Original subtitles

[intense music]

- By the late fall of 1943,

the Western Allies and the Soviet Union

have dealt the Third Reich multiple blows.

The Allies have dislodged the Germans

from North Africa and Sicily,

and are fighting their way up the Italian boot.

While the Red Army,

after victories at Stalingrad and Kursk,

pushes West towards Germany.

The next step for the Allies

is the long anticipated invasion of Northern Europe.

[intense music]

- All wars change the world,

but none of them changed the world like

the Second World War did.

- Japan's on the march.

Germany's on the march.

- No one can imagine the nightmare

they're about to unleash

the most destructive war in human history.

- Suddenly the world is turned upside down

and all hell is let loose.

[intense music]

- The West is stunned by the speed of the advance.

- You get the Allies led by The Big Three,

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin,

men who are dealing with immensely complicated questions.

- It's the biggest military operation of human history.

- The Allies have to come together,

not just militarily, but industrial scale.

It's a global perspective.

- They have to fight

in every climate from the Arctic

to the jungles of the Pacific,

to the deserts of Africa,

and the depths of the ocean.

[intense music]

- But there was no certainty of victory.

It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.

- We see humans at their absolute worst,

how they treat other human beings,

and we see them at their absolute best,

willing to give their lives that others might live.

- World War II was a struggle

in which there could be one victor and one vanquished.

[intense music]

[explosion blasting]

[air siren wailing]

[plane engine buzzing]

[intense music]

- [Reporter] Rings over the mountains by Baghdad

and the Dead Sea.

Three planes from the supreme headquarters of Britain,

the United States, and the USSR

bring to the capital of Persia the leaders

of the war against Germany.

This is for the three-way conference

so long expected, so often postponed.

[intense music]

- Tehran is a hugely important conference.

It's the first time The Big Three get together in person.

You've got Joe Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union.

You've got Roosevelt, President of the USA.

And you've got Prime Minister Winston Churchill,

the warlord of the British Empire.

This is the central organizing brain

for the Allied War effort,

and they're gonna establish at this conference

the roadmap, the blueprint

for how they're gonna defeat the axis

in the Second World War.

[guns blasting]

- [Tom] Since the US entry into the war,

American and British military strategists

have debated the best way to defeat Nazi Germany.

- The British wanna prosecute this war

as they have prosecuted past ones,

mastery of the sea, control of commerce,

raids around the periphery

until the enemy simply collapses.

[guns blasting]

- [Tom] The British advocate

for campaigns in North Africa and the Mediterranean,

but American military leaders, along with the Soviets,

want the Allies to directly attack.

[guns blasting]

- The Red Army's been carrying

the burden of the land war for years.

[explosion blasting]

Millions, literally millions

of casualties on a thousand-mile front.

And so to the big concern for Stalin

is when are you going to open a second front?

[intense music]

- So the Americans are looking at the map

and saying, "We can cross the channel

from Britain, hit France.

Why wouldn't you just do that?"

[intense music]

- For the British Empire,

they could think of nothing worse.

[intense music]

Churchill's entire generation

of British politicians either fought in or commanded

in the First World War and was scarred.

And so the idea of gambling everything

on a cross channel invasion into France,

the exact place, by the way,

that so many terrible things happened

in trench warfare back in the First World War,

all that mattered was we don't do that again.

[intense music]

- [Dan S.] Winston Churchill is thinking,

"Maybe we land in Greece and Yugoslavia.

Maybe we push up through Slovenia.

Maybe we land in Norway."

Stalin says, "I don't care about any of this stuff.

It's nonsense.

Get in some ships, cross the English Channel,

land in France,

and open up that proper second front against the Germans."

- If you think about Allied leadership,

it looks as if it's The Big Three,

but what Roosevelt understands,

what Stalin understands,

and what Churchill, to his great anguish,

is coming to understand

is that there's only room for two people at the summit

and that the fate of his nation

was to be somewhat in eclipse.

[intense music]

- [Robert] At Tehran, the Americans and the Soviets

finally get their way,

a big American-dominated invasion

of Western Europe, Operation Overlord.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Operation Overlord

will be a massive coordinated invasion

by air, land, and sea

scheduled to launch in May, 1944,

a mere six months away.

[intense music]

If it succeeds, the Western Allies and the Red Army

will be able to advance on Germany from two fronts.

But who is to command this enormous effort?

- The obvious choice is George Marshall.

George Marshall is the army chief of staff

and he is unquestionably the most respected military man,

certainly in the United States and maybe even the world.

- [Sarada] And so everybody assumes that he's gonna get it.

What becomes clear, though,

is that Roosevelt realizes

that he can't have Marshall out of Washington.

He needs him too much to be sort

of running the entire war effort.

And so then the question is, "Who?"

- [Dan S.] Montgomery, Churchill's star general,

is absolutely certain

that there is one man perfectly suited

to be supreme commander of the Allied effort,

and that is Montgomery himself.

[intense music]

- [Tom] But with the American contribution

in men and material about to dominate the Allied effort,

it's clear that an American must be placed in command.

[intense music]

President Roosevelt selects General Dwight Eisenhower,

a protege of George Marshall

and the successful commander

of the campaigns in North Africa and Sicily.

[intense music]

- [Michel] Roosevelt sees in Eisenhower

the kind of political skill

and savvy that's going to be necessary

to keep the alliance together

and to pull off what is going to be

one of the most high-risk military operations

in all of human history.

[intense music]

- [Dan S.] At the same time,

Eisenhower did not have a huge CV of combat experience.

He hadn't served in France during the First World War,

and so, many of his competitors looking around going,

"How did this guy get the job?"

[intense music]

- [Sarada] British General Montgomery maybe encapsulates

the criticism of Eisenhower when he says,

"Nice chap, no soldier."

[intense music]

- [Tom] Hitler and his high command

know the Western Allies are going to invade Northern Europe,

but they don't know when and they don't know where.

[intense music]

- [Robert] Hitler is not surprised

that an invasion is coming.

He said so at the end of 1943.

"They'll be here next year.

We have to be ready to meet them."

- In his own mind,

he was willing this cross channel invasion

because he said, "You know, whenever they come

and wherever they come, we're gonna beat them."

[intense music]

- An amphibious Landing is a very demanding operation,

and so he thinks he will throw his reserves to the west

and push the Allies back into the sea.

- [Geoffrey] He'd then be able to win the war

by turning everything he has

against the Soviet Union in the east.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Under the direction

of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

the Germans accelerate the construction

of the Atlantic Wall,

[timber cracking]

a network of bunkers, minefields, and beach obstacles

stretching several thousand miles from France to Norway.

Much of the work is performed by conscripted French labor.

[intense music]

- [Robert] Rommel is already a known commodity.

He's beloved by the German people.

He's young, he's unorthodox, he's energetic.

He's a man very much to the Fuhrer's taste.

He wakes up early.

He works hard all day.

He gets the job done.

And choosing Rommel tells the West,

"You've got your work cut out for you."

[intense music]

- [Tom] By January, Operation Overlord,

the joint British American plan

to invade Northwest Europe,

has been largely mapped out.

[intense music]

The coast of Normandy is chosen as the landing site

because of its long, flat beaches, numerous access roads,

and proximity to the deep water port of Cherbourg.

When Eisenhower and his staff take control of Overlord,

they look to expand the scale

and scope of the entire operation.

- [Craig] From the very beginning,

it was clear to Eisenhower

that a three-division invasion in northern France

would not be adequate.

The Allies use six divisions to invade Sicily.

- [Dan S.] Eisenhower realizes if you've got one shot at this,

you've gotta cross this brutal stretch of water

and land on a heavily defended coastline

manned by one of the best armies in history,

you need to bring overwhelming force.

You go for the king, you best not miss.

[intense music]

- [Geoffrey] But he has to somehow get the Brits

to come around and agree.

His act of genius is to name Montgomery

commander of the ground forces in the invasions.

He says, "Monty, will you do this?"

Monty says, "Yes."

And then Eisenhower says,

"But I think three divisions is a bit small.

Shouldn't it be bigger?"

Monty says, "Oh, should be much bigger."

It's a perfect example of Eisenhower's leadership style.

He gets buy-in from people

and then get whatever he wants done, done.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Overlord increases to five beaches

and six divisions,

which delays the operation for a month.

[intense music]

- [Robert] Eisenhower knows that in delaying Overlord,

he's running a risk,

and the risk is he's gonna use

that extra month for preparation.

But, of course, so is his adversary.

[boots clomping]

With each passing day,

German defenses are going to get stronger.

[intense music]

[intense music]

- [Tom] Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

believes the first 24 hours

of the invasion will be decisive.

He will say to an aide,

"The fate of Germany depends on the outcome.

For the Allies as well as Germany,

it will be the longest day."

- [Geoffrey] Rommel thinks that you have to defeat

the Allied invasion

when it comes at the water's edge.

[intense music]

But the thing is, there's so many points

that the Allies can invade.

[intense music]

They've scattered fortifications everywhere.

So he's like,

"How do I take this incomplete Atlantic wall

and fill in the gaps?"

And the way you do it

is you do it with things that are relatively cheap,

like tank obstacles, like mines.

[explosion blasting]

[intense music]

- [Tom] Rommel's strategy is to stop the Allies

on the beaches.

He can then bring in his panzers where necessary.

- [Robert] Rommel has a lot of experience

fighting the Western powers.

He knows this isn't gonna be easy.

Every minute he prepares,

he believes is a minute closer to a German victory.

[intense music]

- [Tom] In Britain, the Allies amass resources

for Operation Overlord.

The United States sends soldiers, tanks, aircraft,

and large amounts of supplies.

- [Geoffrey] You have to coordinate

this massive Allied coalition,

which by now is entirely dominated by the Americans,

you know, on the supply side, right?

Gotta ship over all the oil, all the material,

all the vehicles.

[intense music]

- The scale of Operation Overlord is just enormous.

You are talking about nearly 7,000 vessels involved.

You are talking about tens of thousands of artillery pieces.

You are talking about hundreds of thousands of men.

But what that means is that Britain,

for the last two and a half years,

has just been turning into one huge great big military camp.

[intense music]

- [Tom] To deceive the Germans,

the Allies devise and execute a deception plan.

Operation Fortitude is a false army operation created

to trick the Germans into thinking the Allies

will land at Pas-de-Calais,

which is the shortest root across the English Channel.

- [Dan C.] The elements that were involved

in trying to convince the Germans

that the attack was coming in another place,

another direction, another location, it's massive.

[intense music]

- False radio traffic.

The creation of false armies.

They used dummy vehicles,

balloons, and rubber tanks, and aircraft.

- [Geoffrey] This is all part of the deception campaign

to keep the Germans guessing until the last second.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Eisenhower hopes Fortitude

will prompt the Germans

to concentrate their forces near Calais

rather than Normandy.

[intense music]

- [Michel] The Germans have about

three quarters of a million men

who are poised to be able to mobilize

to wherever the Allies invade in northern Europe.

And so he knows that this is going to be a race.

It's going to be the Allies over water

and the Germans over land,

and the Germans are always going

to have an advantage in moving over land.

And so Eisenhower needs to slow them down.

The only tool that Eisenhower has at his disposal

are the bombers.

[intense music]

[plane engines buzzing]

- Eisenhower knows from previous experience

he can't pull off an amphibious invasion and keep it ashore

without dominance in the air.

Unless Allied air power is there for Eisenhower,

this landing is never gonna happen.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Starting in 1944,

Allied Air Force strategy

focuses on destroying the Luftwaffe

so that troops can land in Normandy without fear

of German air attacks.

[plane engines buzzing]

But Eisenhower also wants to hit railways

and transportation hubs throughout France.

[intense music]

- [Dan S.] Eisenhower wants the roads destroyed.

He wants the bridges destroyed.

He wants the railway yards destroyed.

He does not want one German unit

moving two miles down the road

without him having to build another bridge.

And so Eisenhower says,

"Those very valuable bomber formations

need to be working to my plan."

[plane engines buzzing]

Now, the bomber commander is like,

"No, we've got our own way of winning this war."

- [Dr.Grant] Everybody wants to support

the landings in Normandy,

but the Allied Air Forces argue

that the best way to do that

is to continue with more heavy attacks on Germany.

[intense music]

- [Michel] This becomes a knockdown drag out fight.

So Eisenhower, you know, basically threatens to resign,

if he's not given control over all the air forces.

He's fighting day in and day out

with the British, with the French,

with his own bosses back in Washington

on every little detail of the war.

And everyone is throwing up nothing but obstructions,

and he just doesn't have time for this anymore, right?

He is at his wits end.

- [Dan S.] He needs overwhelming strength to guarantee success

because you know what?

You've got one of history's most effective armies,

Hitlers panzers, who will be hurled

at those Allied landing forces

so they can chop you down in the shallows

and turn the waters red with your blood.

[intense music]

[intense music]

[horn blaring]

- [Tom] Early spring 1944.

Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower

has now been given full command of all Allied air forces.

- [Dr. Grant] In the end, he's got the air power weapon

he needs to attack the French transportation system.

That's roads, railways, and bridges

that the Germans will use to move forces

to oppose the landings.

[intense music]

- [Geoffrey] And so he wins, and we take that for granted,

but it wasn't easy, you know?

He had to like wrestle

with all these powerful figures and powerful egos,

not only within the US military,

but the British military as well.

It's another example

of Eisenhower's real quality as a leader.

[plane engines buzzing]

And so for 90 days before D-Day,

you've got thousands of sorties.

- [Pilot] Bombs away.

[intense music]

[explosion blasting]

By P-47 and B-26 marauders

that are flying behind the German lines

in the Pas-de-Calais in Normandy

is just absolutely punishing the road and rail network.

[explosion blasting]

[intense music]

[explosion blasting]

[intense music]

- [Tom] Defending multiple fronts,

the resources of Hitler

and his Third Reich are stretched thin.

[intense music]

- [Dr. Lieb] For the Germans in 1944,

their last big trump card are the tanks.

[gun blasting]

[intense music]

[gun blasting]

Rommel's plan is to deploy them as close

as possible to the beaches.

The advantage is that you can bring them in

much quicker as reinforcements,

but this idea runs against traditional German doctrine.

It's totally the opposite.

[tank motor buzzing]

- [Robert] The orthodox approach amongst German commanders

is to group your tank divisions into a concentrated mass,

let the Allies land,

and then, as they stumble into the French interior,

hit them at a time and place of your choosing.

[gun blasting]

- [Geoffrey] But Rommel says,

"Look, realistically we can't maneuver against them

when they come inland

because they have total air superiority."

- [Dr. Lieb] The only person

who can decide which option will be the better one

is Hitler himself.

But Hitler never wants to give too much power into one hand.

- [Tom] Suspecting that the Allies

will land near Calais,

Hitler spreads his panzers along Northwestern France,

but he reserves operational control for himself.

- [Robert] They can only be released into combat

by Hitler's express order,

which is probably the Achilles' heel of that plan.

[intense music]

[horn blaring]

- [Tom] In the spring of 1944,

there are over two and a half million troops

from multiple Allied nations

crowded into Southeast England.

[intense music]

- The invasion would send ashore combat experienced troops

who had participated in landings previously

as well as troops who had never done it before.

[intense music]

- [Michel] So the way you prepare is you have exercises.

You have rehearsals just like in a play.

So a series of exercises are undertaken

to include something called Exercise Tiger.

[intense music]

Exercise Tiger is going to invade a beach

called Slapton Sands.

And Slapton Sands is a British resort town

that remarkably looks exactly

like parts of the Normandy coast.

- [Tom] Secrecy is vital for this training mission.

3,000 British citizens are evacuated from the area.

- Operational security is absolutely paramount.

The Allies have to have tactical surprise

on the morning of D-Day,

so the Germans must be completely blindsided.

[guns blasting]

- [Tom] It's a practice run for D-Day,

but from the start, things go horribly wrong.

Because of a breakdown in communication,

the navy fires on its own men.

- [Martin] As if that tragedy wasn't bad enough,

the next day something even worse happens.

[intense music]

- [Michel] In the middle of the night, the LSTs,

these large ships that have personnel and tanks in them,

are preparing to do their part in Exercise Tiger

and circling about to do the second landing wave.

And then, all of a sudden,

a pack of German fast boats, or E-boats,

stumbles upon these LSTs.

- [Craig] And the Germans began firing,

and tracer bullets are flying across the ships,

and some of the men on board thought,

"Wow, this is a pretty realistic exercise."

And it wasn't really until the torpedoes began

to explode against the sides of the LSTs

that they realize this is not a realistic exercise.

This is an attack.

[intense music]

- [Geoffrey] They sink three LSTs,

which are really precious by this point.

They need every one.

- [Craig] More than 700 men were killed in Exercise Tiger.

So this was a very costly loss of life.

- [Michel] If a, you know, well-controlled, dress rehearsal

goes this badly under the best of possible conditions,

what's going to happen

when they can't just stroll ashore on a British resort town,

but are being fired at by German guns?

[intense music]

- [Tom] Operation Overlord has been planned down

to the closest detail,

but there's one crucial element no one can anticipate,

the weather.

[intense music]

- [Michel] They have a three-day window,

June 5th to June 7th.

If they delay the invasion past that window,

the moon is no longer going to be right

for the airborne operation,

the tides are no longer going to be right

for the landing forces,

and this delicate ballet of air, ground, and naval forces

won't have the necessary weather conditions

to coordinate and hit the beach with full force.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Eisenhower and his staff

rely on Group Captain James Stagg

and his team of meteorologists

to provide the most accurate advice possible.

[boat motor buzzing]

- [Michel] The weather leading up to the original D-Day

is gorgeous,

and it's so good that it almost feels like an omen.

It's two days before the invasion.

They're gearing up to launch on June 5th as scheduled,

and James Martin Stagg comes to Eisenhower

as part of the command conference

and says, "There's been a turn in the weather.

A storm is a-brewin'."

[intense music]

- [Paul] It's just frankly terrible news.

15-foot waves in the channel, high winds,

unpredictable seas, rolling fronts

coming in from all directions,

and it's just the last thing they can possibly deal with.

[intense music]

- [Dan S.] Amphibious operations are a total nightmare,

and on top of that, the English Channel

is a rough stretch of water.

You get winds that howl up that channel,

that kick up a swell, that make it impossible to operate,

you know, ships near the coastline.

- [Craig] Eisenhower had to consider what that meant.

And he said, "Well, we'll postpone making a decision

until four o'clock in the morning when you'll know more."

[intense music]

Four o'clock in the morning on the 4th.

Stagg came in looking not happy

and said "It's gonna be worse.

We'll have to postpone until the 6th of June."

[intense music]

- [Paul] The pressure's really there now to,

well, we really want to try and get this done in this window

or they've gotta wait again

for all the situations to coalesce,

the weather, and the tides, and the moon.

It might be a few weeks.

It might be months.

And the problem is

you've got all these hundreds of thousands of men in camps

who've been sharpened to this edge of ready to go in

and get their job.

Then, you've gotta say to them, "Actually, no, sorry lads.

We're gonna back down again."

[intense music]

- [Tom] Even the Germans think the conditions

are unsuitable for an invasion.

- [Dr. Lieb] Rommel gets his weather report

on the 4th of June,

and doesn't look very good,

and he thinks there will be no opportunities

for the Allies to land for the coming days,

and so he decides to go to Germany

and celebrate his wife's birthday.

The problem, though, is

that the Germans don't have meteorological stations

in the Atlantic, in contrast to the Allies.

And where does the weather in Europe mostly come from?

From the Atlantic.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Late in the evening on June 4th,

the Allies receive a report

from a weather station in Ireland.

[intense music]

- [Martin] Captain Stagg is gonna come in and go,

"Alright, the weather conditions

look like they're going to improve,

such that in the afternoon on Tuesday, June 6th,

you might be able to pull it off."

[intense music]

- [Tom] Eisenhower polls his commanders.

[intense music]

But the final decision is his alone.

- [Martin] Eisenhower will ultimately reflect on this

20 years afterward,

and he'll say that he felt like the loneliest man

in all of England.

And what must have run through that man's mind

was, "Well, the gliders are not gonna do well

in winds that are this high.

The paratroopers are all gonna be blown off course."

[intense music]

He had to recognize all of the things

that are going to go wrong,

not things that might go wrong,

but definitely gonna go wrong.

[intense music]

"But at the same time, I can't come back next month.

I can't come back in August.

It's now or never."

[intense music]

- [Michel] And he is sitting there

listening to the wind howling around,

and he says, "Okay, let's go."

[intense music]

- [Tom] Operation Overlord, D-Day,

is the largest amphibious invasion in history,

and it's being attempted by a coalition of many nations,

some of which have lived under the Nazi yoke for years.

The whole world awaits the outcome.

- [Dr. Grant] As the invasion got closer,

Eisenhower got more tense.

He's smoking four packs of cigarettes a day.

He's barely sleeping.

- [Michel] He has nothing left to do,

but wait to hear whether or not

he made the right call

in the middle of the night, sleep deprived.

[intense music]

But the most important thing though, I think,

he does in that period,

is he goes out and personally visits

the 101st Airborne.

[intense music]

- [Tom] The 101st Airborne,

along with the 82nd Airborne,

and the British 6th Division

will be the first to land behind enemy lines.

The job of the Airborne is to seize the causeways

and cover the flanks of the landing troops.

They will be the first soldiers

to fight the Germans in Normandy.

- [Michel] Eisenhower with no fanfare,

just walks among all these young men,

all of whom are no older, really, than his own son,

and he makes a point

of looking each one of them in the eye

as he shakes their hand.

[somber music]

He gets an estimate that about 50%

of the paratroopers are gonna be killed.

And so as he's shaking hands,

every other soldier is someone who he has every reason

to believe he has sent to their death.

[somber music]

The most important thing he could do in that moment

was just be there for them.

[men laughing]

And he spends all night doing that,

goes up to the roof nearby,

watches the whole thing take off.

[somber music]

That's how he begins D-Day.

[intense music]

- [Tom] Under a full moon

paratroopers, including The 101st Airborne,

start dropping behind enemy lines.

[plane engines buzzing]

[intense music]

Before dawn landing crafts are lowered into the water,

and troops start to board.

[intense music]

At sunrise, a fleet of warships launch a naval barrage.

[guns blasting]

- [Dan S.] Ultimately, the ground troops

are gonna land on five beaches,

two American beaches, Omaha and Utah,

a Canadian beach, Juno,

and then Gold and Sword, the British beaches.

They're then gonna try and link up those different beaches

and then push inland to take on and destroy

the might of the German army in France.

[intense music]

- [Paul] The morning of during the trip,

the weather patterns are still chopping about

and the wind is still blowing.

It's not an ideal situation

to start plowing these boats towards the coast there.

- [Geoffrey] Right from the jump,

the weather's a huge issue.

I mean, there's a six foot swell on D-Day.

[intense music]

- [Paul] The waves are swamping over the sides.

You're standing in freezing cold water.

You are there with 30 other guys.

If one vomits, you all vomit.

Sea spray is lashing into your face there.

You can't see.

Your eyes are stinging.

[somber music]

The longer that goes on,

the more you are thinking to yourself,

"What is gonna happen when that ramp goes down?"

[intense music]

[plane engine buzzing]

- [Tom] Omaha is the largest of the beaches,

a strip of the Normandy coast six miles wide.

- [Geoffrey] It's different from all the other beaches

in that it's almost like an amphitheater.

You know, you've got these high bluffs

overlooking the beach,

almost like a extended bowl.

[intense music]

You'd be coming in, gray skies, smoke, noise.

Ramp would drop,

and then there's this just absolute massive fire.

[ramp thuds]

[guns blasting]

- [Col. Douds] 85 machine guns laying down

100,000 rounds a minute.

[guns blasting]

[somber music]

People start getting shot and killed.

You see dead people floating in the water.

[somber music]

You're soaking wet.

You don't run up the beach.

You stagger up the beach.

Guys are trying to clear obstacles.

You're trying to move ahead.

[plane engine buzzing]

Your senses are overwhelmed

with all the things going around you.

[intense music]

- [Paul] That first wave is getting mowed down

in great numbers.

It's roughly 85% killed or wounded

in the assault waves on Omaha.

[intense music]

- [Craig] Eisenhower is receiving only

intermittent reports,

except, of course, that on Omaha Beach,

it's not going as planned.

While he tried to project a confident demeanor,

you know that inside him

he's just roiling with concern.

[intense music]

- [Dan C.] Failure is another Dunkirk.

Failure's the loss of all your equipment.

Failure is your troops being marched off into captivity.

If everything goes wrong,

it means a longer war.

- [Tom] The day before the landings

General Eisenhower, knowing the risks

and understanding the responsibility,

penned a brief note.

"My decision to attack

was based upon the best information available.

The troops did all that bravery

and devotion to duty could do.

If any blame or fault is attached to the attempt,

If any blame or fault is attached to the attempt,

it is mine alone."

[guns blasting]

[plane engine buzzing]

[intense music]

[plane engine buzzing]

[guns blasting]

- [Tom] On the morning of the Normandy invasion,

the first wave of American troops at Utah Beach

land almost a mile south of their target,

but quickly regroup and manage to take the beach

and push inland.

[men chattering]

The British landings at Gold and Sword beaches

go better than expected.

But at Juno Beach,

the first wave of Canadian troops

meets tough German resistance.

[guns blasting]

And at Omaha Beach, rough seas and intense German fire

wreak havoc on the first American troops.

[intense music]

[gun blasting]

But more men are on their way.

[intense music]

- [Geoffrey] The German defenders on the Atlantic wall,

they look out that morning,

and they're stunned by what they see.

I mean, they see

the biggest fleet ever gathered for an invasion.

The Germans all talked about

how they were so densely packed.

It looked like you could just walk from ship to ship.

[guns blasting]

- [Dr, Lieb] For the average German soldier on D-Day,

the experience is something totally new.

[gun blasting]

This naval bombardment-

[gun blasting]

It really shakes up the psyche of the German soldiers.

[intense music]

[guns blasting]

[plane engine buzzing]

[guns blasting]

- [Robert] There are two crucial German command failures.

One is that Rommel isn't there.

He's back in Germany celebrating his wife's birthday.

When he hears that the landing has happened,

he says something along the lines of,

"How could I have been so stupid?"

Even more important is Hitler.

[intense music]

- [Col. Douds] The morning of the invasion, June 6th, 1944,

Adolf Hitler is asleep,

but nobody will dare wake him up,

even though word has come in about this invasion starting.

- [Robert] So in the crucial five or six or seven hours

when the Germans might have landed

some quick blow against the Allies,

those Panzer divisions in the central reserve

that can only be released into combat

by Hitler's express order

are pretty much without a commander.

- [Dr. Lieb] As a consequence, the German's reactions on D-Day

end up a big mess.

[intense music]

- [Tom] By midday, the troops at Gold, Sword,

Juno, and Utah have started to push inland,

and momentum finally shifts at Omaha Beach.

The sheer scale of the invasion helps turn the tide,

but it also comes down to individual acts of bravery.

[intense music]

At Pointe du Hoc

US Army Rangers scale 100-foot cliffs under fire.

[intense music]

At Utah Beach, Brigadier General Teddy Roosevelt Jr,

the son of former president Theodore Roosevelt,

leads a division that lands south of the target.

- [James] They came ashore and he suddenly realized

that they were in completely the wrong bit.

And he said, "To hell with it.

The war starts here."

- [Tom] Roosevelt's son, Captain Quentin Roosevelt II,

is in the first landing wave at Omaha.

They're the only father son duo

who will land on the beaches that day.

[intense music]

Corporal Waverly Woodson,

a medic with the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion

is wounded before he even hits the beach.

- [Col. Douds] But he will treat almost 200 members

of the US Army, Navy, and British Navy

as they come ashore on Omaha Beach,

all the while under intense mortar and machine gun fire.

[gulls squawking]

[somber music]

- [Tom] By the end of the day on June 6th,

the Allies have secured all five beaches

and have pushed inland.

[somber music]

In the coming days,

they will link up with the airborne forces

to create a continuous, connected front along the coast.

- [Dan S.] It was Eisenhower who meshed

all of the different nationalities.

He brought 'em together,

and Eisenhower deserves a lot of credit.

- [Col. Douds] He's accountable.

He's responsible.

That's what leaders do in good times and bad.

Right man for the job.

- [Michel] Eisenhower understands,

probably better than anyone,

now the real hard fighting on the continent of Europe

is about to begin.

And at the same time, there's a ray of hope.

Allied victory is increasingly going to become possible.

The US theory of how you can wage war

has now been proven correct.

You can have a multinational alliance

pull off the most complex military operation

the world had ever seen.

- [Col. Douds] It's not just the infantry.

It's all the airmen that set the conditions.

It's all the Coast Guardsmen

and the sailors that drew the ships.

It's all the people who manufactured

all the stuff back in Detroit.

It's a global effort to make D-Day work.

[somber music]

- [President Roosevelt] My fellow Americans,

in this poignant hour,

I ask you to join with me in prayer.

Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation,

this day have set upon a mighty endeavor,

a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion,

and our civilization,

and to set free a suffering humanity.

[intense music]

- [Jon] President Roosevelt says in his D-Day prayer,

"Our forces will be thrown back.

Their road will be long and hard."

- [Roosevelt] But we shall return again and again.

And we know that by thy grace

and by the righteousness of our cause,

our sons will triumph.

- [Tom] On D-Day, the 101st Airborne,

just hours after being addressed by General Eisenhower,

parachuted into occupied France.

Despite being scattered across enemy territory,

these men clear the path for American forces

to emerge off Utah Beach and begin the advance on Germany.

A second front is firmly established

on the continent of Europe.

In the Pacific war, the boundaries are enormous,

ranging through Asia and into numerous remote islands

across the ocean.

Attacking this new front will require

the most advanced aircraft ever built.