Operation Overlord & Neptune (D-Day documentary)

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[Music] in the ours just before d-day thousands of Allied soldiers are readying themselves for the battle ahead personally I found myself saying a prayer and it was a prayer that just and then you just keep talking to yourself and that prayer was not that may I live through this so much as may I do my job and not let your buddy down that's the important the paratroopers flying into France are at the leading edge of a vast invasion force beneath them thousands of amphibious assault troops Special Forces divisions and fleets of bombers leave the coast of southern England you could see all the ships at sea literally hundreds and hundreds of ships and you felt like you could walk from one deck to the other the invasion plan calls for landings on five different Normandy beaches Americans to the west on beaches codenamed Utah and Omaha and British and Canadians to the east on gold Juno and sword years of painstaking research has gone into this plan with the most critical intelligence provided by air reconnaissance units generalists have to make decisions based on several factors are the beaches a practical place for landing what are the problems when you get to the beaches all heavily are they defended and many of these things can be terminal by photographs taken from high medium or low level 1 million recon photographs have been taken in preparation for June the 6th but tonight the time for planning is over the successful failure of d-day now depends upon the men heading into France [Music] d-day begins just after midnight when under the cover of darkness three gliders are towed to the French coast on board Major John Howard and his elite airborne troops prepare themselves for their mission personally I was frightened to death I would literally sitting my seat in the glider and the teeth were chattering monied the naughty but well you know this this is a this is my last time on earth and I'm going to be we got probably died within the next hour or two six and a half hours before the beach landings are due to begin these men must capture Pegasus Bridge lying just four and a half miles from the invasion beaches the bridge must be taken in tact Allied forces will need to cross here as they fight their way inland air reconnaissance images have enabled the men to carefully plan their attack on the bridge we could see really every detail we could see the design of the trenches cut into the banks of the ground we could see a pillbox on the end we could see other German positions around the bridges and therefore the detail that people were briefed on for this operation was intense but even with the best preparation the capture of pegasus bridge will be fraught with danger i think practically all of us without exception thought we were on a suicide mission what really frightened us was the twenty-first pound which was a real battle-hardened group they were in the area around calm six or seven miles from where we were landing and they told us they had around 350 tanks between them and we thought my god they only need half a dozen of those to come up the road and we're in trouble the gliders now detach from the Bombers telling them and at just 16 minutes past midnight the leading glider smashes down into the fields beside Pegasus bridge I was in the first murder and we hit the ground around about a hundred miles an hour the airborne troops have landed just 47 yards from Pegasus Bridge exactly as planned then there was a great scramble to get out because you know the last thing you want to be when you just landed close to a guarded bridge is to be sitting in a wooden what if like that almost as soon as we cleared the glider major Hart typical here me was up on the bank of the canal saying come on boys this is it come on and we all charged after him we've been told that the Germans have got explosives on the bridge and as soon as they thought it was under attack and they've been ordered to blow it up so we had to get there fast danny brotheridge who was our tune commander he went charging across the bridge we went charging after him lieutenant brotheridge leads the charge across Pegasus bridge we were shouting our heads off and make as much noise as we could to frighten the German brotheridge fires the first allied shots of d-day killing one of the centuries but seconds later he is himself struck down by shots from a German machine gun the British left Anand is the first allied soldier killed by German bullets on d-day but his charge has had its desired effect the other German guards beat a hasty retreat by the time we got to that end of the bridge they had decided it was not a good place to be staying around we scattered on either side of the bridge up and down the canal bank and took out nor our defensive positions it is now 21 minutes past midnight and the airborne troops have taken control of Pegasus bridge despite the first Allied casualty it is an auspicious start to d-day the small group of Brits remain isolated behind enemy lines with a long night ahead of them they must now hold the bridge until reinforcements arrive but with their limited supply of weapons they may not be able to withstand an armored counter-attack soon the men hear the comforting sound of Allied aircraft approaching 23400 american and british paratroopers are on their way to Normandy and by 1:00 a.m. they are getting ready to jump lieutenant dick winters is one of those men flying into France when it comes around to the time to jump the planes are supposed to slow down to about 95 is supposed to slow down through about 95 100 miles mark but in this case when we started in any aircraft and a couple of planes starting getting hit many pallets started to take evasive action my plane was hit went into a dive at the same time he went into a dive he threw me the green light to jump many Allied Pilots have never encountered anti-aircraft fire before this night some panic find too low and too fast to make successful drops at high speeds equipment is torn away from the paratroopers packs the other thing I had when I hit was the maps that were in my pocket and a jump knife it was strapped to my leg that's all I had behind the lines and Normandy d-day the weapons scattered all over the place this is a great way to start a war [Music] 1 a.m. on June the 6th 1944 and d-day is underway over the next 24 hours a hundred and fifty six thousand men will be landed across a 50-mile wide stretch of coastline allied reconnaissance planes have photographed the entire length of the German coastal defences and the images they bring back strike fear into the hearts of Allied planners this intelligence reveals that Hitler has built the greatest fortification in history it is a 1,200 mile barrier of concrete and steel and is known as the Atlantic Wall in charge of these defenses is Hitler's favorite general master tactician Owen Ronald for the Recon pilots sent to photograph the Atlantic Wall the risks are enormous I sometimes felt it was rather like being John Wayne on the horse off in front of the caravan going West wandering around through the hills looking for the Indians and hoping that they wouldn't catch you and scalp you before you got home look across the channel at about 50 feet Lord of radars at high speed turn parallel to the beach at low tide run all cameras while you're charging down the beach at about 350 miles an hour more or less like a duck in a shooting gallery we could see the iron structures which were sunken beaches at low tide and intended to stop landing craft which were coming up in those particular beaches every single beach suitable for amphibious landings has been protected with heavy obstacles and numerous gun emplacements and photographs were taken of all those and returned to the intelligence people for further analysis to some recon experts the Atlantic Wall looks impregnable and the beach is nothing less than a killing zone despite these misgivings the invasion plan is now in motion with 23400 american and british paratroopers leading the way under the cover of darkness they must land behind the atlantic wall capturing strong points and securing beach exits these troops must pave the way for the greatest amphibious invasion ever attempted it will begin a duel just five hours from now but already the paratroopers are in trouble bad weather and pilot error have left them scattered all over Normandy many have no idea where they have landed nor how to find their objectives it wasn't too long we ran into one of my sergeants who's coming down this road we had these little crickets so electric black [Music] we exceed greetings and coming down the road he had been smart enough to stop at a stone marker the stone marker said Sainte mère église I got under a raincoat one of the fellows had because by that time I had about 12 minutes surrounded me with the help of a flashlight another man had I was able to orient the map very quickly because the planes were coming in and they were flying from west to east he had told me st. Mary glaces that down up there there was st. Mary Gleason my met I knew exactly where it was winters and his men are inland from Utah Beach near the small village of San Mary clee's they are five miles from their objective san Marie do more this town must be captured quickly to secure the area for the beach landings but to reach San Marie do more before dawn the airborne troops must move with care through hostile territory behind the enemy line you do not walk on a straight line you follow the covers do you have and you avoid run into areas where you see a German machine-gun fire you know what right straight into something like that as dick winters and his men marched towards Utah Beach the British airborne troops who captured Pegasus bridge sit tight the Germans will want their bridge back so another fight is all but inevitable [Music] our Tosh Sydney was anybody coming up that side of the canal back to challenge them with the password and open for them if they didn't respond in other words to discourage counter-attacks coming up the canal back from the South at 1:30 a.m. the dreaded counter-attack begins at this time hard and his men first hear the rumble of distant vehicles before long German tanks approached British defensive positions around Pegasus Bridge two tanks certainly thought he Charlie up towards a bridge and we thought God Almighty never tanks to come this soon and we literally had nothing that would stop a proper tank of a big tank all the Brits have with them are to pee at guns primitive grenade launchers that fire a small three pound bomb they were terribly inaccurate weapons they were difficult to fire and they were only effective out to about maximum of 100 yards probably 50 we luckily had put one of our reserve turns up near the road junction to the west of the bridges with them was Wagga fault and who was a very experienced old soldier his sergeant he was a real veteran when these tanks arrived Wagga got down with this pit this may be the single most important shot of d-day if the first German tank is hit the bridge may be held but if Wagga flaunted misses the Germans will recapture Pegasus bridge and be free to push their armored Panzer divisions right onto the landing beaches the British sergeant has only one chance sergeant's hope every until the first tank is about 50 yards away from him then he fired his pair and he should I think that cause pandemonium for the Germans the guys in that tank obviously didn't survive one of them had his legs blown off when he was laying on them on the roads scream his head off the other tank when that one was hidden and blew up went into fast reverse and traveled off the way they come I think they've probably reported back that we had all sorts of anti-tank equipment on the bridge and it wasn't safe for them to go near the place the Allies have repelled the first counter-attack but only six miles away near calm the men of the 21st Panzer Division wait beside their tanks they could reach Pegasus bridge in just thirty minutes and their regimental commander Colonel Hans von Rukh is desperate to push but phone book needs Hitler's personal authorization before he can advance - Tana olen Ponsonby visited by our tanks ready to move at 2 or 3 a.m. if the drivers had their engines running but we received no orders about which direction to take we smoked cigarettes and waited and swore because we had no orders to shoot that can't be filled at 2:30 a.m. Hitler is sleeping hundreds of miles away in Germany none of his staff has the courage to wake him with bad news from Normandy until Hitler awakes his forces will be paralyzed he has retained personal control over the tank divisions leading local commanders powerless of course from Bertus Curtain or from his command post in East Prussia Hitler had no idea what the right decision would be for Normandy the only people who can decide are the people on the ground Hitler couldn't do that as Gandhi he damaged Hitler's most trusted General Erwin Rommel is in charge of the defenses and if he were present in Normandy he would lead the German counter-attack but tonight a simple family gathering may change the course of history it was his wife's 50th birthday on the 6th June and you can understand why he would want to be the Valcke analyzer didn't in Ronald's absence there was no one had the courage to make critical strategic decisions that's the reason why they hesitated to short-circuit them but in war hesitation can be fatal as dawn breaks on d-day the German defenders on the beaches have their first sights of the Allied forces the biggest invasion fleet in history is sailing straight to the little 3 a.m. and at air bases all over southern England Allied bombers are being prepared for their part in d-day Frank maze is a b-17 bull turret gunner and has not yet heard news of the invasion of France there were rumors that something big was going to happen nobody really knew what one of the rumors was that they thought that the Germans were going to invade England so everybody was pretty uptight Frank does not have to wait much longer before he learns the truth about June the 6th and d-day they came through and got me out of the bed we grumbled a little bit went down to the flightline at the briefing officer told us that this was the day that they were going to invade the continent and at 4 o'clock in the morning we took off but this time the Sun was just lighting this sky in the east I turned my turret to the rear and looked and as far as I could see there were our planes that will bomb us the Allies will put a total of 5112 bombers into the air on d-day I could see that large ships down there blasting the guns the big plumes of smoke I could even see the white trails in the water of the landing craft as some of them began to take off Frank Mays is soon over his target Omaha Beach we just carpet-bomb or stripped from out in the water inland for the invading forces to come in on I saw shells exploding in the water on the land on the shore and I was glad that I was not down there in the years since d-day controversy has raged over the accuracy of the Omaha Beach bombardment not a single damn bomb was dropped on our Beach what the hell is wrong with you guys can't you read the map they had been ordered at midnight - look delay their bomb drops up to 30 seconds that would put them halfway to Paris you see so a lot of old French farmers back here we had they live in Hell scared out of them they had a lot of fine dairy cattle you know what killed yet the bomber crew is a certain that they did their job and did it well I could tell that there had been a complete path bombed from the water four full half mile inland there was nothing left down there to this day the controversy is still unresolved certain Beach areas were bombed effectively but in other places the German defenses remain intact feh hum from the bomb but don't call me first make the point we were hardly touched by the aerial bombardment hence a bombazine a great sea of bombs fell behind us in London but only a few exploded anywhere near our bunker novelist male planners had expected the bombardment to obliterate German beach defenses but the concrete pillboxes and bunkers overlooking the beaches are largely undamaged the men heading in towards land know nothing of this to them the sight of vast bomber fleets hitting the coasts is hugely reassuring the medium bombers were flying over and you could hear the drone the steady drone it looked like they were pounding the coast pretty well and it made us feel like that we were gonna walk across the beach because what could possibly you know withstand all that and we were kidding each other on deck you know slapping each other on the back CEO on the beatsie in Paris and we were pretty upbeat about it the men prepare to move from the transport ship to the smaller landing craft that will free them into the beach if you had to go to her rope GLaDOS to get into the landing craft or sturdy man to each boat and the sea was rough and see that landing craft was small and it was bouncing up and down with the wave when I got to the bottom I thought I would go drop just a couple of feet I must have dropped ten feet it really shook me up we started circling around and round waiting on the rest of the landing parties to get out of the big boat into the ocean sea was rough I mean it was really rough but now you can see the Whitecaps and that's when everybody got wet and cold and most everybody had gotten sick and they were vomiting and using you know their puke bag and throwing it over and we were you know ten eleven miles out this image captured on the morning of d-day itself shows Bob slaughters objective on Omaha the hills behind much of the four mile length of this beach present a problem for the Allies they prevent Armour moving inland in support of the troops realizing this the Germans have concentrated their defences around a few key roadways leading inland the Via Ville draw is one of these exit roads and is a key strategic objective for the Allies our job on d-day was to land at the varible draw which was probably the most heavily fortified of all the 50 miles of shoreline but before Bob slaughter and his men can land on Omaha American Special Forces men from the Ranger battalions must complete their own deadly mission a topped towering cliffs between Utah and Omaha beaches is a battery of five heavy guns they are ideally placed to pummel the invasion beaches with devastating firepower this image reveals how heavily Pointe du Hoc has been bombed before d-day in advance of the Rangers attack Ranger leonard lomell has studied these photographs in preparation phase mission you are told and you are told that that's a 155 millimeter gun in that bunker down here and there's six of them your ambition is to go in there and sneak into those bunkers and destroy those guns and kill all the Germans around if getting your way the men must sail to the foot of Pointe du Hoc scale the 100-foot cliff face and knock out the guns luckily the Ranger divisions have built a reputation for taking on the impossible now we were not your next-door neighbor pink-cheeked guys that you remember we've all kind of special and we had something burning within us we were ready for action we were gung-ho fellas we loved excitement and adventure and of course the most adventurous activity you can get into is warfare slightly dangerous now impotent but it's exciting General Omar Bradley the principal commander in the field on d-day knew that the mission to destroy the Pointe du Hoc guns called for men with a special kind of determination general Bradley wood had experience with the Rangers and North Africa and Sicily and he said don't damn guys can do anything said now I know there they are knocked over going down but there may not be much left after that the plan calls for the Rangers to go in at 6:30 a.m. just ahead of the first landing waves on Omaha Beach they will then only have a short time in which declined the cliffs and destroy the guns but at first light the plan is already breaking down on d-day morning about daybreak we were all straining our eyes trying to make out something you know on the horizon as theme became to get clearer and clearer it didn't look right and it was Colonel rudder who was in the boat just ahead of me it was the first ruler to take action said hell that's not point to hunt and he turned around to his bosun and gave him an order to flank right and he wouldn't so the colonel drew himself up he's a big man turned around it says right rudder and this kid was so scared he just gave it that you see and that turned the whole column of boats now we were only within rifle range really of the coast but the rangers have now lost the element of surprise hidden beneath the cratered surface of Pointe du Hoc is an underground concrete fortress German troops are now emerging from this lair and quickly man the defenses we arrived 38 minutes late you see 708 and the Germans were up on the top side shooting at us coming in the Rangers will not have to climb the cliffs in full view of the enemy but they must destroy the Pointe du Hoc guns no matter what the cost you pour the blood out of your boots and keep right on going the thing you want to trust me keep in mind you've got to achieve that objective that's what you're here for and I yelled up I said boys they're throwing grenades turn your faces in and your butts out you can got to get some shrapnel yeah but you know could handle that strap a lot better than your face some Rangers are shot others fall to their deaths but there is no question of giving in and they were trying to cut the rope and they were trying to shoot our fellas off the ropes and I dropped Rene's on anything they could do is think of to drive us back in the sea they were trying to do and we on the other hand we're trying everything we can think of to get up there and kill them about that time there was a hellacious explosion and the last thing I remember was all of this rocked in wood and stuff coming rolling down the hill and I was out for I don't know how long and when I woke up it was the pain in my legs and I learned later that I had blood blisters on my legs and I looked around and looked up there and here's this German soldier leaning over the cliff he had his chin in his hand like that leaning over you see I looked around for my tommy gun he was but out buckle down in the mud I pulled it out and he was still standing there I said well you're bashing up raise up click it wouldn't fire my gun was clogged up with mud and I thought to myself ain't this a hell of a note Here I am in the damndest war in history it was no gun now one of that German up there didn't shoot me I don't know he could have very easily he could have picked me off while james eikner must resume his climb from ground level other ranges are nearing the cliff top tennis Bob and I were pulling ourselves up to rope we were maybe 10 feet on the top my Bob said I can't make it can you help me I said honest to god I can't help because I I'm wondering myself if I got enough strength left to get to the top and then I looked up and I saw Ruben there and I said I held up the room of head room grab Bob is stressed about these give up and he reached over driving bottle of vodka macking won him over the top at a clip both lamella and Eichner reached the top of Pointe du Hoc but others are not so fortunate 16 men died while climbing the cliffs [Music] when the surviving Rangers reach the top they are shocked at the devastation wreaked by Allied bombers when we got up there it looked like the moon there were so many shell rolls and created you running this shell and all of us have some crowns in it the nectar rain they must now seek out and destroy the 155 millimeter guns but when they reach the bunkers there dumbfounded to find these weapons missing and then fly when you got there the guns weren't there the German troops must have moved their guns inland to keep them safe from Allied bombers rather still carry out the mission find them wherever they are as soon as possible render them inoperative as quickly as possible so that tens of thousands die leonard lomell and Jack Kuhn head inland to hunt down the German weapons and we didn't know where we were going that was the only Road there we saw these marks on the road like real marks lamelle and coon followed the tracks one and a half miles inland the trail leads them to an apple orchard where they stumble upon the well concealed guns and there were flowers and we just looked upon and there was nobody guarding them the other direction was a 50 man armoured patrol of Germans comin at us they passed Jack and I within 20 feet of us now we gotta stay alive we gotta destroy those guns render them inaudible using incendiary grenades leonard lomell and Jack Kuhn soon disable the guns we got accomplished our objective patrol had found the big guns and put them out of business we had cut the highway and denied its use to the enemy he couldn't see and reinforce us down to Omaha bokura had him blocked off and had knocked out the communication we had accomplished our mission this photograph taken on d-day morning shows james eikner at his bodies resting during the lull in the fighting we've had relax there in our little shell cold meat sitting there and Rick taking a drink out of my canteen and we expected to see our relief coming down the highway at any time they were supposed to get there at noon on d-day in fact it will be a full two days before reinforcements reach the Rangers on Pointe du Hoc in the meantime they will have to fight on alone holding their position in the face of relentless counter-attacks by the time reinforcements finally arrive only 90 Rangers out of the original 225 strong force will still be standing further along the coast waves of Allied troops are now approaching Omaha Beach the landing craft are no longer in any danger from the guns of Pointe du Hoc but this beach landing will prove to be one of the bloodiest episodes of world war two [Music] in the months before d-day air recon pilots have become familiar with the French coast but today June the 6th 1944 will be different today they will be photographing history in the making there were so many aircraft in the air it was a matter of keeping your eyes open and weaving left and right to avoid formation squadrons of bombers coming in and when I looked down at the sea there were so many battleships destroyers and landing craft I felt I could have jumped out not got my feet wet throughout the whole of d-day the men of the recon squadrons patrolled the Normandy skies recording the landings as they happen the plan was to photograph the whole invasion coast flying back and forth parallel to the beach [Music] far beneath the recon planes and clearly visible on the earliest photos from the day are the first waves of Allied landing craft they are heading in towards Omaha Beach [Music] the rocket ships begin to fire the excitement was unbelievable and the sea was terrible that boat was floundering around and I looked behind man men were seasick as we got in a little bit closer when I got even safe three four hundred yards from the shore we start taking artillery and mortars and they started falling around and of course you they would send the geyser of water up and they were drained right back on us and then your belly really got to churn it get pretty hairy then the German defensive troops ahead of them a battle-hardened men reinforcements drawn from the Eastern Front yet even experienced soldiers such as these are stunned by the size of the invasion fleet heading toward the landings when the landing fleet arrived it was unbelievably huge to only receive abortions we said this must be happening so many ships the horizon was black with ships weights on - fats from chiefin I see the neocon but when they came closer we quickly got into the bunkers and men the machine guns Sheehan [Music] we thought we were going to walk across the beach we thought it was gonna be a cakewalk and I remember telling the rest them I said we're gonna catch here the German bunkers are largely undamaged and Allied landing craft on their final approach are sailing directly toward them [Music] you can see the trace from bullets music sagging across the beach the puffs of smoke from the mortars and you could hear that artillery shells going over and so forth we didn't know whether we were going to land right in front of a German pillbox or a gun emplacement or what when that Ryan went down the captain went out first that time he hit the end of the runway he was full of bullets machine gun just opened up they had to set a crossfire from two different guns up in a cliff they became carabiner I fired my gun position less than 200 meters from the beach it was absolutely horrific for the landing troops Conrad shouted to me France don't shoot too soon wait until they jump into the water here ramps came down and they jumped most of them fell into the water gentamicin whether they were dead or injured we didn't know enough about it - I'm gonna meet the coma two other men with all when I was a friend of mine he was hit I was the fourth man this was the first time I'd ever been under fire but his first time everybody tried to kill me and when the excitement of being scared to death I fell off to the side and it went straight to the bottom now this water was cold it was : to places and it was chaos people screaming you know some were getting hit and and some were drowning because they couldn't had all this equipment we had 60 pounds of equipment on and they couldn't they couldn't keep their head above water and and they were hanging on to me out you know I was six five and they were pulling me under and it was terrible trying to get in to where we could breathe and when I come back up got the feet on the bottom and give a push and I come up and the captain was hollering I'm here to help and I started towards about maybe 10 12 feet from him but then I see blood water just bubbling up red and I said man I've got to save my own life it's don't need and it's this time I look back and all the rest I'm coming off a boat were being just cut down like you would I didn't I hadn't counted on this I was the only survivor that was there to being on board that boat and I was the only man to get off alive Wow got up close to the water's edge as I could and my number one and number two Gunners were right with the lost machine gun in the water we had the tripod which is worthless without of gonna and we had one box of ammunition and so I would lay there on the on the beach and was trying to decide when to go across and I could still see the machine gun tracer bullets you know flying across the tide was coming the end real fast it was real it's a terrible tide there on Omaha Beach the tide comes in so fast at Omaha that many injured men are unable to crawl to safety they will die alone in the rising surf I found that got to the edge of the water and I heard somebody holler my name and it was my sergeant somehow he had made it to the beach but he was badly wounded and he raised up hollering at me to come help him and when he raised up on his elbow a sniper up in the cliffs spotted him and hit him right in the head with that telescope rifle you know just like you deer hunt when that bullet hit his head he just exploded what was after his head flopped down the fan and I knew wouldn't no need going over there so I bared my face and had put my hands over my head and everything best I could because I figured he's seen me too he'd almost bound to see me and I just waited there for my shyness Amy and I just waited there for my shot to come [Music] but somehow evidently he got distracted by bigger better targets or something and he didn't pull a trigger on me [Music] and I started to crawl just inch at a time and I would peep up and see a dead body and I crawled of that dead body and laid beside it for a while during this time I passed body parts little everything you can imagine what was laying there I run upon men that we're not dead but we're just blown apart it's just amazing has some time you can live being blown up as bad as we're and they were screaming and hollering but there's nothing I could do pull I just crawled by at this point I want to tell you this is the first combat I was in I was scared I mean I was scared good on the eastern flank of the d-day invasion by the British and Canadian beaches gold Juno and sword at 7:26 a.m. on Sword Beach the first assault waves run into danger we went to ground about ten yards up the beach because the fire was so intense and I did not perceive it safe to advance any further the troops are taking mortar in gunfire and will be cut down if they advance fortunately an ingenious British design tank comes to the rescue floating DD tanks were constructed especially for d-day and 21 of them have made it safely on beach and then the DD tank came up and he opened the hatch and shouted worth the fire round to the right at 200 yards he swivel this corner and far one shot [Music] no more mortified complete silence and even the machine-gun fire from the enemy had gone the gun on the JJ tank was absolutely essential it dominated the beach and sponsor Poisson that was a throughout the morning DD tanks continued to attack German positions on sword amidst the battle successive waves of troops are offloaded onto the beach some men from these later waves are remarkably level-headed showing no concern for gunfire and mortar blasts they sit down to enjoy a mug of the national drink when soldiers hate the beach the first thing they wanted to do was after a long sea journey was have a Brewer take we had to discourage them from doing that because we didn't want them on the base in groups brewing up too we wanted the beaches clear so that people could move over tank vehicles never in health no you get off knock those Germans out and then you could have a cup of tea the British troops soon regrouped and before long continued their advance this aerial photograph shows men and vehicles streaming inland from Sword Beach the British advance has been boosted by the DD tanks but in the rough seas of Omaha Beach all but one of the floating tanks are swamped and sink [Music] the men here will have no armored support to protect them from German machine guns their only chance of cover lies far ahead at the foot of a concrete seawall to reach it sergeant Bob slaughter must cross a great stretch at exposed Beach it was 300 or 400 yards of flats and that's three football fields or four football fields in the end and it was a long way to go while I was lying there contemplating what to do I saw one of the men from the boat and to our right he starts running across the beach they shoot him and he falls to the sand and he starts screaming while he's wounded and one of our medics went out to help him and they shot the medic and you know that put a chill into my thinking about going across but you know here comes a big wave and it's pushing this in so I decided to go take my chances Bob slaughter tells his men to prepare for the long sprint for cover across the exposed width of Omaha Beach so I started running across the beach as low as I could go and as fast as I could I'll keep running and running and running and running they seem like forever and I got to the seawall and here comes Williams and all Gary right behind me I was out of breath and I was scared to death you know and I was tried a lot of cigarette my hands were shaking so bad I couldn't get my cigarette there and if I had to finally compose myself and I've just kept saying to myself get a hold of yourself you know you got to do this you got to do it and finally after a long time into the time I got to that wall and there I met a buddy of mine there was on another boat named Mac Smith from West Virginia and he had an eye hanging out on his face and I slapped the bandage on it and now stayed there with him and five or six other men for while we were sort of protected from the machine gun but the tide was coming in and dead bodies were rolling just like a log and would run out and pull one end the Germans would shoot at us if they'd seen it if we found a live one which we did find some some fewer life we've got a medic and we we managed to save a few of them but that's what we did most of the day was dragged dead bodies [Music] the landings on Omaha have clearly not gone to plan dead and wounded cover the beach and those men left alive are pinned down at the seawall to stay here will mean certain death but it seems like suicide to move ahead with no artillery or tank support by 8:30 a.m. the d-day commander General Omar Bradley contemplates the abandonment of Omaha Beach he even considers landing the next waves of American troops on the British peaches but general Bradley has one last card to play positions just off the via Ville draw is fireman Dean Hatton on his ship the USS snow cook the first troops are practically annihilated there just everyone destroyed because they pulled machine guns and mortars in right over top of that village and just pounded the first troops that went in just destroying landing craft as best they come up on the shore I remembers Beach trying to get up the hill into very village sir beer look like they were all knocked out because of the smoke obscuring Omaha Beach the destroyers cannot identify targets on land their only option is to move closer to shore but in these shallow waters they risk running aground they must make an agonizing decision watch the infantry be wiped out or risk losing their ships skipper said if we have to run this ship ashore to knock out those guns we're going to do it I wanted to protect the troops that were landing because they were taking a horrible beating when we came in for closer fire we could see the men on the beach it was a just a jumble of vehicles that had been hit and bettered the beach we came in within 500 yards on the scraping bottom for destroyer the landing craft were being fired upon and we try to knock out the gun emplacements before the landing craft went in some we knocked off on the first run four or five inch firing rapid form and take a pillbox right off of the side a cliff I like the boats kept targeting our bunkers gun openings firing into them as for we had some protection but not against direct fire their firepower was imprecisely a ton and no defenses could withstand that an abstention scale the Destroyers crews along the full length of Omaha Beach shelling German defensive positions we've moved up and down the shoreline at high speed is hitting pillboxes for the first hour or so as the troops got ashore they could direct fire where they needed it after we'd hit a machine-gun nest or a mortar that's a well-done McCook and would go on to another target [Music] for the Germans on the receiving end of these shells the impact is devastating by 10:30 a.m. this decisive action by the destroyers has turned the tide at Omaha Beach it gives a great morale boost to the men down at the seawall and in small groups they begin the next phase of attack roads up I was dead I knew I had to keep going although I knew me and froze up and surprise me 1 or 2 they did still facing a barrage of German gunfire the men start to move off the beaches up to the hills and Bluffs inland we all found a path up to the top of the bluff there's a minefields on both sides of the path and he said Achtung mining all over the place and we got up there and we started digging in that was our permission was to get on top and then be ready for a counter-attack than we knew is coming we were expecting you know tanks within 24 hours since we got up on top we could see this german novel worker position he was just firing down on the beach and they were just plastering the beach and so we didn't have anything to knock out a gun like that it was actually a battery Evan a First Sergeant with palm Salter as one of the few functioning radios on own a hot Beach Presley made contact with a destroyer out the channel he directed the história too far around to see where it landed and then you walked it into that target and knocked out that my preferred position so well that was one of the great things that I saw on d-day they saved a lot of lives by knocking that thing out [Music] all across Omaha Beach small groups of men and officers are taking the initiative slowly making progress in land [Music] the Allies have broken through but they have paid a terrible price for their success [Music] by 11:00 a.m. hundreds of men have already been killed on Omaha Beach and the day is not yet over I never dreamed would losers man in the end but there again I had never known the horror war either when men are blown apart fueled by the dozens no I didn't dream it would happen over to the west on Utah Beach casualties have not been so heavy [Music] when we stopped it was right up on the beach the ramp went down and we walked on the beach didn't even get her feet wet the defending troops at Utah consist mostly of austere battalions made up of men from Eastern Europe who have been conscripted into the German army many are reluctant to risk their lives fighting for Hitler they were told me disorganized we were lucky to that degree that they were disorganized so Hansel any I'm just as a hands up others were killed many of them just took off we captured quite a few other so we offered move resistance but as the men from Utah Beach move inland they start to encounter a heavier opposition they're also moving into very unfamiliar terrain as soon as we hit the other side we were in hedgerow country and we never had any training in hedgerow fighting I never even heard the word hedgerow and these Germans were waiting for us behind there you'd move a little bit and you think everything was oh this isn't gonna be bad then all of a sudden you encounter a lot of fire the thing that bothered us the most was the snipers in the trees you know the enemy snipers in the trees they had clothing that would match the vegetation the trees and you never knew when you were going to be running into one of those the hay can monitor hedgerows were of course an advantage when defending a position as he could camouflage yourselves or hide behind them onto fish taking hunter paratroopers from the hundred and first Airborne had their key landing zones in this area since 1 a.m. they have been battling to clear the hedgerows and mop up German resistance their primary mission is to seize the causeways the road exits leading off Utah Beach and to rendezvous with the ground troops as they move inland but in the chaos and confusion of the night the paratroopers have fallen well behind schedule a large force of ground troops is already heading inland from Utah Beach they are moving up causeway number two and towards the ancient farmhouse known as break whore Manor at breaker the Germans had been smart enough to have concealed in a hedge hedgerow and camouflaged it very well for 105 cannon time is running out as the ground troops move inland they are heading right into the path of these German guns if they start firing hundreds of Allied infantry will be killed the race is on can the hundred and first Airborne destroy the German guns before there is a massacre [Music] 8:30 a.m. on d-day morning and all along the invasion front men are fighting their way in land but the Allied soldiers coming ashore on Utah Beach are advancing right into the path of German 105 millimeter heavy guns [Music] these are hidden inland at break or mana and if they open fire there will be carnage down on Utah Beach the paratroopers of the hundred and first Airborne are attempting to knock out these weapons a head-on attack at break or has a head-on attack at break whore has already failed so the commanding officer asks dick winters to try a different tactic Colonel Strayer said take care of this far from the right flank yes sir I crawl out there by myself got close enough then a good seeker this position was a decider is gonna hit this thing from the flank [Music] lieutenant Compton two men crawl out ahead with instructions when you get close enough to throw hand grenades in that dress when you run into a position like that get into the trench I'm gonna look likes and then you can take them off one at a time that's exactly what we did we got in that trench took that first good and then Terkel the balance of them so it took a little time but we took dick winters and his small group of 12 men have destroyed all four German guns but they are now taking fire from concealed machine-gun positions winters decides to pull his men back but as he does so he stumbles upon some intriguing German documents as soon as I picked him up a realized I'm looking up I'm looking at maps that have the entire defense for the entire Utah Beach down to barbed wire minefields the way the machine guns were distributed their strong points my goodness I must get this back to battalion right away hundreds of American lives could be saved if these maps reach the Allied commanders in time and battalion looked at him realized how important days were and a game to a lieutenant Nixon he took off for the beach [Music] within a few minutes the defensive plans for the entire beach is in the hands of the commander the American generals are thrilled with the maps of the Utah Beach defenses as a reward for their efforts General Joseph Colin sends up the first available tanks to help dick winters finish off his work at break or mana he brought the first two tanks to look causeway number two to me you had to crawl up on the tank itself and point out the hedgerow back here all these machine guns are these tankers had not had a chance to fire a shot yet they had a heyday they start firing those 50 caliber machine guns and I thought they would tear the place up they didn't know when to stop they wiped them out in a hurry the battle for break or mana is over the hundred and first Airborne has cleared the way for the assault troops to move inland we eliminated all this fire that would have been going down causeway number two for any troops trying to come in from the beach they could have caused an awful lot of casualties and delayed D landing as it was the causeways were very very light on Utah Beach of which were proud back down on the beaches the worst of the fighting is now over some of the men who earlier fought their way inland now return to the coast to pick up supplies and ammunition things had improved a lot you couldn't just walk up and down the beach you know I get to kill because there were still snipers and there was still machine counter to up there that were still operable Omaha Beach is still far from secure but German prisoners are already being brought in for interrogation down the beach I saw a lieutenant with a couple of German prisoners he was asking him where the minefields were and the German and all he would say was his name rank and serial number now this guy was a little skinny and he was ugly and you know it didn't like a soldier at all I would always pictured the German soldiers is these you know big create big blond haired guys this officer just got mad he says you don't tell me where the mine feels I'm gonna blow your head off and all he would say name rank and serial number so this officer shot his carbine right between his legs and this German looked up at him and said yeah oh my god these guys are fanatics and he was I mean you know they didn't care I mean they were they were tough guys didn't look tough but they were tough these experienced even fanatical troops are unlikely to step aside as the Allies push inland in fact just a few miles south of the beaches armored Panzer divisions are poised to counter-attack by 1:00 p.m. on d-day across all five invasion beaches the Allies have cracked the Atlantic wall and smashed their way into occupied France British troops and are racing towards their key objective the City of Khan whoever controlled this city will control the road to Paris the Germans are well aware of this and in the months before the invasion have strengthened their defenses around car the greatest threat to the Allies is the 21st Panzer Division based on the outskirts of the city Allied bombers have been pounding cards since midnight and in the early afternoon the next bombardment is about to begin we left our base at about one o'clock in the afternoon and we had to strike what was known as a German headquarters command this was in the city of calm it was an old castle that the Germans had confiscated they used for their headquarters we had the honor of hikmet pretty hard our purpose was to drop enough bombs on there to kill everybody in there and to knock out their communications systems [Music] the b-26s do indeed find their targets and by early afternoon much of con is burning after harsh lake from the high grounds about 14 kilometers outside con we look down and saw a cloud of black smoke hanging over the city and we thought of ourselves my god this is war cleek vana Courtin house is part of the German 21st Panzer Division and after losing precious hours waiting for orders they have finally been directed to advance through Khan and on to attack the Allied beaches the ante Massa dear visual the main part of the division tried to drive north from Kahn but they found it difficult to Bombardier because of the bombing the city streets were impossible so they have to drive around cars they didn't reach their attack positions until 4:00 p.m. and by then it was far too late to feel yet even this late in the day the heavily armored Panzer Division could still create problems for the allies moving inland the German tanks continue their advance towards the allied beachhead Bhuvana - we were very unhappy we were concerned about the dangers of driving during daylight knowing that we could come under air attack yes Daddy if we would have much preferred to have driven by night thousands of Allied fighters are patrolling the skies over Normandy seeking out targets of opportunity he would attack anything that move no matter what he would attack anything that who no matter what it was use the as far as troops were concerned we would only gently only have to make one pass and then they would they would get off the road and try to hide someplace as the German Panzer Division moves up toward the beaches it is spotted by fighter aircraft the ham and often big lips we experienced an air attack at about 5:00 p.m. just east of comm chief law calmed yeah and as we were standing next to our tanks awaiting further orders when the fighters approached us flying bleached opened we crawled under our tanks so that we had protection above us but one man made the mistake of trying to climb inside via the tank hatch and he was killed we were shocked at how easy it was to destroy our tanks she's we had thought they were good machines and not easy to knock out but when you see five tanks blowing up in ten minutes you soon become disillusioned and they'd see be permeated as well [Music] the Panzer led counter-attacks of run out of steam in the face of such concentrated airpower they simply cannot advance dan is a first phase on the surface and then something remarkable happened towards 6:00 p.m. there was a massive influx of around 600 planes from England towing gliders they flew right overhead and on towards carnage don't count these gliders contain thousands of British and American reinforcements they will further strengthen the Allied foothold on France and this influx caused the divisional commander to fear that we were being surrounded de spring so he canceled the order to attack and immediately ordered all forces to retreat and dig in to defend the area north of car [Music] the Allies do not capture the city of Kahn on d-day but their beachhead is secure as darkness begins to fall the aerial images reveal the vast fleets of gliders lining the fields at Normandy [Music] over the beaches vehicles can be seen streaming inland even more importantly the Recon photos show the enemy's positions at the end of the day [Music] just hours after the recon pilots land back in britain these images will be in the hands of intelligence experts [Music] these photographs taken on d-day would be analyzed by the intelligence officer who in turn would go to the general the same that's where we are that's where they are that's where we have to send the fighter bombers to contact them that's where we have to direct the artillery shell small short and all sorts of decisions are made on what the photographs revealed as to the disposition of the friendly and enemy forces for a Beckley d-day is now over he along with the other recon pilots is back at base preparing for a good night's sleep thanking God I was an Air Force reconnaissance pilot rather than the ground ponder sometimes you were very happy to be a pilot come back for a clean uniform decent male and decent bed there are no soft beds for the men who have landed in Normandy after long hours of fighting they rest when and where they can often disturbed by enemy activity d-day night were in one hedgerow and across the field and another header on the Germans we were tired we had been up all day the day before up all night and had a hard day's fighting we're ready to settle down the Germans in the other hand they were fresh they're shooting their guns in the air I couldn't figure this thing out oh this guy's gonna have a night attack I was very concerned in most places there are no German night attacks as darkness cloaks Normandy the men of d-day reflect upon all that they have witnessed many have seen their fellow soldiers die right before their eyes there's not like old movies you know patriotic music playing in background he dies dirty scared hurt and pained and he has to lay there you can't move him he lays there until the grave registration comes up and picks him up some days later after fighting moves on those men were piled up on the beach after d-day like wood and those people were young vibrant someone's marked and they didn't live to see their 20th birthday miss so much of life never saw microwave oven or a jet plane or some of the things we take for granted across the five invasion beaches the Allies have suffered approximately 10,000 casualties but over a hundred and forty six thousand American British and Canadian troops have safely entered Normandy it took Hitler for years and a vast proportion of Germany's resources to build the Atlantic Wall the Allies have broken through in just one day [Music] despite the terrible cost in human life the landings have been a success d-day is the turning point and from now on the Germans will be on the defensive slowly retreating across Europe dick winters is one of thousands of men who will fight on through the long months of war ahead but for now his thoughts turn to home that guru Manish I said different thank you for helping her through d-day now if I live through the war I hope to go home find a quite piece of land and peace and quiet for the rest of my life I'm proud of the fact that I did exactly that today on the Normandy coast the guns are silent and the Atlantic Wall crumbles into the sea the beaches once stained with the blood of so many young men are now peaceful yet the epic events of that day and the countless acts of selfless heroism resonate through time 60 years later their memory lives on [Music]

Info

Channel: DEVGRU5022

Views: 5,765,191

Rating: 4.6612973 out of 5

Keywords: Operation Overlord documentary, Operation Neptune documentary, D-Day documentary, Normandy Landings (Event), Operation Overlord (Event), History, Omaha Beach documentary, Omaha Beach, WWII documentary, Invasion Of Normandy (Event), Documentary

Id: dIjmOcp_xhQ

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 87min 19sec (5239 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 18 2013

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