- 26/06/2025
Examines the Allied armada's assault on the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944, and shows how the Allies secured the Normandy coastline after a day of intense fighting.
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00:00June 4th, 1944. It's raining in Normandy.
00:15The weather is so bad that people can finally leave their basements and shelters.
00:21There are no Allied planes in the sky. No bombing.
00:26The Germans can go on leave, confident that there will be no attempt at what they call the invasion.
00:34Their leader, Field Marshal Rommel says,
00:38There is no likelihood of an Anglo-American landing in the coming weeks.
00:44Rommel decides to return to Germany for his wife's birthday, June 6th.
00:56He hopes to see Hitler and convince him to send reserve armored divisions to reinforce the Atlantic wall.
01:06Rommel has flooded the countryside behind the beaches, creating a death trap for Allied paratroopers.
01:16For the locals, it's Normandy's worst reign in 20 years.
01:26On the other side of the channel, the Bedford boys are stuck in their ships.
01:30Like thousands of other First Wave Allied fighters.
01:37All awaiting anxiously, while French soldiers train under the North African sun for another landing in Provence.
01:44Plan to immediately follow Normandy.
01:48Back in rainy England, the Commander-in-Chief, General Eisenhower, despairs.
02:03At last, the Weather Service sends him an improved weather forecast for the following day, June 6th, 1944.
02:12Eisenhower seizes the opportunity.
02:15He makes the most difficult decision of his life.
02:18He gives the order for the great assault.
02:28At 5pm on June 5th, London's BBC radio broadcasts the second part of the faithful message in France.
02:35The long-awaited continuation of Verlaine's poem.
02:43Everyone understands.
02:45This is it. They're coming.
02:50The resistance springs into action, unearthing the weapons delivered by the British paratroopers.
02:59Like the Sten, a submachine gun too light for the Germans' heavy weapons.
03:0520,000 FFI French forces of the interior will die during the three months of fighting for the liberation.
03:16In Normandy, the message that dice are on the carpet spreads through the farms and markets.
03:23Along with its hot in Suez.
03:27The order to cut all lines of communication to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the landing beaches.
03:34For the most extensive amphibious operation of all time, the Allies have chosen the long sandy stretch of the Normandy coast between the Contantin Peninsula and the confluence of the Seine.
03:48It's still June 5th, and on airfields in southern England, mechanics finish painting large white stripes on all aircraft.
03:58These invasion stripes will help avoid mistakes and gunfire between allies, an unavoidable risk when 10,000 planes are in the air at the same time, on the same day.
04:135,000 fighters, 3,000 bombers, and 4,000 gliders will carry 23,000 paratroopers.
04:20Eisenhower comes to reassure the paratroopers, who will be the first to jump in Normandy to protect the flanks of the D-Day beaches.
04:33He explains that now is the best time. The moon is full. They'll have good visibility at night.
04:46The paratroopers casually call him Ike. A Texan tells him,
04:51Don't worry. I'll find you a job on my ranch after the war.
04:58Hitler says of the Americans,
05:01They're just a bunch of guys with no roots.
05:06The Führer is in his mountain chalet, the Berghof, for the wedding of his mistress's sister.
05:13He says,
05:15The Americans crossed the Atlantic to make money. These are people who flee immediately.
05:20They won't resist a hard blow.
05:27Yet Hitler, who conquered Europe, has just experienced an uninterrupted series of defeats.
05:33And German cities continue crumbling under the bombs.
05:40The American paratroopers are 20 years old.
05:43They're all volunteers.
05:45They're weighed down by their 90 pounds of equipment,
05:48the parachute, weapons, grenades, and food.
05:52Many of them will drown from the weight of their parachutes on the land flooded by the Germans.
06:00They will jump at midnight.
06:03The British and the Canadian paratroopers follow.
06:06Most of them transported in these big gliders made of wood and canvas.
06:11They travel with their motorcycles, jeeps, and guns, giving them mobility and firepower.
06:17They're waiting for the signal to leave.
06:27Tonight.
06:28In the great port of southern England, the last of the embarking infantrymen are saluted by Churchill.
06:39With his trademark cigar and his famous V for victory.
06:49He tells his wife, Clementine.
06:52Do you realize that by the time you wake up in the morning, 20,000 men may have been killed?
06:58Among them in the first commando are 177 young Frenchmen who escaped their Nazi-occupied homeland.
07:11Like Gwenelle Bolleray from Brittany.
07:14Chaplain Abbott René de Noir from Paris.
07:17Or Hubert Four from Daudunia.
07:21France is sewn on their English uniforms.
07:25They join the convoy on the choppy sea for the long channel crossing, from June 5th to the 6th, 1944.
07:40It's a very emotional moment for Gwenelle Bolleray, who writes,
07:47The immense fleet, as far as the eye can see.
07:51Boats, thousands of boats, over 5,000 of them.
07:56Overhead, giant anti-aircraft balloons create a strange, almost childlike spectacle.
08:03On board the American ships, the mood is heavy.
08:12One of the Bedford boys, 20-year-old John Barnes says,
08:18I often thought at the time, why did we go?
08:22We were lining up like sheep off to the slaughter, that we knew was ahead.
08:27What forced us to obey when our heads, hearts and feet wanted to go no further?
08:32Was it the fear of military discipline?
08:35Was it patriotism, love of flag and country?
08:38We laugh and joke, but it was fake.
08:41Everyone was scared.
08:42We didn't want to lose face.
08:48As the convoy advances, the reality of war fills everyone's mind.
08:56Everyone remembers their colonel's last words of wisdom.
09:00There is one certain way to get the enemy out of action, and that is to kill him.
09:05War is not child's play, and requires hatred of the enemy.
09:09Remember that Hun is a crafty, intelligent fighter, and will not have any mercy on you.
09:15A strange sluggishness overcomes the convoy, the calm before the storm.
09:30Those in the first group finally realize they will land tomorrow at dawn.
09:39As expected, the moonlight favors their parachutist comrades, who are about to jump into the center of the German defensive line.
09:46The moon also reflects on the mountain where Hitler hosts Nazi dignitaries and their wives to listen to one of his favorite composers, Johann Strauss.
10:05And to reassure himself by discussing the secret weapons that will change the course of the war.
10:20At three in the morning, Hitler decides to go to bed.
10:27He takes a sleeping pill and orders,
10:29Do not wake me for any reason.
10:32June 6, 1944, 12.15 a.m.
10:42The liberation of France begins with the dropping of 15,000 American paratroopers over Normandy.
10:49As soon as they pass the coast, the FLAC, the terrible German anti-aircraft artillery, opens fire.
10:54Sergeant Zane Schlemmer, 19 later says,
11:04I thought of two things.
11:06To get out of this plane as quickly as possible.
11:08And I wondered how I'd gotten myself into such a mess.
11:12Go, go, go!
11:14Let's go!
11:15Now!
11:24The Germans don't understand that this is the invasion.
11:29Total confusion ensues.
11:38Paratroopers from the 82nd are mistakenly dropped on the village of St. Mary Glees.
11:43The 101st Division scatter across the flooded terrain at Carleton.
11:55There are already many losses, but those who survive must accomplish their mission.
12:01Prevent German reinforcements from reaching the beaches.
12:071 a.m. on June 6, the British paratroopers board their gliders.
12:12They take off clumsily, sometimes in pairs, towed by Dakotas, the king of wartime transport planes.
12:33The British 6th Airborne must neutralize the German battery at Merrillville
12:37and secure the English and Canadian beach flanks.
12:46After a harrowing channel crossing, a glider pilot, 19-year-old Sergeant Stanley Pearson, recounts,
12:52We'd been training for six months for this first and last engine-less flight,
12:58and it was like a hot knife sinking into butter.
13:01Once we'd reached the target, all we had to do was unhook the cable and descend,
13:05heading for a sort of crash, as controlled as possible, but a crash nonetheless.
13:15Posted in a German artillery bunker, Lieutenant Steiner recalls,
13:21From my battery at Merrillville, I saw a contraption. I couldn't understand how it could fly.
13:26He frantically calls his supervisor. Steiner thinks it's the invasion, but nobody takes him seriously.
13:36Through his binoculars, he sees dozens of gliders crashing to the ground.
13:42But not all of them. English soldiers emerge from the gliders and head off into battle.
13:47But who will believe Steiner? The Germans in the region are accustomed to unleashing their flak.
13:59The anti-aircraft defense system on Allied bombers, who ravaged the countryside while avoiding hitting the beaches so as not to reveal their true objective.
14:07The Normandy locals don't know what awaits them.
14:164 AM. Allied paratroopers hold the beach flanks.
14:23The French get ready on their ship. Hubert Four says,
14:32Our leader, Commandant Kieffer, warned us. There will be many casualties.
14:38I wouldn't blame those who don't want to go.
14:41Nobody chickened out. At that age, you're not afraid of dying.
14:45Chaplain René Noir writes, I've never seen men so ready to die and so close to God.
14:58But for many, seasickness masks the fear.
15:03A British commando, Cliff Morris, says,
15:06We felt so ill that we'd rather have been dead.
15:10At dawn in a bunker on the Normandy coast, Commander Pluscat calls the other officers.
15:26He says,
15:28It's the invasion. He wakes his superior. His voice trembles.
15:33There must be 10,000 ships.
15:35The huge Allied fleet now stretches 50 miles between the Ave and Cherbourg.
15:47The telephone switchboards at the German headquarters suddenly buzz with activity.
15:54Marshal Rommel is still in Stuttgart.
15:58He won't have time to celebrate his wife Lucia's birthday with his son Manfred.
16:02He jumps into his powerful car. It's a 10-hour drive.
16:08He keeps telling his driver,
16:11Faster, faster.
16:13He adds,
16:15I was right. If I had the two armored divisions from the Pas de Calais, I could push them back in three days.
16:20He focuses during the trip, punching his fist into his palm, saying,
16:27I'm going to see my best enemy, Montgomery.
16:31British General Sir Bernard Montgomery had defeated Rommel in the desert.
16:36He now commands the D-Day Land Forces under Eisenhower, the Allied Forces Supreme Commander,
16:46who orders a great naval strike on the German defenses of the five Normandy beaches,
16:51where tens of thousands of men will land in successive waves.
16:54Suddenly, within the Allied Fleet, the ships of the Free French Naval Forces let the Marseillaise blare from their loudspeakers.
17:07Aboard the Montcalm, a cruiser, Admiral Jojard proclaims,
17:17We have the honor of firing first. We must fire on our homeland. This is the price we must pay.
17:25Facing Allied ships, the Germans flee to their bunkers.
17:32Among them, 18-year-old Franz Gockel is on the front line in a fortified hole above the beach at Colville-sur-Mer.
17:41The code name for this beach is Omaha. Along with Utah, it is one of the two American sectors.
17:48At 5.50 a.m., the Navy opens fire.
17:55Franz Gockel recalls,
17:58It was a raging inferno. Huge drum rolls.
18:03Shrapnel flying everywhere, whistling and screaming.
18:07I was so scared, I kept praying to God.
18:18The beaches code name gold and sword for the British and one French commando.
18:24And Juneau for the Canadians are pounded by the Royal Navy.
18:37The order to start the offensive is given at the same time as the naval raids.
18:41British and American soldiers moved from large transports to landing craft.
18:51Captain Armelino of the 16th U.S. Infantry Regiment recalls,
18:56With the rough seas, it was a traumatic experience.
19:01My men had already landed in Sicily, but this was terrible.
19:04Guys were breaking both ankles.
19:12We lost craft that flipped over with their men.
19:23One of America's greatest riders, Ernest Hemingway, then a war correspondent, witnesses the barge's departure.
19:30In the gray early light, the 36-foot coffin-shaped steel boats took solid green sheets of water that fell on the helmeted heads of the troops, packed shoulder to shoulder in the stiff, awkward, uncomfortable, lonely companionship of men going to a battle.
19:49It will take them an hour to reach the beach.
20:04Famous photographer Robert Coppa is with them.
20:08An officer, Colonel Taylor, tells him,
20:10This will be the most challenging time.
20:15When we are the most vulnerable.
20:18But it's up to us to open the door.
20:21While the British and Canadians pile into their landing craft, the Royal Marines recover their heroic combat divers.
20:36During the night, they planted explosives underwater in the German minefield to open passageways for the landing craft.
20:47These explosives will be remotely detonated at 6 a.m., simultaneously with the massive aerial beach raid.
20:565,000 tons of bombs are dropped in half an hour.
21:05Can the Germans survive such a deluge of fire?
21:19At 6.25 a.m., unscheduled, the Bedford Boys Barge approaches Omaha Beach in Colville-Somers.
21:33Everyone on board is sick, and this stench is unbearable.
21:43Roy Stevens tells his twin brother, Ray.
21:46I'll meet you late morning on the road above the beach.
21:50British 2nd Lieutenant Jimmy Green, steering the barge says,
21:59The silence was chilling.
22:04Some German gunners have survived, like Franz Gackle.
22:12He says,
22:14I opened fire with my machine gun.
22:17Gackle massacres the Bedford Boys, like Roy Stevens' twin brother, Ray.
22:2219 of the 34 who came from Bedford, Virginia to liberate France, die in the first minutes of D-Day.
22:42German machine gunner Gackle says,
22:44My pal Siegfried fires his cannon at the advancing tanks.
22:55Gackle adds,
22:57The Americans march to their deaths like robots.
23:01The beach is covered with dead and wounded.
23:05I keep shooting until an American grenade blows my fingers off.
23:09He manages to reach a German aid post.
23:14He says,
23:16When I saw my fingers hanging from their ligaments, I was filled with joy.
23:20For me, the war was over.
23:27Another soldier takes his place.
23:29They have orders to hold out until they have no more ammunition.
23:328 a.m.
23:35Landing barges circle under enemy fire.
23:42The assault waves of soldiers roll out in succession.
23:53Walter Halloran from Hollywood disembarks with his 12 pound camera.
23:57He films this image of dying men that would go down in history.
24:07He says,
24:11I immediately put the reel in a small bag,
24:15attached to my personal carrier pigeon and sent it to England.
24:17Robert Capa disembarks too.
24:27He writes in his memoirs.
24:29The camera trembled in my hands.
24:33It was a new kind of fear shaking my body from toe to hair.
24:37His most emblematic photo is of 21 year old soldier Houston Riley taking a hail of bullets.
24:50Capa comes to his rescue.
24:52Houston Riley will live to be 90.
24:58These images testify to Capa's courage and the American's plight on Omaha Beach.
25:03Omaha Beach is under German fire from the Puente de Oque.
25:10Utah Beach is also threatened.
25:16At the Puente de Oque,
25:18the rangers, elite soldiers,
25:20attack the cliff at the cost of heavy losses to neutralize German machine gun nests and bunkers.
25:25Already severely damaged by naval artillery fire.
25:27The 4th Infantry Division can now land without significant difficulty at St. Marie du Monde on Utah Beach before marching on to Cherbourg.
25:44One of Operation Overlord's two objectives.
25:47Chevrolet.
25:56The Americans must take this major port.
25:59Crucial for transporting reinforcements and supplies.
26:02The British land simultaneously on the beaches codename Gold, Sword and Juno.
26:08To march on the Normandy Gateway Con and then to Paris.
26:11Juno is reserved for the 3rd Canadian Division, who crossed the channel and the corridor cleared of mines by divers.
26:23Near Curseau and Vers-sur-Mer, two charming vacation towns.
26:26An automatic camera fixed to the barge records this footage, shown here in its entirety.
26:39This is an exceptional testimony to the fear and anguish of these sacrificed young men.
26:46The Canadian King was served in the
27:16The Indians will lose a thousand men, either killed or wounded.
27:21The shock commandos now disembark.
27:24Dutch, Norwegians, Danes, Poles and Yugoslavs.
27:34They must advance under enemy fire, backed by the Royal Air Force's Spitfires.
27:46But the German threat is still there.
27:50In this hell, the French commando lands on the beach at Wiestrom, codenamed SWORD.
27:58There are 177 of them, mostly sailors from Brittany who fled France in 1940.
28:07Their leader, Lord Lovat, tells them in French.
28:11You're going home. You'll be the first French servicemen in uniform to beat the crap out of those bastards.
28:23They have been supplied with bicycles to make them more mobile. Many are tossed aside immediately.
28:29Hubert Four recounts.
28:36I crossed the beach.
28:39There was a bunker 150 feet away.
28:42I fired into the openings.
28:44Remember, a bolt that goes in can spin around inside.
28:47After the seizing of the fortified Rivabella Casino, emotions run high when they meet the first French.
29:06The locals immediately provide Calvados brandy and valuable information about the Germans, whom they have come to know well over the past four years.
29:15The D-Day landings don't change Hitler's plans.
29:25He meets the new Hungarian prime minister, Domi Stoye, to ask him to speed up the delivery of Hungary's Jews, stubbornly protected by his courageous predecessors until now.
29:36Until now.
29:41Over 400,000 ill-fated people board the death trains to Auschwitz.
29:47Some survive, considered fit for work by Nazi doctors in the selection process upon arrival at the camp.
29:53But for the German High Command and General Jodl, the real emergency situation is the Allied landings in Normandy.
30:10Behind Jodl, his deputy, General Verlemont, writes,
30:14I was surprised by Hitler's relaxed attitude.
30:19Unlike his generals, he was overflowing with confidence.
30:23He told us,
30:25Now we have them where we can beat them.
30:32Hitler explains to his entourage, Himmler and Göring, that this is an Allied ruse and that the real landing will occur in the Pas-de-Calais.
30:40As a result, he refuses to commit the two armored divisions requested by Rommel.
30:47And yet, the Allies are making progress along the Normandy beaches.
30:54But at times, with difficulty.
30:56Like here, in front of arrow launches on Gold Beach.
31:00The British 50th Motorized Division, which had already survived the debacle at Dunkirk, has gotten stuck in the mud.
31:07And many of its tanks are destroyed along with their crews.
31:20One commando, Cliff Morris writes,
31:22Bodies were strewn all over the beach.
31:26Some legless, armless, headless.
31:29The moans and cries of the dying mingled with the screeching bullets and the whine of the shells.
31:34General Lord Lovett writes,
31:35At high tide, there was so much blood in the water, that a sticky deposit accumulated on the soldiers' boots.
31:50On Omaha Beach, in the area near the cliffs, the battle is far from won.
32:00The Americans are blocked by fire from above.
32:03The dead pile up.
32:08The tide rises.
32:10The landing craft drift, and the Rangers try to rescue the last survivors.
32:13Oh my god.
32:15Oh my god.
32:17No.
32:20This will be Views.
32:21The mountains.
32:22I just need to leave a movie.
32:24No.
32:26That is not my favourite thing.
32:28I'm scared of it.
32:30I'm scared of it.
32:33That I'm scared of it.
32:35I was in safety.
32:36I was afraid of it.
32:38I was afraid of it.
32:40And I'm scared of it.
32:41The rangers also have to evacuate the wounded in the storm, whose blood flows inside the
32:51barges.
32:59Aboard a hospital ship, Martha Gellhorn is a war reporter like her husband, Hemingway.
33:06He writes, there comes a time when you feel so small and helpless in the immense demented
33:12nightmare that you don't care about anything.
33:26While the men on Omaha seek protection, the rangers have managed to climb the slope and
33:30attack the German positions.
33:40They are backed by Battleship Texas.
33:46They finally occupy the position where Gakul had been stationed with his machine gun.
34:04They capture some Germans, but for the Americans and the British who survived the blood bath
34:11on the beaches, there's no need to take prisoners.
34:25After 10 hours of fighting, the beaches are now in allied hands.
34:30The next step is to march on Cherbourg and Cannes.
34:36In this single day of combat, the allies count 10,000 dead or wounded, and the Germans just
34:43as many.
34:55The men continue to disembark, division after division.
35:03An uninterrupted stream, a hundred and fifty thousand of them will be thrown immediately
35:08into battle.
35:13The French have been waiting four years for this moment.
35:20They hear General de Gaulle's voice on the radio from London.
35:23They hear General de Gaulle's voice on the radio, and they hear General de Gaulle's voice.
35:50An increasingly difficult battle for civilians.
35:55Despite Allied Air Force leaflets warning of raids, leave immediately, there's no time
36:01to lose.
36:0415,000 locals will die in the Allied bombing raids.
36:09An intense debate over the merit of these bombings breaks out among the General Staff.
36:17The Air Force commander, British General Sir Trafford Lay Mallory says,
36:22I have had all sorts of pressure put upon me.
36:26Perhaps only 25% will achieve results, but even that will have been worth it.
36:33The enthusiasm of the local population takes a severe hit, like this cafe owner, who is reluctant
36:43to show her hospitality towards the liberators, called Liberty Killers by the remaining German
36:48sympathizers.
36:52A great writer of the day, George Duhamel, addresses the Allies.
37:04Nothing is more painful than to be wounded by one's own friends.
37:10Sirens and alerts resonate day and night.
37:17All the cities are destroyed.
37:23A great writer of the day, George Duhamel, and, above all, Cannes.
37:38On June 13th, seven days after D-Day, the Allied forces come together on the beaches.
37:46Despite the bombings, Montgomery is halted in front of Cannes, which he was supposed to
37:50take on June 6th and is only eight miles from the beaches.
38:01British and Canadian tanks prove far inferior to German tanks.
38:06Hitler has finally committed his reserve divisions.
38:13But for Rommel, it's too late.
38:15He knows the battle is lost because of Hitler.
38:18But he still tries to stop the Allies by all possible means.
38:23A month later, he is gunned down on a road, seriously wounded and evacuated.
38:34Hitler stiffens when he hears that Stalin is unleashing his offensive in the East as planned.
38:39Transferring forces from Normandy is out of the question.
38:44The Americans successfully cut through the Contentin Peninsula and lay siege to Cherbourg.
38:49A large port is vital for reinforcements and supplies.
39:08Hitler had ordered the garrison to hold out until death.
39:16But 39,000 Reichssoldiers surrender, leaving behind port facilities totally out of commission.
39:28So the two Mulberry artificial harbors provide the first supplies.
39:35These extraordinary mechanics made it possible to unload four million tons of equipment, 500,000
39:39vehicles and 2.5 million men around the clock, despite the storm on June 19th, which swept away one of the two harbors.
39:46In early July, Eisenhower approaches Montgomery for halting at Cannes.
39:59He criticizes his inefficient operations and their high casualty rate.
40:05Montgomery says Eisenhower belongs to another world and another century.
40:14Eisenhower can't stand to see Montgomery posing with his fox terrier named Hitler and his cocker spaniel named Rommel, which he takes everywhere, along with his canaries.
40:24In Cannes, the wounded pile up.
40:35Heroic nurses care for all, both enemies and friends.
40:41Everything in this tragedy is organized.
40:45For the English, Sid Millward's jazz band, the best in London.
40:52For the Americans, movie star Marlene Dietrich, a German who obtained American citizenship and has consistently fought against Hitler.
41:05Hollywood director George Stevens is called in to show the world how well Montgomery and the Americans get along.
41:13Including famous General George Patton, who actually despises him.
41:20But public opinion needs reassurance, and Montgomery decorates American General Norman Cota, who led one of the decisive assaults on Omaha Beach.
41:30However, it is Patton who leads the decisive victory.
41:40He makes a swift breakthrough in coutons and avronches.
41:45The Germans around Cannes retreat.
41:49During the rainy summer, on the road to Gisor, Hitler's soldiers pass the house of Monsieur Bignon.
41:59An amateur cinematographer who dares film them.
42:08This unique document shows the Germans leaving, and the British tanks arriving immediately on their heels.
42:14On August 6th, two months after D-Day, Eisenhower expresses his satisfaction and makes a show of strength.
42:37He can move on to the second phase of Operation Overlord, which planned for a landing in the south, in Provence, at the same time as Normandy.
42:52The phase had been delayed due to the lack of ships.
42:57His goal is to take the ports of Toulon and Marseille, then move north to meet up with the armies coming from Normandy, and catch the Germans in a chokehold.
43:11Aboard the battleship Lorraine, General de Gaulle, who has fought so hard to ensure that France is liberated, as much as possible, by the French, gives a decisive boost to his restored, modernized navy, and his newly reunited, re-equipped army.
43:30The former expeditionary corps in Italy, which contributed to Rome's liberation, joins the first French army.
43:43The African army prepares to cross the Mediterranean.
43:46They converge on Provence from all over the French colonial empire.
43:53Africa, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.
43:59There are 230,000 of them, whereas the Americans and the British number 100,000.
44:04The mood on these French ships is solemn.
44:07For these women and men, this is a return to their homeland, defeated and humiliated in June 1940.
44:16Their commander, Jean de Latte de Tissigny, one of the few victorious generals of 1940, had escaped from occupied France, as did 20,000 of his soldiers.
44:40The latter says, it's an unforgettable sight.
44:482,000 ships and land straight ahead.
44:57Nancy has a stiff neck, is repeated throughout the night on London radio.
45:03This message warns of the province landings and arms delivers to the resistance fighters.
45:08The number of fighters grows daily, as does their appeal to the ladies.
45:19They too bravely fight all over France.
45:24Like 19-year-old Simone Seguin, heroine of the Frontier Heures and the communist partisans, wearing the machine gun she took from an SS.
45:32American, British and French paratroopers jumped deep into the hills of Grimaud, in the back country of the VAR region, to block the arrival of German reinforcements.
45:47At dawn, a commando of Algerian volunteers from Oran stormed the German bunkers at Cape Negre.
46:01One third of the first army is made up of the men known as the Pied Noir, like 18-year-old Lucien Garcia.
46:09He recalls,
46:10Until 1962, I laid flowers in the graves in Algeria of two of my buddies, who set foot on French soil for only a few hours.
46:21The final hours of their lives.
46:23The landing craft moved towards the beaches, but this time, it's not Aromanches, it's Saint-Tropez.
46:38The American 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Free French Division set foot on French soil on 18 different beaches, from St. Raphael to St. Maxime and Cavalier.
46:56Some beaches are better defended than others. In Provence, the Allies suffer close to 10,000 casualties.
47:17At the same time, Churchill delivers a stirring speech in the House of Commons.
47:21He says,
47:22What a magnificent thing it is to be French today, to be 20 years old, and to take back your country.
47:37Among the sharpshooters, Frantz Fanon, 19, a young soldier from the West Indies, explains why he enlisted.
47:44Whenever human freedom and dignity are in question, we are all concerned, whether we are white, black, or yellow.
47:54Yet we are confronted with ethnic discrimination and narrow nationalism.
47:5820 years later, Frantz Fanon will become the proponent of anti-colonialism within the National Liberation Front, fighting for Algeria's independence.
48:14Many of these riflemen go on to be the NLF's leaders and soldiers.
48:19But in August 1944, on the road to Marseille, General de Montsabert, the beloved and respected head of the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, declares,
48:34We must recognize the extraordinary symbiosis achieved within the African army between the French and North Africans.
48:43The French army represented an ideal.
48:47The Tunisian Lieutenant Elhaj died shouting, Long live France!
48:52Kogolan wasn't on the coast, says Algerian infantryman Alan Mimoun, the future Olympic marathon champion.
49:08He had been wounded in Italy, and nearly had his foot amputated.
49:15It still caused him pain.
49:17He says, We had to walk 18 miles with packs on our backs.
49:22But afterward, we celebrated.
49:25The French were truly happy.
49:26Entire German units surrendered to the regular army, rather than fall into the hands of the resistance.
49:53When Marseille is liberated in August 1944, the FFI, French Forces of the Interior, plays its part.
50:14Many are last-minute soldiers who shave the heads of women, suspected of horizontal collaboration with the enemy.
50:20Scores are settled between resistance fighters of all political persuasions, and traitors are executed without trial.
50:36When General de Gaulle walks down the Champs-Elysées on August 26th and liberated Paris, he realizes the extent of the task ahead.
50:49He must restore order and rebuild the country.
50:53But for the moment, the joy of the liberation prevails.
50:56In September 1944, General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division, coming from Normandy, meets up with the 1st Free French Division heading up from Provence.
51:18The French liberation cost the lives of 40,000 Allied soldiers, 60,000 Germans, and 70,000 civilians.
51:35It left 300,000 homeless.
51:48Churchill says,
51:50Exhausted, impoverished, but triumphant.
51:54We experienced a moment that touched the sublime.
51:58Captain Dawson of Omaha Beach says,
52:01D-Day was perhaps the most dramatic moment of the 20th century, because it enabled the freedom of the world.
52:08There's something sacred about it.
52:10Jacqueline Pardon, a resistance fighter says,
52:15To have lived through it is an extraordinary opportunity.
52:19It matters more than the rest of your life.
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