The Invasion of Normandy, 1944. D-Day, Push to the Rhine, Invasion of Germany. Stalin's Red Wall Encroaching.

In the spring of 1944, the Allies prepared for an operation that would determine the course of the modern world. The men tasked with carrying it out knew what awaited them: an entrenched enemy, relentless fire, and the very real chance they would not live to see the sun set. They went anyway.

The success of this campaign shaped the borders of Europe, secured the survival of free nations, and cemented the United States as the leading global power. It forced Nazi Germany into a war it could no longer win and prevented the Soviet Union from sweeping unchecked across the continent.

This battle was a turning point—not just in the Second World War, but in the history of the 20th century. Had it failed, the consequences would have been catastrophic. Instead, it brought about the collapse of Hitler’s regime and dictated who would rebuild Europe, who would govern its future, and how power would be distributed for generations.

Normandy. June 6, 1944.
Allied Forces: ~175,000 Soldiers.
Nazi Forces: ~80,000 Soldiers.

Additional Reading and Episode Research:

• Kemp, Anthony. D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy.
• Little, Brown. Omaha Beachhead.
• Keegan, John. Six Armies in Normandy.
• Marshal, S.L.A. Night Drop.

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Transcript

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of History's Greatest Battles. If you know somebody that enjoys this genre of history, please share it with them.

In the spring of 1944, the Allies prepared for an operation that would determine the course of the modern world. The men tasked with carrying it out knew what awaited them: an entrenched enemy, relentless fire, and the very real chance they would not live to see the sun set. They went anyway.

The success of this campaign shaped the borders of Europe, secured the survival of free nations, and cemented the United States as the leading global power. It forced Nazi Germany into a war it could no longer win and prevented the Soviet Union from sweeping unchecked across the continent.

This battle was a turning point not just in the Second World War, but in the history of the 20th century. Had it failed, the consequences would have been catastrophic, cataclysmic. Instead, it brought about the collapse of Hitler’s regime and dictated who would rebuild Europe, who would govern its future, and how power would be distributed for generations.

Lets now experience, the Battle of Normandy.

 Welcome to History's Greatest Battles, Season One, Episode 84: The Battle of Normandy, the 6th of June, 1944.

Allied Forces: roughly 175,000 men.
German Nazi Forces: roughly 80,000 men.

In the spring of 1944, the Allies launched an operation that recaptured Nazi-occupied Western Europe and marked the beginning of Hitler's collapse. But as Allied forces liberated the West, Soviet armies advanced from the East, claiming territory that would fall under their control for decades.

This campaign was more than a mere military success for it shaped the postwar world. It determined the borders of Europe, split the continent between freedom and authoritarian rule, and established the balance of power that still influences global politics today

Since the autumn of 1940, when Hitler was forced to postpone his invasion of Great Britain. It was not retreat, it was cold calculation. The Luftwaffe had failed to break the Royal Air Force, and the Channel remained unconquered. But the Allies knew this was only the beginning. Plans were already being laid for the day they would bring the fight back to Europe and rip the German grip off the continent.

By 1941, Hitler’s ambitions had detonated across two fronts. In June, the Wehrmacht surged into the Soviet Union, launching a brutal campaign across its endless plains. By December, the Nazis declared war on the United States. Two giants had entered the fray, America’s industrial might and the Soviet Union’s relentless manpower, and both joined Britain in planning the inevitable counterstrike.

In August 1941, as the Atlantic winds howled around their meeting, Churchill and Roosevelt made their decision clear: Hitler was the priority. If America entered the war, and they knew it was only a matter of time, the fight against Nazi Germany would take precedence. The Pacific could wait.

George Marshall, America’s top general, pushed for a full-scale landing in Europe by 1943. But Churchill, seasoned by war and ever the pragmatist, held firm. A half-measured assault would end in slaughter. Victory demanded numbers, firepower, and absolute readiness.

The solution came in North Africa. In November 1942, American forces stormed ashore in Morocco and Algeria, driving east. At the same time, Montgomery’s British Eighth Army smashed Rommel’s Afrika Korps back through the deserts of Egypt. The Axis grip on Africa was starting to slip.

By May 1943, North Africa was won. German and Italian troops were either dead, captured, or fleeing. The way forward was clear. In June, Sicily was invaded. By September, the Allies set their boots on Italian soil. The Axis defenses cracked.

Then came Tehran, November 1943. Churchill and Roosevelt met Stalin, the unrelenting Soviet leader, for the first time. This was no diplomatic gathering, it was war planning at its most brutal and consequential.

Stalin wasted no words. The Soviet Union was hemorrhaging lives, millions of men fighting and dying on the Eastern Front. With steel in his voice, he accused Churchill and Roosevelt of dragging their feet while his armies bore the weight of the German war machine.

Stalin’s demand was absolute: invade France. The sooner the Allies struck in the West, the sooner German forces would be pulled off his soil and forced to fight on two fronts.

Roosevelt and Churchill agreed, an invasion had to come, but the question was where. The answer would shape the outcome of the war.

In Cairo, October 1943, Normandy was chosen as the provisional landing site. Yet Churchill resisted. He had his own vision for the war, one that centered on the Mediterranean.

Churchill pushed for an invasion through the Balkans. If not there, then Italy must be reinforced. He argued the strategy was sound: strike the Axis from the south, where their defenses were weakest.

North Africa was secure. Italy was under attack. The Balkans, Churchill insisted, were within reach and vulnerable. The Allies could drive deep into Europe’s underbelly.

German forces in southeastern Europe were spread thin, ripe for destruction. A landing there would hammer Hitler’s flank and give Stalin the relief he craved.

Stalin disagreed. He was blunt and immovable. Northern France was the answer. Only an invasion there would force Hitler to split his armies and defend two fronts, one against the Soviets and one against the Western Allies.

Roosevelt and Churchill were allies and friends, but Roosevelt was playing the long game. The decision wasn’t just about Europe, it was about the future.

Roosevelt wanted more than victory in Europe. He needed Stalin’s promise. Once Germany fell, Roosevelt intended to turn Soviet guns toward Japan.

In the Pacific, the United States carried the burden of the fight. Their fleets, their marines, and their airmen waged war across a vast, unforgiving ocean. On land, China held its ground, bleeding the Japanese military in Burma and the mountains of Asia.

Roosevelt made a gamble. By backing Stalin’s demand for northern France, he hoped to win a favor in return, a Soviet pledge to turn their armies against Japan when Germany lay broken.

But Roosevelt wasn’t the only one looking beyond the war’s end. Churchill and Stalin were already calculating for the future, one filled with uneasy alliances and territorial ambitions.

Stalin’s plan was clear and ruthless: dominate eastern Europe. Twice in a generation, Germany had invaded his country. He would ensure it never happened again by creating a buffer of Soviet-controlled states stretching deep into Europe.

Stalin wanted land. Plenty of it. A shield of occupied nations, enough to put thousands of miles between the Soviet frontier and any future German threat.

Churchill saw what was coming. If Stalin took eastern Europe, those countries would be lost to democracy. The Iron Curtain was already forming in his mind’s eye.

A Balkan invasion, Churchill argued, would put Anglo-American forces in control of the region. It would be their soldiers, not Stalin’s, that determined the fate of eastern Europe after the war.

Stalin refused. He would not let Churchill outflank him politically or militarily.

And so, northern France became the target. Normandy would bear the weight of the greatest invasion in military history.

In the early months of 1944, the buildup began. The roads of England thundered with American trucks, and her ports swarmed with U.S. soldiers. The invasion force was growing into a monster.

Keeping this colossus a secret was impossible. The Germans watched, but the Allies made sure they were watching the wrong place. A disinformation campaign of unprecedented scale was launched.

In southeastern England, the Allies conjured a phantom army. George Patton, the bold, aggressive general who had earned his reputation in North Africa and Sicily, was named its commander. The Germans took the bait.

The radios crackled with fake orders. Entire divisions that didn’t exist were “deployed” to positions opposite Calais, the closest, most logical invasion point. German spies, listening intently, reported what the Allies wanted them to hear.

British and American intelligence succeeded brilliantly. The Germans were certain, Calais would be the target.

While German eyes fixed on Calais, the real force gathered in the south. Normandy awaited, its beaches destined to become a battlefield.

The weather, always the enemy of armies, turned against the Allies in early May.

The invasion depended on the moon and tides, timing had to be perfect. The next window came in early June.

But the weather refused to cooperate. Rough seas delayed the order, leaving troops jammed in landing craft, seasick, tense, and eager to fight.

At last, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander, gave the order: go.

In the darkness of 6 June 1944, Operation Overlord began.

The first men to step into the fight came not by sea, but from the skies, paratroopers and glider-borne troops, thrust into the darkness above occupied France.

It was a gamble, make no mistake. The Americans had tried an airborne assault once before, in Sicily, and it had gone to hell, friendly fire, chaos, confusion. This time, it had to work.

The mission fell to America’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, alongside Britain’s 1st Airborne. Their orders: drop behind enemy lines under the cover of night and seize the lifelines of the battlefield, bridges, roads, and key junctions.

The Germans still believed the attack would come at Calais, but that illusion wouldn’t last. When they realized Normandy was the true target, their armored divisions and reinforcements would come flooding west. The paratroopers had one job, buy time.

The landings were brutal. Gliders shattered on impact, men were scattered for miles across the French countryside, but the mission held. The Germans were disoriented, their defenses confused. Where had they landed? How many were there? The Allies had thrown chaos into the German ranks.

As dawn broke, the largest invasion fleet in human history loomed off the Normandy coast, 5,000 ships and landing craft stretching to the horizon.

The bombardment began. Battleships and cruisers unleashed hell on the German defenses, while destroyers prowled closer to shore, pounding precise targets called out by the men hitting the beaches.

The German defenses were uneven, some beaches were lightly held, others transformed into killing grounds.

On one of the British beaches, the landings went so smoothly that men were lighting fires and brewing tea within hours of touching French soil.

Omaha Beach was different. There, American soldiers were torn apart. They bled for every square yard of sand, men dropping under machine-gun fire, mortars, and artillery that rained death on the open beach.

Overlooking Omaha stood Pointe du Hoc, the Germans’ fortress on the cliffs. From there, their guns raked the beaches below, shredding everything that moved.

The guns were housed in concrete bunkers atop cliffs so sheer they looked impossible to scale.

The task of silencing those guns fell to the U.S. Army Rangers. Their mission: scale the cliffs, fight their way to the fortifications, and take them at any cost.

Against all odds, the Rangers did it. They clawed their way up the cliffs under fire, overran the fortifications, and silenced the guns. They saved countless lives on the beaches below.

For the men on the beaches, survival meant movement. Stay still and you died. By day’s end, all five invasion forces had fought their way off the sand and clawed a foothold inland.

Fate intervened. German reinforcements didn’t come, not at first.

When Hitler received word of the landings, he refused to believe Normandy was the real target. He was convinced it was a feint, a diversion to draw German forces away from Calais. He ordered his generals to hold their ground.

By the time Hitler relented and gave the order to move, it was too late. The Allies were off the beaches and pushing into the countryside.

Allied air superiority sealed the Germans’ fate. The Luftwaffe was nowhere to be seen.

That morning, only two German fighters strafed the beaches. The skies belonged to the Allies. Allied bombers and fighters roamed at will, smashing German targets, cutting supply lines, and hunting down troop movements with impunity.

Holding the beach was not enough. To win, the Allies had to sustain their forces, men, tanks, ammunition, food, an endless flow of supplies. For that, they needed a harbor.

Normandy had no harbors worth the name. Cherbourg lay ahead, still in German hands. Until it fell, the Allies needed another way to bring the war ashore.

Their solution was ingenious: an artificial harbor. Its name was Mulberry.

Massive concrete blocks, each a monolith of engineering, were towed across the Channel and sunk offshore. Together, they formed a breakwater, creating a temporary port where none had existed.

Mulberry worked. Against every expectation, it worked. Supplies poured through it day and night, until storms later shattered its structure. But by then, its job was done.

The beaches were behind them, but the real fight was just beginning.

The invaders entered the bocage, Normandy’s farmland, a hellish maze of thick hedgerows and tiny fields.

These were no ordinary hedges. They were walls of green, centuries old, impenetrable, dense, and perfect for German defense.

The Germans dug in. Every field became a fortress. Every hedgerow concealed machine guns, snipers, and artillery. The bocage was a battlefield tailor-made for defense.

The only way through was brute force, tanks, bulldozers, and blood. Progress was a crawl.

But on August 1, the Allies broke free. The German lines shattered, and the breakout began. What followed was not a march but a race, a thunderous drive for the Rhine.

The Germans’ own weapon, blitzkrieg, turned against them. General George S. Patton, commanding the newly unleashed Third Army, led the charge. His tanks rolled hard and fast across France, driving deep into Hitler’s crumbling empire.

Normandy was the breaking point. After June 6, Hitler’s dream of a German-dominated Europe was dead, whether he accepted it or not.

The Eastern Front had bled the Germans dry, fighting against the relentless Soviet onslaught and the merciless Russian winters. Normandy delivered the coup de grâce.

After June 6, any hope, however faint, of stopping the Soviet advance was gone.

Through the summer and fall of 1944, the Allies overran France. Troops landed on the Mediterranean coast and drove north, converging with the forces racing from Normandy.

By winter, the two drives met at the German border. The Allied line stretched unbroken from Switzerland to Holland.

British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery held the northern sector. To the south, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley commanded America’s Third and Seventh Armies.

The Allies dug in for the winter. Their advance across France had moved faster than anyone imagined. Now, their supply lines were stretched to the breaking point.

Winter would be a time to consolidate, rest, and prepare for the final push into Germany. The spring of 1945 would bring the endgame.

But Hitler had other plans. On December 16, 1944, he struck back. In a desperate, last-ditch gamble, the Germans launched an offensive through the Ardennes Forest.

His goal: split the Allied armies in two, seize the port of Antwerp, and cripple their supply lines.

Hitler dreamed of a final, shocking victory. Capture Allied supplies, fracture their resolve, and force them into a separate peace, one that would leave him free to turn on Stalin and the Soviets.

The Battle of the Bulge caught the Allies off guard. But they rallied fast. Within weeks, the German advance was crushed, and with it, Hitler’s final hope of breaking the two-front war.

By mid-January, the line was restored. The German offensive was shattered, and Hitler’s war machine, already bleeding out, had almost nothing left.

As the Anglo-American forces pushed into Germany in the spring of 1945, the pressure on the Germans became unbearable. But the Allies themselves faced a new tension, political pressure that would shape the postwar world.

Stalin demanded more from the West. He pushed for relentless pressure on the Germans, a final assault to kill or capture as many of Hitler’s forces as possible. But there was something else he wanted: Berlin.

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the lines were drawn. British and American forces would halt at the Elbe River, leaving Berlin for Stalin’s Red Army.

By the end of April, Hitler was dead by his own hand. Germany surrendered a week later. The Soviets stood victorious in eastern Germany, their grip on the region unshakable.

In those final, chaotic weeks, German soldiers and civilians alike fled westward in terror. They knew what awaited them under Soviet rule, vengeance, occupation, and domination.

Without the British and Americans holding the line in the west, no one can say where the Red Army would have stopped, or how far Stalin’s influence might have reached.

Churchill’s fear had come true, eastern Europe was lost to the Communists. But without the Normandy invasion, even western Europe may have fallen. The beaches of Normandy were the fulcrum on which the war turned.