D-Day 75th anniversary — How the historic battle was fought by Allied troops in Normandy ahead of 75th anniversary commemorations
ON Thursday it will be 75 years since more than 160,000 servicemen set sail to Normandy to liberate France from the Nazis in a daring top-secret assault known as D-Day.
Today, there are only a few thousand left – all men in their nineties. Many will return to Normandy this week, including 300 veterans on a ship chartered by the Royal British Legion. Here, some of those heroes recount what happened on D-Day.
22.35, June 5
STAFF Sergeant Jim Wallwork clambers into his Horsa glider, with co-pilot John Ainsworth by his side, and a full contingent of infantrymen.
The 181 men are heading for Normandy. Their task is to capture two vital bridges at Ranville and Bénouville and cut off Hitler’s SS Panzer divisions which could threaten the invasion.
On the way, Cockney Infantryman Wally Parr, 21, leads the singing with Abby, Abby, My Boy, while Private Willy Gray wishes he hadn’t drunk so much tea and rum before take-off.
The men gently tease their leader, Major John Howard, about his airsickness – asking if his stomach is OK. Howard laughs it off.
00:07, June 6
With the towlines cast off, the first of three gliders descends in the darkness.
Landing is so rough that Parr and his comrades are knocked unconscious and the pilots are thrown through the windscreen.
They come to after a few minutes and spot the bridges through the plane’s portholes.
They are less than 50 metres from their target – and the second and third gliders arrive seconds later.
00:19
Eighteen-year-old Private Helmut Roemer – guarding Benouville (later renamed Pegasus) Bridge on the Caen canal in Normandy – has been expecting a quiet night.
He hears a “swishing noise” and suddenly finds himself facing 30 British paratroopers with blackened faces who open fire – the first German soldier to face the Allied invasion.
He runs for his life. Roemer surrenders the next day after cowering under bushes.
Around six minutes later, Lieutenant Den Brotheridge, 28, leads the charge across the bridge.
A random flare lights up his position, and he is hit in the neck by machine gun fire – the first Allied soldier to die in action.
Wally Parr runs to his side and realises “Denny” has died after just minutes of action. Brotheridge’s only child, Margaret, is born two weeks later.
Read the remarkable stories of the returning veterans from our superb souvenir pullout
- Veterans share their heartbreaking tales from the D-Day Landings
- D-Day veteran remembers being told: ‘You’re the assault wave, you won’t be coming back’
- D-Day veteran remembers not caring about the German loss of life but how seeing the horses being killed really stuck with him
- Wren officer recalls how she found out her secret fiancé had been killed on Sword Beach
- One of Britain's last surviving D-Day heroes talks of liberating France with a fold-up bike and a misfiring gun
- Two fearless D-Day veterans in their nineties are to parachute into Normandy, 75 years after they first landed there
- Rod Stewart sang his hit Sailing to D-Day veterans ahead of 75th anniversary
01:11
German General Erich Marcks receives an alarming phone call at Corps headquarters in Saint-Lo.
The commander of the German 716th Division in Caen has received reports that paratroopers have landed in the area.
01:55
American paratroopers are dropping in and around the strategically important town of Sainte Mere-Eglise on the main road to Cherbourg.
Around 1,000 regroup close to the town with the intention of capturing it from its Nazi occupiers. After a few hours of fighting it becomes the first town in France to be liberated.
However, some paratroopers never make it this far. They are dropped at the wrong location and drown in the deliberately flooded countryside before they can offload their heavy kit.
03.30
Among those fighting is the youngest soldier to land in Normandy – 16-year-old Private Robert Johns, serving with the Parachute Regiment.
He has run away from home aged 14 and joined up. It is only after he is killed by a sniper weeks later his comrades discover his age.
05:23 – Attack
Allied warships open fire on the German defences along the Normandy coast.
05:45
Commandos have been advancing inland on bicycles to relieve the airborne division fighting at the bridges.
They find a badly wounded paratrooper on the way – and he’s not in a good mood. “Where the f*** have you been?” he demands.
At 6am, Paratrooper Pte Emile Corteil and his army dog Glen – a German shepherd – have landed amid fierce fire on the Allies’ left flank.
As they make their way along a country lane to join the rest of their comrades, they are mistaken for German by an RAF Typhoon fighter-bomber – and killed instantly, side by side, as they were in life.
Corteil and Glen are later buried together – and Glen’s name inscribed on their joint grave.
06.27
The battleship HMS Warspite fires a broadside – the starting signal for the British and Canadian assault on Juno, Sword and Gold Beaches.
The hero of El Alamein
GENERAL Field Marshall Bernard “Monty” Montgomery commanded all ground forces during the Normandy invasion.
Eisenhower respected the 56-year-old hero of El Alamein, but many American critics blamed him for the high casualty rate on June 6, 1944.
D-Day expert Col Jeremy Green says: “The campaign chewed up lives with terrible remorselessness.
“Normandy became a war of attrition where you had a one-in-seven chance of surviving two weeks if you were an infantry platoon commander.
“The Americans have not got over a 75-year hissy fit about Monty, who was a truly great general.
“The real truth of Normandy is that the forces of a mighty coalition entered the continent of Europe and struck a telling blow at its occupiers.
“They deserve our gratitude.”
06:30 – H-Hour
American soldiers land on Utah and Omaha Beaches, facing waves of machine gun fire from German forces. Many of the troops are now powerless, leaderless and scared.
Survivors who have made it to the top of the beach are huddling together, watching dead and dying comrades.
Some tanks have made it ashore and are shooting at German positions.
08:40
Commandos land at Sword Beach, led by the flamboyant Scottish aristocrat Lord Lovat.
With his personal piper Bill Millin by his side, playing Road To The Isles, Lovat leads his men through the heavy enemy fire.
He later recalled with relish: “They moved like a knife through enemy butter.”
In total, 156,000 troops have crossed the Channel destined for five target beaches – Utah and Omaha for US forces, and Gold, Juno and Sword for the Brits.
09:00
Captain Douglas Render is surprised to find himself in Normandy. The day before, he was ordered to oversee the loading of tanks on to a landing craft. He said: “The next thing I knew, the ship was at sea.”
As the craft arrives at Gold Beach, the front loading panel lowers and the first tank drives off – but vanishes in an unseen underwater trench and sinks with the loss of all crew.
09:30
The seas are rough and infantryman Robert Coupe, landing on Sword Beach, is so relieved to be on dry land that the enemy fire doesn’t bother him.
The meat stew rations that the troops have eaten back in Britain don’t help the nausea. He said: “We were all so seasick.
“I didn’t care whether I got shot or not. I just wanted to get off that landing craft and get my feet on the ground.
“The Navy boys brought us as close to the beach as they could and then we waded to shore with water up to our armpits.”
11:30
The dire situation on “Bloody Omaha” Beach – which saw 5,000 US troops killed or wounded on D-Day – improves as Allied ships come in close to shore and can attack German positions at point-blank range.
General of the US Army Omar Nelson Bradley, who has considered abandoning the assault on Omaha, receives a message that “things look better”.
11:55
Weary paratroopers who have been fighting for hours inland at the bridges believe they can hear the unlikely sound of bagpipes in the distance.
They tell their comrades, but are told they are simply hearing things. The bagpipes – above the sound of gunfire – appear to be getting louder.
Suddenly Lord Lovat’s piper appears – with reinforcements behind him.
'OK, we’ll go for it'
GENERAL Dwight D Eisenhower was the man who made the final decision to secretly send in the biggest invasion armada the world has ever seen.
Known as “Ike”, the then 53-year-old Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force postponed D-Day on June 5 for 24 hours because of bad weather.
The next day, despite choppy seas, he was told the conditions “were probably sufficient” to go ahead.
With time running out, just after 4am on Tuesday June 6, 1944, Eisenhower decided: “OK, we’ll go for it.”
Later, Ike stood on the cliffs above Portsmouth and watched the aircraft and ships set off on what he would later call The Great Crusade.
In his wallet was a handwritten note he had prepared in case it failed: “If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.”
12:02
After ceaseless heavy fighting, the commandos have reached the bridges to finally help the beleaguered paratroopers.
Lord Lovat, leading the way, shakes Major John Howard calmly by the hand and apologises politely for being two-and-a-half minutes late.
The scene is later immortalised in the 1962 Hollywood movie The Longest Day.
14:00
At midday UK time, Prime Minister Winston Churchill addresses the House of Commons.
He tells MPs: “During the night and the early hours of this morning the first of the series of landings in force upon the European continent has taken place.”
At around the same time, Adolf Hitler holds his daily military conference at his headquarters in the Bavarian Alps.
In a rather upbeat mood, he thinks the weather is on the Germans’ side. Hitler is convinced that the Allies will be driven back into the sea on the following day.
All five landing beaches are now crowded with activity as thousands more soldiers come ashore.
The wounded are receiving treatment amid the wreckage of the morning’s fierce fighting.
14:30
Allied planes concentrate bombing runs on German reinforcements around Caen because enemy tanks and infantry there are threatening the Allied beach-head.
15:00
The first sections of two Mulberry prefabricated portable harbours for unloading cargo on the target beaches head across the Channel.
18:00
A German armoured Panzer division attacks British forces in a pitched battle between Juno and Sword landing zones.
20:00
The British 50th Division, which landed at Gold Beach, is still three miles from retaking Bayeux but has joined up with Canadian forces, who landed at Juno.
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21:00
As night approaches, fighting continues and more troops arrive by glider. More than 140,000 Allied troops are now ashore along 55 miles of beach but it will be days before all five beaches are linked up.
A few German units are still defending the beaches, but the invasion has been a success.
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