D-Day: They Were There

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. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you… … I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Listen to D-Day: They Were There

It was the “Longest Day”—June 6, 1944. The greatest seaborne invasion in the history of battle began early in the morning of D-Day as thousands of paratroopers were dropped into France. Hours later, Allied troops stormed Sword, Juno, Gold, Utah, and Omaha Beaches, supported by a vast armada unlike any the world had ever seen. Though terrible fighting would rage across Western Europe for most of the next year, the D-Day landings were the first great blow to Hitler’s Reich in the West. On “D-Day: They Were There,” the men who first breached “Fortress Europe” share their stories of valor, in their own words.