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       Prelude

      Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Europe, commenced on the night of 5 June 1944 with the concentrated bombing of German positions on the north coast of France by 750 heavy bombers, an onslaught against the Normandy defence batteries by hundreds of medium bombers, the clearing of broad sea highways thirty miles long by 309 British, 22 American and 16 Canadian minesweepers, and landings by parachute and glider in the vicinity of the east bank of the Caen canal and astride the Cherbourg peninsula. Fires were already burning all along the coast of Normandy, acting as beacons to the invasion fleet, when, just as dawn broke on D-Day, 6 June, Fortresses and Liberators of the US 8th and 9th Air Forces, covered by an umbrella of fighters, dropped 2400 tons of bombs on the British beaches and nearly 2000 tons on the American beaches.

      Shortly after dawn, the warships heading for Normandy opened fire with their big guns, covering the coastline with spectacular flashes and clouds of brownish cordite while the British ‘Hunt’-class destroyers raced in to engage the enemy’s shore batteries. To the west, American destroyers were doing the same, with the heavier guns of their battleships hurling fourteen, fifteen and sixteen-inch shells on to the beaches and the German fortifications beyond them. The final ‘softening up’ was achieved by rocket-firing boats which disappeared momentarily behind sheets of flame as their deadly payload rained down on the beaches, adding to the general bedlam by causing more mighty explosions, which threw up mushrooms of flying soil and swirling smoke.

      At 0630 hours American forces swarmed on to the western shores, where a broad bay sweeps round to Cherbourg. They were followed fifty minutes later by British and Canadian troops, put ashore by more than 5000 landing-craft and ‘Rhino’ ferries on the eastern beaches. Many of the assault craft were caught by sunken angle-irons and, with their bottoms ripped open, foundered before they made the shore; others were blown up by mines.

      Nevertheless the men, each heavily burdened with steel helmet, pack and roll, two barracks bags, rations, two cans of water, gas mask, rifle and bayonet, bandoliers of ammunition, hand-grenades and, in many cases, parts of heavy weapons such as machine-guns and mortars – a total weight never less than 132lb – continued to pour ashore on both the eastern and western fronts, advancing into the murderous rifle and machine-gun fire of the Germans still holed up in their concrete bunkers overlooking the beaches. Likewise savaged by a hail of enemy gunfire were the Royal Engineers and American sappers, who continued bravely to explode buried German mines to create ‘safe’ paths

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