

NARRATOR:
But the one thing the Allies
couldn't control

was the weather
for the invasion,

and the forecast
did not look good.

By May 1944,

two million soldiers
were in southern England,

waiting for the go ahead
from their commanders.

And with 11,000 airplanes
and 7,000 ships involved

in this complicated operation,
decent weather was required.

But the science
of weather prediction

was not what it is today.

(thunder rumbling)

General Eisenhower
and his Supreme Allied Command

had only limited information,

since satellites
and weather RADAR

wouldn't be invented
until after the war.

Instead, weather data
was collected

at remote weather stations

and sent to the UK
Meteorological Office

in Essex, England.

Records like these,
dating back 150 years,

are still archived here,

including those
for the D-Day landings.

These maps detailed
weather patterns

and were meticulously drawn
to chart moving storm systems.

CHRIS TUBBS:
These were the weather maps
that they used for that process.

The maps were produced
every three hours,

whereas nowadays
they would be only done

every six or 12 hours.

NARRATOR:
High and low pressure systems...

the atmospheric conditions
that determine the weather...

were charted and analyzed
at the headquarters.

The low pressures
are basically bad weather:

Strong winds, rain,
a lot of clouds.

The high pressures
are mainly fine weather:

Lack of clouds
and quite warm temperatures,

in June anyway.

NARRATOR:
At the center of the operation

was Group Captain
James M. Stagg.

His responsibility was
to track the weather data

and report it directly
to General Eisenhower.

He kept a personal diary

that is still held
at the Meteorological Office.

It shows the enormous pressure
he was under.

The invasion was originally
planned for June 5.

MAN:
"Saturday June the 3rd.

"A day of extreme strain.

"The weather situation
got worse.

"Two depressions below
98 millibars at one in June.

Who could have forecast this?"

(thunder rumbling)

This map was from June the 3rd,
and this is showing

typical bad early summer weather
in the UK.

NARRATOR:
Before D-Day, there were
several storms lined up.

TUBBS:
We've got a succession of low
pressures across the charts:

One here, one here,
one to the northwest.

These are going to keep the
weather what we call unsettled...

so, clouds, rain,
gale force winds in the Channel.

Going to stir up
very rough seas.

So anybody who is on a boat
crossing the Channel

would be in danger.

MAN:
"June the 4th, 1944.

"At 0415 conference
this morning,

assault for tomorrow
definitely cancelled."

NARRATOR:
The bad weather
would limit air support

and create treacherous
conditions

for ships on the Channel.

The invasion force
is put on hold,

but time is running out.

MAN:
"Today, it began to appear

"that there might be a temporary
fair interval Monday night.

Should we advise
to make use of it?"

NARRATOR:
The timing of the invasion
had been selected

to correspond with the lowest
tide of the month.

This would give the Allies
maximum time

to unload men and equipment.

With the tide low and coming in,

ships can unload and be carried
out to sea on the rising tide.

If the tide were high
and going out,

boats would get stuck on the
beach as the water receded.

HENDRIX:
If you are on a ship

that makes land or gets close
to land at high tide

and suddenly the tide turns
against you

and the water is running out,
you either need to leave then

or your ship is actually
going to come

and ground in the mud flats.

NARRATOR:
Because of the changing tides,

Eisenhower could only wait
one more day.

If the weather didn't clear,

the invasion would have to be
postponed for weeks.

MAN:
"I'm now getting rather stunned.

It is all a nightmare."

NARRATOR:
Every day they waited,
there was an increased chance

that German intelligence
would discover

the huge invasion force
poised at the coastline

and realize that the invasion
was coming.

If discovered,

the crucial element of surprise
would be lost.

This is the chart for Monday,
June the 5th.

This was the original D-Day.

There were some
crucial observations

which made some of the
meteorologists start to think

that the 6th could be possible.

And these operations
were up here

in the north of the Atlantic.

And interestingly,
they marked things on here

which we don't nowadays,
called "col."

NARRATOR:
Cols are a gap,
or interval of calm,

that can exist
between bad weather systems.

TUBBS:
Cols exist between areas
of low pressure.

And these were quite important
for this situation

because they knew that if they
could get into an area of a col,

the chances for getting the
right weather for the landings

were better.

It wasn't a definite,
but it was a possibility.

It's Eisenhower's decision.

The momentum had already
built up.

"I've got everybody
locked and cocked, ready to go."

The fact that the weather
was so bad

actually made it one of his
harder decisions.

MAN:
"Monday June the 5th.

"After one hour's rest,
met conference at 0300.

"Fair interval confirmed

"and invasion put on final
and irrevocable decision.

Whatever the outcome,
the decision is taken."

NARRATOR:
Following this weather report
from Stagg,

General Eisenhower
ordered the invasion to begin.

Later, he broadcast
his blessings to the troops.

EISENHOWER (recording):
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.

Good luck,

and let us all beseech
the blessing of Almighty God

upon this great
and noble undertaking.

NARRATOR:
D-Day had begun,
and there was no turning back.

The armada of Allied ships
left England

and would sail through the night

to five different
landing beaches.

HEWITT:
The scale of it
is almost inconceivable.

It's 7,000 ships.

ATKINSON:
And they include
not only the ships

that are carrying
the infantrymen

who are going to the beaches,

but they include
bombardment ships.

HENDRIX:
Battleship after battleship.

And destroyers.

ATKINSON:
All of those have to be launched
from Britain.

There's intense choreography.

"You will go here,
you will go there,

you'll do it at this hour,"
and so on.

HENDRIX:
It was the most massive
naval force

that's ever been assembled.

HEWITT:
D-Day is without doubt

the single biggest, most complex
amphibious landing in history.

LEWIS:
The naval plan Operation Neptune

encompasses
50 miles of beachfront,

hundreds of thousands
of soldiers,

thousands of ships
and landing craft.

The magnitude of it
is incredible.

NARRATOR:
The landings were set for 0630,
early the following morning.

On the shores of Normandy,

the Germans could only see
the bad weather

and thought that it would
prevent any immediate invasion.

They also did not see that
just off the coast

were a handful of small
X-Craft submarines.

Onboard one was Jim Booth.

BOOTH:
It was a hell of a time ago.

69 years.

Obviously, it is emotional,
very, emotional.

It is very emotional indeed.

It was sort of in the direction
of the yacht,

but where the last ripples are.

That sort of distance from here.

We saw the soldiers
playing football.

Here, you know.

That was the day before,
actually.

So they didn't know, did they,
what was coming.

NARRATOR:
Off the coast, Jim Booth
and the X-Craft submarines

were not alone.

An 18-year-old Robert Haga
from Virginia

was aboard the USS Chickadee,

one of the ships that left
England ahead of the armada

to perform the essential task

of clearing the minefield
that the Nazis had laid.

(explosions)

An extremely dangerous
operation.

"June the 5th, 1944.

Underway for France."

NARRATOR:
Haga kept a personal diary
of these historic days.

HAGA:
"The invasion will be early
in the morning.

We are to go in first
and sweep a channel clear."

NARRATOR:
The Germans had heavily mined
the English Channel

as part of their Atlantic Wall.

Mines in World War II

are like the IEDs of today's
wars in Iraq or Afghanistan...

low-cost weapons,
but highly lethal.

The Magic Star team

has not found any unexploded
German mines so far,

since they were largely cleared
for safety after the war,

but can the sonar
reveal their effect?

This is pointed up here,
so it looks like a bow.

It's broken off.

I think it hit a mine.

NARRATOR:
They come across a Canadian ship
called the Fort Norfolk.

Its bow was broken off
by a mine.

SHERRELL:
That is unbelievable.

That is a gorgeous,
gorgeous wreck.

NARRATOR:
One mine can have a
disproportionately large impact,

sinking a whole ship
full of soldiers and equipment.

HEWITT:
The important thing
about all naval warfare

is the equipment
or the men contained in a ship

are an awful lot easier
to destroy at sea

than they are
once they've got ashore.

A single mine
could drown all those men

and destroy all their equipment.

It would take days of fighting
to do the same job on land.

NARRATOR:
One place you can safely see
some of these mines

and other military hardware
is the Museum of Normandy Wrecks

in a little town
called Port en Bessin.

It is a private collection
of D-Day military equipment

salvaged off the coast here.

Axel Niestle, an expert
on the German military,

says the Nazis used four
different kinds of mines

in the ocean off Normandy.

The most common
was a contact mine.

The whole body is filled
with explosives.

Once it goes up close
to the ship,

it can sink a battleship.

NARRATOR:
These mines were anchored
to the ocean floor

and floated just below
the water's surface.

(explosion)

The horns are detonators,

something like a very large
off/on switch.

And once the ship hits
one of these detonators here,

a chemical reaction is started.

The detonator is ignited,
which is a primer,

and then the full charge
is going off.

NARRATOR:
The Nazis had heavily mined
the bay just off the beaches,

and so the Allies
had to sweep lanes clear

just before the landings.

HENDRIX:
We waited
until the last instant.

Minesweeping tells you where
the landing is going to occur.

If you begin too early,

then you have already
tipped them off

on where the operation will be
focused and concentrated.

NARRATOR:
Haga's boat was third in a line

in the minesweeping operation
off of Omaha beach,

next to the USS Osprey.

"At 1800, the USS Osprey
was hit by a mine."

(explosion)

I was on the bow of the ship.

And when it hit,

the ship just lifted
out of the water and exploded.

This mine hit the magazine

that carried all the ammunition
in the ship.

NARRATOR:
Six men on the Osprey were
killed in the initial blast.

These were the first casualties
of D-Day.

HAGA:
A lot of the crewmen
were blown out into the water

and they were badly burned.

We were throwing rope ladders
over as fast as we could,

but they couldn't see.

So we were having to sometimes
hook onto each other

to pull them up, and the skin
would come off their arms.

I still have bad memories
about that.

NARRATOR:
Haga has returned to Normandy
as part of the expedition

and wanted to see

the newly installed
Navy Memorial at Utah Beach

that honors many of his
fellow minesweepers.

The mine sweeping operation
went on

in view of the German-
controlled beaches

in the hours leading up
to the invasion.

Everyone was haunted
by the possibility

that the soldiers there
would sound the alarm.

But that never happened,

perhaps because as part
of the operation,

the Allies made a massive effort
to mislead Hitler

into thinking that the invasion

would be further north,
along the coast near Calais.

Fleets of fake military gear

were positioned in England
across from Calais,

and an extensive
counterintelligence campaign

was organized
to deceive the Nazis.

ATKINSON:
It's one of the most

brilliant deceptions
in the history of warfare.

It's right up there
with the Trojan horse.

NARRATOR:
Not the Trojan horse,

but on the night
before the invasion,

another wood vehicle
was slipping behind enemy lines

unnoticed under the cover
of darkness.

There are two large rivers
that cross the road

between Normandy and Paris:

The Caen Canal
and the Orne River.

The Allies realized they needed
to capture these bridges

and other strategic targets
before the landings

or risk getting trapped
on the beaches.

It was urgent to get men
behind enemy lines

and secure these targets.

But how do you do that without
modern Apache helicopters?

One possibility
was dropping paratroopers.

But loud airplanes
could alert the Germans,

giving them time
to blow up the bridges.

So instead, the job fell to men
like Kermit Swanson,

a farm boy from Minnesota

trained to fly
a silent wood glider

behind enemy lines.

Our mission was to fly
that glider over there and land

and try to keep
from killing ourselves.

If we did, we completed
most of our objective.

NARRATOR:
The objective was made
more dangerous

by the landscape of Normandy.

This farming region is known for
its patchwork of small fields,

with fences formed out of a
dense hedge of rocks and trees.

The plan was to land
in the cover of darkness,

and those hedges
would not be visible.

You couldn't see
because it was dark.

NARRATOR:
The gliders could carry 12 men
or even a jeep,

land, and jump
right into action.

If they landed safely.

These planes were made
of wood and fabric

with a thin metal frame,

and would easily break apart
if they hit an obstacle.

DON PATTON:
It was terribly dangerous
to fly a glider.

It was dark, it was overcast,

you were having to land
into the little small fields.

I don't think anyone would want
to be going 90 miles an hour

and crash into a tree
with only plywood as a barrier.

NARRATOR:
The commander
for Allied air forces

predicted in a letter
to General Eisenhower

that the gliders
could suffer casualties

of up to 70% on D-Day.

The plan was to tow them
across the English Channel

with C-47 planes
just after midnight.

When they reached the drop zone,
their tow rope would be cut.

Then the pilots had about three
minutes before they had to land,

no matter what obstacles
were in their way.

You're now traveling at
about 80 miles an hour.

Now you make a turn, downwind.

And you've got three minutes

and the wheels are going
to be on the ground.

Probably got three minutes
of your life left.

NARRATOR:
Swanson, now 94 years old,

says it was the last 30 feet
of the descent

that was the most dangerous
because you might hit a tree.

SWANSON:
I must have been 20,
30 feet off the ground.

I didn't even see the tree.

And I hit the ground like that,
and that took the wheels off.

And then you slid
until you stopped

and everything got
perfectly quiet.

And perfectly black.

And I said, "Anybody hurt?"

The guys behind me said,
"Nobody back here."

And about that time,
a cow bellowed real loud.

I said, "Now you know
where you're at."

We were in the pasture.

NARRATOR:
Once on the ground,
these troops moved into position

to take the strategic targets.

What you're trying to do
with these troops

is to prevent the Germans from
counterattacking in your flanks

(gunshots)

before you've got enough
combat power ashore

to repel these attacks.

NARRATOR:
The glider operation
went better than expected,

with less loss of life
than predicted.

The troops took control
of the strategic targets

without alerting
the German command.

Along with the gliders,

13,000 paratroopers
were dropped into France

with a mission to disrupt
the German defenses.

These men were the very first
Allied soldiers

to touch French soil
on the morning of D-Day.

(gunshot)

Back at sea, the armada of ships
was approaching the coastline

behind the minesweepers,
with Robert Haga aboard.

Jim Booth and X-Craft crews were
at work setting up the beacons.

The next obstacle was getting
150,000 troops on shore,

something that the Nazis
had spent years

making sure would not happen.

LEWIS:
Germans were good engineers.

They knew how to build bunkers,
I tell you.

The thickness is from there
to about here.

NARRATOR:
Ever since invading Europe,

the Germans worked to build
massive fortification

all along the north coast
of Europe,

including 15,000 bunkers
overlooking the beaches.

LEWIS:
Just take a look at this.

You can see the entire beach,

and if you can see something,
you can destroy it.

NARRATOR:
At this point in the war,

the Germans knew their troops
were stretched thin,

so defending their hold
on the beaches

was essential
to their strategy.

LEWIS:
The defense is the strongest
form of war.

If your defense is well done...

if you have
enough obstacles,

enough mine fields,
enough firepower...

.you can reduce
the number of troops you need.

NARRATOR:
Along the coast of France,

these bunkers held powerful guns
that could shoot 20 miles.

And the beaches were covered
with a series of mined obstacles

hidden just below high tide

that would destroy any ship
that tried to land,

including the famous hedgehog:
Crosses of steel

that could rip open the bottom
of a ship.

All of this was part
of one the most fearsome

military fortifications
ever built.

It was known as Hitler's
Atlantic Wall.

LEWIS:
The Atlantic Wall was strong

and it was getting stronger
day by day.

In the six months
before June 6,

Hitler allowed almost unlimited
resources to be thrown into it.

So it's pretty serious.

NARRATOR:
One of Hitler's top generals,
Field Marshall Erwin Rommel,

was sent to the front
by Hitler himself

to fortify this powerful
death trap.

The beach obstacles dictated
a terrible choice to the Allies.

Do you land at high tide

so your soldiers spend less time
on the beach

exposed to enemy fire,

or do you land at low tide

to protect the ships
from these obstacles?

HENDRIX:
Operation Overlord runs
on the back of ships.

So the men are coming,

the tanks are coming,
the supplies are coming,

and so it's important
that the ships survive.

It's all to preserve
the logistic ships,

because those are
the irreplaceable items

of Operation Neptune.

Without them, Neptune fails.

NARRATOR:
General Rommel knew
that landing at high tide

would offer the shortest run
to safety for the soldiers.

At tide high, these deadly
defenses would be hidden.

But the decision had been made
to land at low tide.

The ships would be protected
from the deadly hedgehogs,

but how do you protect
the soldiers?

The answer would come
from an unlikely place...

a town better known
for music than the military,

New Orleans.

Andrew Jackson Higgins was
a colorful, local boat builder

who believed he had the solution
for the Navy.

He already had a boat
called the Eureka

that was built to navigate

the shallow waters
of the Mississippi River...

not Rommel's deadly mines,
but the logs and sandbars here.

So why not use them
for beach landings?

The Navy was skeptical.

It seems Higgins didn't always
follow military protocol.

JERRY STRAHAN:
As the Depression was going on,
business was bad,

and then he started building
boats for rum runners.

Then he went to the Coast Guard
and said,

"I don't know if you noticed it,

but the opposition has a lot
better and quicker boats,"

and then he would build faster
boats for the Coast Guard.

Then he would go back
to the rum runner and say,

"The Coast Guard
has newer vessels.

We need to build you something
a little faster."

So he did play both sides
of the fence.

NARRATOR:
Today, at the National World
War II Museum in New Orleans,

they're working to rebuild
some of Higgins' famous boats.

Tom Czecanski,
the chief curator at the museum,

is an expert
in military hardware.

He says to understand what makes
the Higgins boat work,

you have to look under one

to see the unique engineering
of the hull.

CZECANSKI:
The important thing here
is that the hull

churns up the water
at the front,

gets lots of air in it.

That's getting the boat up
just that little bit more

that gets you on to the beach.

NARRATOR:
At the back of the boat,

there was a specially designed
metal structure

that ran below the propeller

to protect it when the boat
ran aground.

Bring the boats on in,
and damn the obstacles.

NARRATOR:
The Eureka boat was designed

for unloading cargo
over the sides of the boat,

like illegal liquor.

But the Navy's cargo of soldiers
would need

to climb over the sides, making
them vulnerable to enemy fire.

Was there a way to get the men
out faster?

Naval engineers had seen
Japanese boats

with front-loading ramps,

but no one knew
how to build them.

And so they asked Higgins
to draw up some plans.

STRAHAN:
The Navy had been trying it
for over two decades,

had been unsuccessful.

They wanted drawings.

Higgins said, "Drawings, hell.

You be here in three days
and I'll have one in the water."

Which he did.

NARRATOR:
Without a ramp, it took 57
seconds to unload troops.

With a ramp,
it took only 19 seconds.

FILM NARRATOR:
But they could land quicker,

exposed for a shorter time
to enemy fire.

And with them, they could land
their vehicles

for a fast mechanized assault.

Which saves you 38 seconds from
being shot at on an open beach,

which saved incredible numbers
of lives.

NARRATOR:
Adolph Hitler knew of Higgins'
famous boat

and is said to have called him
"The New American Noah."

Not unexpectedly, the sonar
operators are unable to find

any of these wooden boats.

It would have been difficult
for them to survive

the strong currents of the
English Channel for 70 years.

But there were many other
landing craft made of metal,

which did survive, and they come
in all shapes and sizes.

RALPH WILBANKS:
All of these wrecks,

they're just out here
and you don't know it.

If you could drain this,
people would go,

"God, look at all of that,"
you know?

But you can't.

NARRATOR:
In World War II,

there were dozens of different
kinds of landing craft,

all engineered
for specific tasks.

The famous Higgins boat carried
soldiers, called personnel,

or possibly a jeep,
so the boat was labeled

"landing craft vehicle,
personnel," or LCVP.

There were landing crafts
with powerful guns,

appropriately called
"landing craft gun," or LCG.

The list went on:

LCI for infantry, LCM for
mechanized, LCR for rockets.

And there was a whole class
of larger ships,

like the LST,
or landing ship, tank.

WILBANKS:
I can't even imagine.

You know, we're sitting here
looking at something,

trying to decide whether
it's an ISM or an LST

or an LSVP.

I mean, there's massive amounts
of LSs.

The guys that planned
the logistics for this

were unbelievable.

NARRATOR:
Today the sonar team sees
the signal of an enormous ship,

longer than a football field.

All right.

NARRATOR:
Even though the ship is buried
beneath 100 feet of water,

this new multibeam sonar is
accurate within half an inch.

Looks like it's busted up.

NARRATOR:
Millions of sonar points
are detected

and then translated into
a three-dimensional image

that reveals intricate details
of the engineering.

We'll go by it again.

NARRATOR:
This level of visualization
allows the team

to make precise measurements
that help identify the ships.

Maybe the front door
is here.

NARRATOR:
They make out what looks
like a bow door

and what the sonar team thinks
is a vehicle

still on the ship's deck.

See that?

NARRATOR:
These features help them
identify the type of ship,

which they can cross-reference
with a military manual.

The ship they've discovered
today is an LST...

a landing ship, tank...

the workhorse
of the Allied naval forces.

LSTs were some of the largest
landing vessels in the fleet

and played an essential role
in the D-Day invasion.

They addressed
one of the biggest problems

created by the new amphibious
landing strategy:

How do you get all the gear
the Army needs onto the land?

LEWIS:
One of the ways to look
at an amphibious assault

is that it's a race.

The race starts the minute
you hit the beach there,

and it's a race for buildup,

who can build up the most forces
the fastest.

HENDRIX:
World War II,
tank warfare dominates,

and so you are bringing a lot
of tanks across the channel.

They're not flown in,
they can't drive there.

And so tanks, jeeps,
other vehicles

all had to be brought by ships.

HEWITT:
You didn't need a port
to use an LST.

These are the chess pieces

that get moved around
that global board.

And they are probably the single
most important type of ship

used in assault landings

anywhere
in the Second World War,

massively important piece
of technology.

NARRATOR:
The U.S. manufactured
so many of these LSTs,

they didn't even bother to give
each ship a name, just a number.

HENDRIX:
These ships were built
in the United States

and then sent to England,
hundreds of them.

We had to change virtually
every bridge on the Ohio River

and on the Mississippi to allow
these combatant ships

to make it out to the ocean,

and we did it
and we did it very rapidly.

One of the key elements
in our technology

was our ability to build
overwhelming numbers.

That production was
an amazing factor

in our victory over Nazi Europe
and Japan.

American production, American
capacity to produce volumes

is what made the difference,
you know?

We could produce 50
to their ten.

Eh, we win, you know?

NARRATOR:
On the morning of D-Day,

these LSTs ferried men across
the English Channel.

But they were too big to land

before the German defenses
had been cleared.

That's where the Higgins boats
came in.

HEWITT:
In the early assault phases,

you don't want to put all
your eggs in one basket.

You don't want to put a big,
vulnerable ship on the beach,

so you have
the famous Higgins boat

and the British equivalents,

which were small craft,
capable of carrying 30 men,

who could get
into action immediately.

And to be really crude about it,

if you lose one, it's not
the end of your operation.

It's 30 guys, not 800.

NARRATOR:
This landing chart shows

where the large ships
like the LSTs pulled up

on the morning of D-Day,
11 miles off shore.

Then there are smaller paths
into the beach

for the landing craft,
like Higgins boats.

For Ralph Wilbanks, mapping
these wrecks on the ocean floor

is more than just sonar science.

His father fought
in the Pacific,

which makes these
two-dimensional images

really come alive.

WILBANKS:
These boats that are blown up

and pieces missing from them

and, you know, even one
they dived on the other day

had big holes in it.

You could see where something
happened violent

that caused that boat to go
to the bottom,

which had to have been
really... catastrophic

for the crew that was on
the boat when it happened.

That's the reason they were
the greatest generation.

MAN:
It's very present
to you even today?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tough place.

NARRATOR:
And as dawn broke on D-Day, it
was about to get a lot tougher.

The massive fleet appeared
just off the German beaches,

a scene made famous in the 1962
film The Longest Day.

If you've seen that classic
scene in The Longest Day

when the German is
in the pillbox.

HENDRIX:
And the morning mist
begins to lift

and then stretched out
in front of him

from as far on the, you know,
from the east

to as far on the west
as he can see,

are ships, and they're emerging
out of that fog.

Invasion.

It was the most massive
naval force

that's ever been assembled.

NARRATOR:
At 0530, it was
time for the Allies

to bring out their biggest guns.

And the naval bombardment began.

HENDRIX:
You have to imagine battleships

standing maybe a mile,
two miles off shore.

ATKINSON:
This is going to happen
right around sunrise,

because you've got to be able
to see what you're shooting at.

HENDRIX:
So you are hurling these large
bunker-penetrating projectiles

about the weight
of a Volkswagen.

It's tremendously loud.

It's loud unlike anything
that you can possibly imagine.

The smell...

The smell of cordite burning,
of gunpowder burning

is something
that you won't forget.

NARRATOR:
The Air Force bombers
also joined in.

ATKINSON:
The Americans had made
the decision

that they were going to have

a very truncated
preparatory fire.

It only lasted 35 minutes.

If you were invading an island
in the South Pacific,

sometimes the naval gunfire
would last for days,

but because we were invading
an area

where the enemy can reinforce
quickly, the decision was made,

let's do it quickly, let's try
and get on the beaches quickly.

The British preparatory fires
lasted closer to two hours.

I think the British were right,
as it turned out.

BILL ALLEN:
The channel was full of boats.

The pillboxes were up
on the cliffs

and they were firing
continuously.

NARRATOR:
Bill Allen was on an LST

bringing soldiers
into Omaha Beach

and remembers this brutal start
to the day.

I remember all the firing,
the noise.

All the disasters, the death.

You'd see someone who had been
killed floating on the water.

NARRATOR:
Allen was a medic

with an overwhelmingly difficult
assignment.

ALLEN:
I was on the death detail.

Started bringing casualties
out to us,

and we loaded casualties
over the side of the ship.

By the time we would get them,
they'd be dead.

But, uh, we'd clean them up
the best we could,

identify them, to the fact...
put the dog tags.

And you tried not to really
dwell on it, I guess.

NARRATOR:
Painful memories like these
prevented Allen

from talking about his D-Day
experiences until recently.

But today he has come back
to Normandy

for the first time since 1944.

MAN:
Welcome on board.

NARRATOR:
He is once again on a ship
off the coast of Normandy.

This time he isn't tending
to casualties,

but instead he has brought
his wife, Idalee, two daughters

and two of his grandchildren.

When I was here before,

everything was so confused
and noisy.

Now it's so calm and peaceful,

it's hard to realize
the difference between the two.

NARRATOR:
Allen's LST delivered men
into Omaha Beach

on the morning of D-Day.

Then, on their fourth trip
into the beaches,

they hit a mine
and the boat sank.

Today the sonar crew can show
Bill just what happened to it.

Oh, look, here
comes something.

There's the stern.

Boy, that is something!

CHARLES BRENNAN:
I have been doing
multibeam survey work

for over 25 years.

And when we had Bill,
the veteran, on,

as soon as he saw that image,

his stories, his memories
came back.

It was a way I had never
seen multibeam data before.

Look at that
big hole there.

You think that's
from the mine, here?

Oh, as far as I know,
it would almost have to be.

BRENNAN:
Because he could see fully

the vessel that was blown out
from under him on the sea floor.

You had a galley
in here,

down below.

There's where we ate.

BRENNAN:
It was the first time

I felt that the multibeam
data had a soul.

NARRATOR:
After 70 years of holding back
his World War II memories,

Bill Allen, now at 88, is brave
enough not only to return,

but to go down
in the small submarine

to see the ship he was on
when it sank.

Okay, Bill, I'm going to get
in the sub first.

I'm going to get myself
into the pilot seat.

We've got a ladder that we
are going to drop down in.

Not to brag on him,

but I can't think of too many
88-year-old men

who would go down to... where
they almost lost their lives

and revisit it and be excited
about it like he is.

It's exciting.

I'm looking forward to it.

Okay.

HEWITT:
One of the most important
aspects of looking at this now

and not waiting any longer

is that we still have
veterans with us.

We can still hear the testimony
of those who were there

while we investigate the
battlefield they fought on.

If we wait any longer, there
simply won't be anyone left.

NARRATOR:
The details of that horrific day
slowly come back

during his dive
with sonar expert Andy Sherrell.

Hard to believe, huh?

Oh, I tell you.

SHERRELL:
Think we should go and try
to find the bow?

Yeah, I'd like to see it.

I'd like to see it, too.

ALLEN:
We made three trips in,
successfully...

and started on our fourth trip.

How old were you?

I was just barely 19.

I had finished lunch,
come out on the topside

and it was about 1:00.

I don't even know how to
describe the noise that it made.

It sort of reminded me of when
you step on a banana peel

and, you know,
how you flip-flop

and expect to hit
the ground sooner or later.

NARRATOR:
LST 523 was sailing
in rough waters

when it came down mid-ship
directly on a German mine.

Allen was at the bow of the ship

in front of where
the mine exploded.

ALLEN:
It just blew the ship
completely in half.

And it happened so quick?

Yeah.

A real state of panic.

Everyone began to jump off.

NARRATOR:
On today's dive, Allen wants
to see where that mine hit.

Looks like we're coming up
on some debris here, Bill.

ALLEN:
Uh-huh.

NARRATOR:
And it doesn't take long before
the expedition's submarine

is right on top of it.

Topside, we are on the wreck
at this time. Over.

NARRATOR:
This is all that remains
of the LST 523,

a rusting hulk of metal

overgrown with barnacles
and algae.

SUB PILOT:
There's a tank.

Oh, yeah, look at that.

ALLEN:
Oh, yeah.

NARRATOR:
They can barely make out
a tank on its surface.

SHERRELL:
I bet you never thought
you'd see that again.

ALLEN:
No, uh-uh.

NARRATOR:
The explosion tore
through the ship,

and the bow that Allen was on
was sinking.

Everyone began to jump off.

I knew I wasn't
too good of a swimmer,

but I knew that something had
to be done pretty quick

because our bow was going down.

What it boiled down to was
which way I wanted to drown.

Did I want to go down
with the bow

or did I want to drown swimming?

NARRATOR:
Just at that moment,

Allen saw a life raft with a
medic he knew from Mississippi.

ALLEN:
And he hollered at me, he said,
"You can't swim out here.

Stay there, I believe I can get
in there to you."

He got within, oh, I guess
12, 15 feet of me,

and I said,
"I can jump that far.

I know I can."

And I took off and made it.

We both just had one arm
hung over the raft.

We picked up four more
Army personnel.

NARRATOR:
Allen and the others were saved

when a passing ship spotted
their raft

and pulled them to safety.

ALLEN:
Every time you close your eyes,

you're just reliving
the same thing, a blast,

and seeing those same sights.

Sometime after midnight,
I rolled over and Jack said,

"Bill, have you been
asleep yet?"

I said, "Jack, I don't think
I'll ever go to sleep."

NARRATOR:
They say farewell to the 523.

SHERRELL:
Ready to say farewell to 523?

ALLEN:
Yeah.

On the ship we had
a complement of 145.

The final count,
28 of us got off.

117 were killed or lost.

NARRATOR:
For Bill Allen,

another powerful way to reflect
on his time during D-Day

was taking his wife and family

to the American cemetery
that overlooks Omaha Beach.

DAUGHTER:
Daddy, what's the name
you are looking for?

ALLEN:
Stabile.

It's just never-ending.

NARRATOR:
There are more than 9,000
American soldiers buried here.

One of them was Allen's
commanding officer,

Vito Stabile.

There's Stabile, Bill.

Yeah?

That's him.

NARRATOR:
A young doctor
just out of medical school.

ALLEN:
He was an officer

and the rest of us
were enlisted men.

But we were all shipmates.

There wasn't that much
distinction between us then.

Had a great life ahead
of him, but it got stopped.

But I appreciate being able
to come to his grave very much.

(bugle playing "Taps")

LEWIS:
In World War II, 70 million
people are killed.

70 million people.

It is the most significant event
in the 20th century bar none.

Nothing comes close to it

in terms of shaping the world
that we live in.

And so, when you stand
at that cemetery,

these are the men
who made the difference.

These are the men who did more
to shape the world

that you live in right now

than anybody else, and you
should understand that.

NARRATOR:
The loss of life weighed heavily
on D-Day planners.

Minimizing casualties was
a solemn duty

and strategically essential.

One way to reduce casualties on
the beach would be to make sure

the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall
were taken out

before the infantry landed.

But doing so would prove to be

one of the biggest challenges
on D-Day.

The naval and air force bombing
just before the landings

were the first steps
to dismantle the bunkers,

but then the guys on the beach
also needed

to have the big firepower
of tanks.

LEWIS:
One of the attributes
of a tank is firepower.

Main gun of a tank
can destroy bunkers,

machine gun positions.

It could penetrate some
of those concrete positions.

Small arms fire, even machine
gun fire from infantry,

will not do that.

NARRATOR:
The Allies had tried to put
tanks in landing craft

at the battle for Dieppe,

but the process of unloading
made them sitting ducks

and contributed
to the slaughter.

So for D-Day the Allies needed
to figure out

how to get the tanks
to the beach quickly

without putting them in boats.

So the engineering question was,
can you turn a tank into a boat?

Nicholas Straussler specialized

in engineering military
equipment in England.

He had immigrated from Hungary,
now under Nazi control.

Straussler took inspiration
from the ancient Greeks.

Archimedes discovered that
any object could float

if it displaced enough water

to offset the volume
that's submerged.

Archimedes' principle was
engineered

into Straussler's design by
deploying an inflatable skirt

that came up on the sides
of the tank about four feet.

It turned the tank into a rather
poorly designed

but adequately floating boat,
at least in calm waters.

You can see how Straussler
pulled off his design

on this tank,
retooled by Bob Gundy,

a military vehicle expert.

There is a framework made up
of inflatable support tubes

that are then wrapped
by a canvas skirt.

They were called duplex
drive tanks, or DD tanks.

With the push of a lever,

the support tubes deflate
and the skirt would drop.

So the tank was ready
to roll into action.

These floating DD tanks were
to hit the beaches

five minutes
before the troops went ashore.

But on the morning
of the invasion

the seas were dangerously rough,

with swells recorded
at six feet high.

When the tanks off Omaha Beach
were launched,

they immediately started
to sink, wave after wave.

LEWIS:
Let's say that you're one
of these guys in a DD tank.

Put yourself in their place.

So four of them in the LCT.

First one goes off
into the water

and immediately starts to sink

and the second one rolls off
into the water

and starts to sink.

You're the third guy.

What are you going to do?

I don't know, I don't know.

You ask yourself why.

ATKINSON:
It's pretty hard to understand
70 years later.

It was pretty hard
to understand then.

These were their orders.

It was critical to get
these tanks ashore.

Even though you saw that
the guys in front of you

were having trouble,
in some cases had gone under,

they kept pushing.

NARRATOR:
There is a mystery about
how many DD tanks

are still buried underwater.

The definitive answer will come

from the expedition's
comprehensive sonar survey.

Once we close the hatch, the
submersible is pressure-proof.

LEWIS:
I am a retired soldier.

I spent 20 years in the Army,

but I haven't done much
with the Navy.

Going down in the sub was
a unique experience for me.

MAN:
All right, Adrian,
time to go.

All right, sounds good.

NARRATOR:
Today Adrian Lewis
and Andy Sherrell

are going down in the submarine
off Omaha Beach

to investigate what happened
to the DD tanks.

Sherrell has located a group
of tanks not far apart.

SHERRELL:
The bottom in sight.

The tank's over there.

NARRATOR:
Two battalions of 32 DD tanks

were supposed to lead the way
onto Omaha Beach.

Yeah, most of them
are gone now.

NARRATOR:
Without them the infantry
would inevitably suffer

from an unrelenting
German attack.

SHERRELL:
Visibility, it's hard to see.

Got something
straight ahead.

Oh, there we go.

You can see the main gun now.

Yeah, that's it.

That's nice, that's it.

NARRATOR:
The water in the English Channel
is so murky,

it is only with the help
of sonar coordinates

that Sherrell and Lewis finally
locate one of the lost DD tanks.

LEWIS:
You don't see the skirt
on it anymore, though.

SHERRELL:
No, right around that edge,
though.

LEWIS:
Right, so that would have
deteriorated, gone away.

When we first saw the DD tank,
I didn't recognize it.

That's pretty cool, huh?
Yeah.

NARRATOR:
These swimming tanks were not
engineered

for the six-foot swells
they found on D-Day.

In all, 27 tanks sank
off of Omaha Beach.

LEWIS:
Looks like the hatch is open.

Yeah, one of the front hatches
is open.

Which would make sense,
so that they could get out.

LEWIS:
My first thought is,

you know, the men in this tank,
soldiers in this tank...

who they were,
and did they get out?

Those tanks are burial places,
essentially.

You have to keep that in mind.

NARRATOR:
Despite the loss of tanks,

the Higgins boats full of
soldiers arrived on the beaches

right on time.

But the battlefield they faced

was not what
they were expecting.

(machine gun fire)

If you're an infantryman
on Omaha Beach

at 7:30 in the morning,

you're really sorry you don't
have more armor with you.

(heavy gunfire)

Because it's hell.

It's awful.

It's about as bad
as combat can get.

And there are men by the dozens,
then by the hundreds,

who are being slaughtered
all around you.

And so, the fact that you don't
have the protection

of a 33-ton Sherman tank
next to you,

firing back
at that pillbox over there

or firing at that machine gun
nest over there,

all you've got is your rifle,

means that you've got
a difficult row to hoe

for the next several hours.

NARRATOR:
Combat engineers trained
with explosives

to blow up beach obstacles
like mines and hedgehogs

landed in the first wave.

ATKINSON:
The job of those engineers was
to blow gaps in these defenses.

They were to blow 12 gaps
on Omaha Beach.

About half of all those combat
engineers were killed,

wounded or missing.

NARRATOR:
Along with the floating tanks,
the plan had counted

on air force and naval bombings
to take out the German bunkers.

But it did not work,

and so the men on the beach
faced the Germans alone.

LEWIS:
I've made the argument

the generals failed.

The generals failed.

The plan did not work
at Omaha Beach.

This is why the cost was so high
in terms of American lives,

in terms of numbers
of soldiers killed,

because they had to generate
the combat power necessary

to get over the bluff
there at Omaha Beach.

ATKINSON:
No, there was no failure.

In fact, the failure is entirely
on the side of the Germans.

Omaha was a lot harder than they
thought it was going to be,

but look, the Germans
had four years

to build the Atlantic Wall.

It took less than four hours
to crack the Atlantic Wall,

including at Omaha Beach.

Once those initial soldiers had
scaled the bluffs

at the back of the beach, and
they are up on the escarpment,

even though the war is not over,

the battle of Normandy has
hardly been won,

the Atlantic Wall
has been cracked.

NARRATOR:
Wave after wave of infantry
kept coming.

By 12:00 noon, after several
hours of brutal fighting,

the first Americans had fought
their way onto the bluffs

overlooking Omaha Beach.

The cost of that victory
was very high.

Even today there is confusion
among experts

as to the total casualties, with
estimates ranging from 2,000

to more than 4,000
in the battle for Omaha.

The landings at the other
four Allied beaches

went more smoothly
with far fewer deaths,

although they were not
without significant valor

and casualties.

It is argued that one reason
things might have gone better

on the British beaches
were a group of inventions

that the American Army decided
not to use.

Ian Hammerton, a tank driver
on Sword Beach,

still has the landing map from
the hydrographic department

that he carried
in his pocket on D-Day.

HAMMERTON:
It suffered a bit

from seawater,
but that was taken...

that's top secret.

NARRATOR:
Hammerton's unit is famous
because of its leader,

Major General Sir Percy Hobart.

HAMMERTON:
He was an innovative character

who wouldn't take no
for an answer.

NARRATOR:
Hobart was known as a brilliant
but eccentric character,

who Churchill specifically
called back into service

for the preparation of D-Day.

His unit was known
as Hobart's Circus.

HAMMERTON:
Hobart's Circus, it was called,

because from time to time

all sorts of ideas were dreamed
up for dealing with situations

and we acquired all sorts
of strange equipment.

NARRATOR:
Hobart's goal was

to engineer a way around
the Nazis' deadly obstacles.

One of his most famous
inventions was the flail tank,

used to clear mines.

HAMMERTON:
This is a model

of a flail tank made by my son.

NARRATOR:
Ian Hammerton, who piloted one
of the flail tanks on D-Day,

shows how it worked.

It's an ordinary Sherman tank,

but it has this apparatus
on the front.

The chains on the front would
spin around on this drum

.

They're like this.

That's a part of a chain
that got blown off.

The British actually have
a more inventive approach

in some cases.

The Americans have the attitude,

"We don't really need those
on our beaches.

It complicates our training."

And there's a bit of a "not
invented here" quality to it.

Those are British gadgets;
Let the British play with them.

NARRATOR:
Hobart's engineers invented
all sorts of clever ways

of overcoming the German
obstacles,

which became known as Hobart's
Funnies, though their purpose

was anything but that...

Flame throwers for incinerating

anyone inside
the concrete bunkers;

Devices to fill
anti-tank ditches

or create an instant bridge.

On June 6,
Ian Hammerton's flail tank

did successfully break through
the defenses at Sword Beach

and helped clear
the terror mines.

Bill Allen's LST 523 unloaded
men bound for Omaha Beach

in the morning,

and that afternoon they began
to receive the casualties.

And Robert Haga,
the minesweeper, kept working

to clear the lanes through
the German underwater minefield.

By nightfall on June 6, 1944,

all five landing beaches
were under Allied control.

Determining the exact cost
in lives lost is difficult,

but it is estimated that there
were at least 10,000 casualties,

including 2,500 deaths.

But more death and destruction
was yet to come,

as the D-Day Expedition
will reveal.

The goal of Operation Overlord,
the D-Day invasion,

was not just to gain
a foothold in Europe,

it was to secure all of Normandy

and ultimately drive
through to Berlin.

Carver McGriff, who landed
on the other U.S. beach, Utah,

says to understand
the difficulty of fighting

in Normandy, you need to walk
around the small farms

that lie just
off the coast here.

Imagine you're a young
second lieutenant

leading 25 kids like me

and your job is to take
that next hedgerow.

What do you do?

NARRATOR:
Despite all the years of
planning for the invasion,

the Allies were not prepared for
the obstacles they would face

in the battles here.

The problem was easy
to overlook.

It was the ancient fences which
surround farms in Normandy,

called hedgerows.

They seemed so unassuming.

One aerial photograph
of eight square miles revealed

nearly 4,000 small fields.

There's a kind of terrain known
as the hedgerow country.

This is fields that
basically have turned

into mini fortresses.

The French have been farming
that area for a millennium,

and every farmer has cleared
his land

by pushing the rocks and debris
and trees and whatnot

to the edges of his fields.

And consequently walls have been
built around the fields.

McGRIFF:
The hedgerows were a virtually
perfect defensive way

for the Germans
to fight the battle

and we had to find a way
over them or around them.

LEWIS:
There was so much focus, so much
energy on getting ashore

that the follow-on tasks,
the advance,

were not given the attention
that they deserved

in terms of figuring out

how you need to break
through this stuff.

NARRATOR:
The battle for the hedgerows
consumed the Allies

for much longer than expected.

By the time Normandy was
securely under control

six weeks later,

another 200,000 Allied soldiers
had been wounded or killed,

including McGriff's
squad leader.

McGRIFF:
He died while lying next to me.

In fact, he tried to talk to me

and then was not able.

It's a long time ago.

The memories don't hurt
like they did for a while.

But they're always there.

ATKINSON:
It's important not to think

that once June 6
turns into June 7

that somehow the war becomes
less intense.

The fighting in the hedgerows
is as awful, in some cases,

as anything that has occurred
on Omaha Beach.

So the intensity that we see on
June 6 is simply a foreshadowing

of what's going to come over the
next three months in Normandy.

NARRATOR:
So what did it take

for the Allies to win control
of Normandy

in terms of men and supplies?

SYLVAIN PASCAUD:
One of the things

that amazed us the most,
I think,

was the amount of wrecks
we found, the targets.

And we ended up finding 400
targets during our survey.

That's a lot of wrecks.

Can you look at
the back of it?

NARRATOR:
The most astounding revelation
by the sonar experts

inside the Magic Star

is that the vast majority
of those 400 wrecks

were sunk after D-Day,

revealing the extent of
the enormous effort required

to reclaim Normandy.

HEWITT:
The really exciting thing
for me as a historian is

we can peel back the water and
expose the playbook of Normandy,

just like assembling
a huge jigsaw puzzle.

And it's just fascinating.

So we have evidence of when
the troops went ashore,

and then we have evidence
of the support phase

that took place
for months afterwards.

All of that is there.

NARRATOR:
Today, the divers have found

a barge carrying unusual
crossbeam structures:

Components used to replace
bombed-out bridges in France.

The barge was headed

to one of the most extraordinary
engineering projects

of World War II...

something designed to make it
possible to unload

all the necessary gear and men.

It was, in fact, a pet project

of British prime minister
Winston Churchill.

In London, just down the street

from Churchill's wartime
headquarters

is the Institution
of Civil Engineers,

where evidence still exists
of this ambitious plan.

These reams of detailed drawings
all resulted

from a short, angry memo written
by Churchill himself.

That memo got passed along
to Tim Beckett's father, Allan,

a young military engineer.

TIM BECKETT:
My father was working
at the time

in the bridging department
of the War Office.

Colonel Everall came to him with
this memo and said to him,

"Beckett, you're a yachtsman.

See if you can make something
out of this."

NARRATOR:
The memo resulted
from a disagreement

between President Roosevelt
and Prime Minister Churchill

about possible locations
for the invasion.

Churchill was worried that
there was no port in Normandy,

so these landings could turn
into another Dieppe.

His solution was as bold
as it was daring.

If the Allies couldn't take
a port by force,

then they would need to build
one and take it with them.

BECKETT:
It's astonishing,

the scale of it and the new
organization required.

NARRATOR:
Tim Beckett,
a port engineer himself,

says the plan was
astoundingly ambitious.

Certainly the engineering
challenges were.

No one had ever conceived
of building a portable port.

Any port must first provide
shelter for ships

from the fury of the sea,
and it must also have a way

to dock and unload the ships.

How could they engineer around
the notoriously rough seas

and changing tides
on the coast of France

and anchor a port
onto the sandy beaches there?

Churchill didn't want to hear
about the problems,

so he dashed off
his short angry memo.

BECKETT:
Churchill's memo is very famous.

It says:
"Piers for use on beaches.

"They must float up and down
with the tide.

"The anchor problem
must be mastered.

"Let me have the best solution
worked out.

"Don't argue the matter.

The difficulties will argue
for themselves."

Well, I think you can read
into that

that Churchill was pretty
frustrated, shall we say,

when he wrote that.

It's a bit terse.

NARRATOR:
The challenge of figuring out

how to solve these engineering
problems fell, in part,

to the young Allan Beckett.

His initial idea was
to build a road

that would float up and down
with the changing tide.

The problem was basic physics.

How do you control the movement
of a floating road

on a rough sea?

BECKETT:
Most bridges have

typically four bearings,

and they like their bearings
to stay

more or less where they are.

When you put
a floating bridge on,

you've got a whole load
of movements.

Obviously it's pitching, and
going up and down, and rolling.

And then you've got all the load
going on it as well.

Now, you either try
and resist that

with a rigid structure, trying
to hold it all together,

or you go with it.

NARRATOR:
Beckett decided to go with it.

He designed a floating road

that consisted of pontoons
sitting on the water

with roadways, like a bridge,
spanning between them.

Another part of the design
were massive structures

that are still visible today
at low tide

off the coast of Normandy.

Like a jetty, these huge
concrete blocks were used

to hold out the rough sea.

See the caissons that are
submerged now?

NARRATOR:
Seen on sonar,
these structures make up

some of the largest wrecks
off the coast here.

But to see what his father
created,

Tim Beckett goes just outside
of Paris

into the world
of virtual reality.

MAN:
I think you recognize
this place?

I certainly do.

NARRATOR:
A French engineering company
called Dassault Systems

has recreated one of these
artificial harbors in 3D.

We are walking along it,
aren't we?

It's as if we could touch it.

NARRATOR:
The code name of the project
was Mulberry,

and so these were known
as Mulberry harbors.

Two harbors were built: One for
the Americans at Omaha Beach

and one British
at the town of Arromanches.

This is really very good.

(chuckling)

Take your 3-D glasses
and we'll jump into the 3-D.

NARRATOR:
The basic design
of the Mulberry harbors

was to create the needed
breakwater

to block out the rough seas.

This was done in two steps.

First, old ships were sailed
over from England

and then dynamited and sunk.

(explosion)

Next came concrete structures,

each the size
of a five-story building.

They were built in England

and pulled across
the English Channel.

These massive concrete blocks,
called caissons,

created the jetty
that held out the waves.

I think the floating roadways
he was particularly proud of.

NARRATOR:
Then came Alan Beckett's roadway
that stretched from the beach

over floating pontoons to piers
where ships could dock.

These roadways needed to be
strong enough to carry

a 33-ton Sherman tank

and yet flexible enough to
accommodate the water's motion.

Engineering around this was
the key to Beckett's plan.

BECKETT:
You can see that the pontoons
are pitching and rolling.

And the bridges
are following it.

The bridge spans are not rigid;
They can go with the motion.

They do it
by a rather clever detail.

Can we go underneath the bridge?

We've got a rigid connection
on the central member here.

And all the other ones
are pinned

and that allows the bridge
to twist tortionally.

I always knew it was big,
but I think this makes you feel

how big it is
and how busy it was.

It was the busiest port
in the world for a few weeks.

HENDRIX:
There are such things
as war-altering technologies

that once it's revealed that you
have that capability,

it changes the face of battle.

To take an LST,
a landing ship, tank,

and land it on the beach
and put the ramp down,

it would take it ten to 12 hours
to offload.

NARRATOR:
That's because huge ships have
to work around the tides,

and all of that takes time.

HENDRIX:
When we established
the Mulberry harbors,

where we put piers out,

we were able to offload a ship
in one hour and 40 minutes.

NARRATOR:
And all of this was anchored
by a clever system

that held the roadways in place,
designed by Alan Beckett.

Astonishingly, the first of two
massive harbors were functional

in only three days
after the landings.

But then not even two weeks
after the harbors were built,

disaster struck.

One of the worst storms
of the century blew down hard

on the coast of Normandy.

The American harbor at Omaha
Beach was completely destroyed.

But despite being designed
to last only three months,

the British Mulberry was in use
for nearly ten,

during which time it became
known as Port Winston

for the man whose angry memo
got it built.

In all,
two-and-a-half million men

and half a million vehicles

passed across
these floating roadways.

They are just one of
the many engineering feats

and innovations that helped
the Allies prevail

in this crucial battle
of Normandy.

The seas off the coast of France
remained dangerous

for months after the landings.

The Germans still had control

of ports to the east and west
of the landing beaches,

and so they could send in
submarines

or drop mines from the air.

HEWITT:
All it takes is one aircraft
to fly through fast at night

and drop half a dozen
pressure mines,

and your nice, safe passage area
is suddenly lethal again.

This is quite well preserved.

NARRATOR:
Today the Magic Star crew

has found a German U-boat
submarine

that operated in the English
Channel after the landings,

finally being sunk in July.

The German navy, of course,

put all its means it had
available into the game.

NARRATOR:
George Bigelow was an Army
private headed to the front.

On Christmas Eve,
six months after D-Day,

he boarded the Leopoldville,

a requisitioned cruise ship
bound for France.

A German U-boat submarine
lurking off the coast

torpedoed his ship.

It sank, killing nearly 800 men.

GEORGE BIGELOW:
If you can imagine Coney Island
full of people swimming,

that's just what it was like.

It was just horrible.

Guys were floating by

with their heads down.

You could tell they were dead.

Other guys were praying
to their mother.

I couldn't talk about it
for 20 years.

It was that bad.

NARRATOR:
Today, Bigelow has joined
the expedition

with his daughter Robin.

My father, George.

Enchanté.

Welcome on board.

Nice to meet you.

NARRATOR:
Instead of going down
in submarines,

they sent a robotic vehicle.

And George could watch the dive

on a video feed from the safety
of the ship's cabin.

Looks like a porthole
there, huh?

Yeah.

BIGELOW:
Yes, it's a very, very
humbling experience for me

to be able to see this.

The railing is just like
the railing that I had a hold of

when I let go.

Right now I feel
just very thankful and humble.

NARRATOR:
When the Leopoldville sank,

Bigelow was thrown into the cold
waters off of Normandy.

He was one of the lucky ones.

He was rescued and taken
to a French hospital.

BIGELOW:
They put me in bed,

and it's funny the things
you remember,

because this nice-looking
red-headed nurse,

she took her hand and brushed
my hair back, just like that,

like my mother did
when I was real young.

It was the most peaceful feeling

and it put me to sleep
just like that.

HENDRIX:
The decades are sliding by,

and we have fewer and fewer
eyewitnesses.

And soon, the only eyewitnesses
we'll have are these wrecks,

and they will still tell us
their stories.

NARRATOR:
The D-Day Expedition is
providing new evidence

of the scale and difficulties
of the Normandy invasion,

as well as helping to clarify
the historical record.

By the time the Allies stopped
landing on the beaches

in Normandy, months longer
than ever planned,

millions of men and vital
equipment had crossed here

and joined the battle
to liberate Europe.

For the last 70 years, the
cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach

has been the most
powerful memorial

to the incredible battle here
and the high cost of freedom.

Today the D-Day expedition
is providing another way

to see and to honor
this sacrifice.

I would make the argument
for Americans

there is a cemetery
that's underwater also.

Americans should be
knowledgeable of that.

HENDRIX:
The hidden battlefield
of the tanks...

and the ships...

and the things that are
scattered on the bottom

is a cemetery in and of itself.

There are literally hundreds
of sailors and soldiers

that have their final rest in
the waters that lie beneath.

And this is one of our most
sacred charges.

NARRATOR:
The sonar data collected on
the expedition can now be used

to reveal this place that is,
for so many, hallowed ground.

HENDRIX:
It's important that we maintain
them, that we respect them,

but that we also have this
opportunity to examine them

for the story that they still
have to tell to us.

NARRATOR:
Perhaps the importance
of the Normandy invasion

is best summed up by a story
about General Eisenhower,

who asked to be reinstated
in the Army

after serving as president
of the United States.

HENDRIX:
Why?

Because in Eisenhower's own
words, "500 years from now,

"no one will remember that I was
president of the United States,

"but they will always remember

that I commanded the troops
at Normandy."

And when Eisenhower was carried
to his grave

in Abilene, Kansas, in 1969, he
went in an $80 soldier's coffin,

wearing a military uniform
with only three ribbons...

the ribbons he earned
at Normandy.

Captioned by
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org

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