Original subtitles

the morning of june seven

got to imagine two of us

waking up in this field is quiet

Ui

we didn't know which way we want to go

Where is the enemy

where is the line

and you have to guess

and why that's what you call being scared shipless

real one

can you tell me about da itself

My heart talk shouts and lame to written this way out

once you are career testing

testing one two three testing testing one two three right run

What had they told you beforehand to expect expect hell

They didn't like it was about that

It was sheer nerves

But exhilarating nurse it can never wor

Your task will not be an easy one

Your enemy is well trained , well equipped

in battle hardened he will fight savane

Normandy seventh of june nineteen forty four

Daylight was coming upon as fast

So get the troop for longstanding me a pok

and this is you better get to stuff together with it's almost daylight

And i'm looking at the sky

And i said my garand i welcome the day

Like no you can get on the move

Maybe can warm up a bit

With all the succeeen have not knowing where we were going here began to grip us

i know i was scared the hell

i couldn't imagine what was going on there

Those men who had survived the beaches on dday

Would have woken up the next morning if they'd been asleep at all

Completely exhausted

Some of them have seen their friends killed on those beaches

Or they'd lost their commanders

They have no idea how close the enemy is

So there's this air of fear and uncertainty

As they go into the next day

They quite literally had no idea what was to come

The battle ahead would last grueling three months

And it would be a turning point in the entire wall

What did they had done was was to create a foothold

But that foothold would be completely meaningless

if further progress through france wasn't achieved

The key strategic objective for the british and the canadians in the battle of normandy was to capture khan

It was this hub of communication , of roads , of railways

There was an airfield just nearby

So controlling con would allow the allies to advance

Ultimately push the nazis out of france and back to germany

But with an inevitable counterattack coming from the germans

The allies have no time to waste

You'll tell me about the events following a day

We moved off soon after dawn

We had to move down on occupy escobel

This has been planned in uk

And we decided match and photographs

John's next objective would be advancing towards escoville

Escoville is a crucial element in the taking of khan

it was on a ridge overlooking cons the northeast

And taking it would be important for the allies to keep an eye on what the germans were doing

I think we've got a couple of hours sleep

No more than that

I still can't remember whether when we i think we had some drug in our packs or something

I can't quite remember

And then it was up in the moviosa ville

Forces that were protecting escaville were of a very different order

To the ones like john hawley would been met by on on d day itself

On the food before her

All the food now there is on the art and art and arabic to common

It seems the lia on the muster limit

Vanna cotton house is a young corporal in the twenty first panzer division

They are an elite division

They are better equipped

Better trained than the average german division

On the morning of the seventh of june

They prepare for a big count offensive

At this point tens of thousands of german soldiers are on their way to the normandy front

Tank formations heavily armed

The german soldiers have been told again and again

This is the decisive battle of the war

So you don't give up

This is a battle we will win

Black think yeld affection parts on heel

Win is found of that dog escreal soup

He suddenly came under very heavy fire

Whether or not it in a tank or

Well i don't know

but it was certainly um abel vehicle

John howard and his men met by german tanks waiting to unleash a horrifying counterattack

so again that an effort she knowing when one is for verty fifty years starting recurrenwith enough

Have emoo solar optimiation of the vote with chi to artivation

We are missing divon . those are on feasting

We lost communication with our rates

Q i thought i'd go round and find out what damage had been done

the other patterns

I went forward

Put my boptilus to my eyes

And then there was a zip and i was knocked

tol

When i came round

There was blood on my head and face

And either had a headache

Somebody was looking at me and take my helmet off to see what was wrong

And told me that i got a bullet through my helmet

And there it was dead center

Whether i passed out again or not , i don't know

But the whole of that half hour hour is very hazy

They are also only redeyes , i believe it

And suddenly people have told me that i'll do it

During that time we were strafed by air

and counterattack very heavily by twenty one pounds . yet

Eventually joel and the men alongside him were forced to withdraw

When it became clear that their assault on escoville wasn't gonna be successful

That that it was just gonna lead to catastrophic losses

I warned him with one hundred and twenty one men

And came out with fifty two

I was johnny mi told you we took the hell of a beat in there

Um

It took me a long time to get over those casualties and descoville

Um , so much so that i became very , very depressed

Escaville was a direct confrontation

With the reality of what the battle of normandy would really be like

it was clearly going to be brutal

and it was gonna take a huge toll

Not just on the health and wellbeing and lives of the people

Who were being asked to wage it

But also on their minds

Two this was gonna be a victory

That if it was gonna be secured

Would have to be ground out

Ultimately the force they could provide the greatest firepower would win this battle

This was gonna be a babbel of machines , of ammunition supplies and reinforcements

So on the beaches the activity if if anything is increasing

So the first question

If you just tell me your name and what unit you were in

My name is allin price i with the thirty two seventy fifth quarter master service company

A quarter at the service company was an outfit that services all the other units

Everything to make the frontline click

What had they told you beforehand to expect respect hale

And it was truth

Eden light was about that

Everybody started going inland

But we stayed on a beach

Another two or three days cleaning the beach up

Whatever they asked us to do , we did

Picking up to dead

It's a stinking job

A lead here i'm there ahead here right in water

Blood out over the place

it's horrible

I had nightmares when i first came home i had nightmares

and i still like to talk about it

The beaches would have been littered with corpses

Broken machines , ruined german defenses

And it had to be cleared

Because the follow on forces and follow on supplies

had to be landed on the beaches

And we didn't break our butts

You get the gas

The ammo and the food up to him

He been up shit creek with our paddle

While the british front line was pushing towards khan

The americans were trying to get to cherberg

Cherberg was critical to the germans and the allies

because it was a deep water port

And that meant a faster route to bring in supplies

But getting to cherbourg would be tough for the americans

They were about to face a steep learning curve in the battle ahead

Combat in noa

Exactly ua simple stupid to see you

You dig him for the night

Get up early in the morning

Walk until you started to get killed

Then you have a battle going in a day sundown with cop

You dig in time to go back

Start all all we get

this is all day after day after day after day

As the allies advanced in land towards khan and sherbug

They were forced to progress through this landscape in normandy

In this landscape was interlaced with these really dense hedrows

Very thick , very tall , very well established

And that represents a real problem for an invading force

Because they can't see over them

They can't see through them

And they can't move through them

And that really , really favors the defender

i want to tell me something about the hedgewards

You hate about the hedgeman . uh huh

The hedbs were were boundaries

And these became barriers or replacements

Where we talk one on another

We sometimes fight all day

With the german squiring down on us

I was in fantesting

When we argive vision this is just with

But that's was focuriversufatiin

It been angled so well

But that's alone from sem divisio

That wouldn't get to selish timatter

The ences of forced and so in fire

Hacker the outfit in fire

The hacker the alga gas empfied than it the one the whole vegas or

and within the ocester ig gram

That won't be a group pretty pal of design gibility

that i took him from the wder

If we came more with one of the hedgebs adoped into the field

With the hedge altour back we were dead

E they say would be mountain and his shima

So we guess what when power on trying to flank them

they like mazes

The allies could not play the biggest trump , their artillery there

Because it was difficult to observe where the germans actually are there to pull through from field to field

And each time they just conquered the field

The germans were awaiting in the next field

the armadson of the of the tactic day ameriana angus st

Give it a nutha then after and then he

Or that you may need ball with the showdy expressive bib

it should say come and dmond 得接顺大

Yeah i've been swaying viking them from this side or from their side

And when they had

With about six of us by two feet apart

Heads down squatting , walk a longer hedgeo

And suddenly there was this pop and serge's head was blown apart

On moved the helmet and left his skull like a saucer

And fell over to my arms

We had not been trained for hedgeo fighting

And i think i carried that watch for years

I had terrific training

What if for the assault and self preservation killing the enemy

But they never told me about the hedgef

The ongoing campaign through normandy became a real slug

As they were confronted with this landscape

it really slowed the americans advance on cherbourg

As the americans were pushing towards cherbourg

British commanders were tasked with taking german strong points

As the british advanced towards khan

We were detailed for a job

Uh , mile and a half inland

There was , um , an underground radar station

Which had about three or four hundred german troops in it

The duke radar station was an incredibly important position to take

It was a communications hub

It was a vast network of underground bankers

Which had been sending vital intelligence back to german headquarters in khan

The station was close to the landing beaches

And warwick and james's commando unit was sent to take it

They had , uh , hoped to capture us on the first day

But in actually , in fact they didn't

We only watched about thirty men

When we should have had something like about a hundred and n

So we were well with lost strength

the radar station was becoming a thorn in the sign of the allies

That the allies had to smash to move beyond and advance into france

When we arrived there

There must have been about six hundred yards of dead flat open field

And you could see the wire and the bunkers

And that it goin placements on top of these , uh , concrete bunkers that they had

It was a minefield surrounding it

And we had to clear the mind before we could actually go in

It is a very dangerous situation

And entrenched underneath the radar station

There were hundreds of german soldiers

So it was imperative that the allies took it as quickly as they could

The german defences was so strong that the commando s needed to call in specialist units

We did many , many little patrolls against it and dedifferent angles

He was very well booby trapped

so we mounted this big fighting patrol

And we had bangalore shop ios

Which the engineers crossed

They were like , uh , scaffoland tubes filled with high explosives

You could link them all to get anything

You have one big , long

Uh , scaffolding pole

Eventually the idea was it would blash all the way out of the way

contesserate any mini meet it

The german jeopen up space away two is

The explores had gone and he started to run

So they started to fire

Which is flashing all over the place

After several days of patrolling the station

They were finally able to mount an attack strong enough to reach the bunkers

Eventually the time comes when the powers that be say right enough enough take them out

so we were given a couple of churchill tanks

And they turned up all over the wire

And blew up any antipersonal mines and we followed beyond

And that was the most curious attack

I've never been one of my life

We all wandered in at the back of these tanks

Has sped out and occupied the , the , uh

Various positions at the germans had built that

And we did that , did that . broadday life

the germans were all underground

eventually they all came out

so there were about three hundred of them

They surrendered , then packed it up altogether

So we had a very relaxly view day after

After that we are allowed to wash and clean up and generally relax completely

You know

I remember the the officer in charge of this underground radar station

I don't know where he was their cessor not

But he was tall , he was arrogant

And he had a lovely leather raincoat and overcoat

Which i li

So i asked my i asked my sant major if i could have it

And he went over to this block to take off

Is she dead

And the sit major gave it to me

And i used it for months as a ground sheet in my foxhomerous places

lovely cat

On the edges of the airlied invasion zone

Pockets of german strongholds had resisted capture

One of the largest was the marvel gun battery

And it was repeatedly attacked by the allied troops

and that's how we say and conomy this issue for my nazum

Raymond was interesting character because he was politically opponent to the nazis

But still he is an officer serving for the germans

Knowing that this is probably not the right cause

He's fighting for but still felt loyalty towards his men

before the um nazis in earth strang get promising

Violent father guarup the hitler east and papher his world create game

It's not be going it out

It's not dra common it's because they dhar

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they are young a potion for me

and his darkest in the manner past dela the hot air

hup i my so today it is song so melancholish on tsd train

And get common

Now exceci don't know it was host to ten him sovian boom

The hotdoc said yeah

He helps soul neal hton on dinnish rest a day

how we scan now how old shock you give us some way the same

how to suck he helps so good feel that his sinemusic

now how exactly how no price was to pp

Had all to cash in an bga on class

genea lion to side the afraham on the patizhi

have not had told me there

would knock them offer in aunt tabo of uh , their form opinion

kind of note

the inion of our thoughts

them in in bka from honored the hut in house shot about her sah litz

That they in house shot

came out and break moose ani cannot that came out to sensation lizha

and this over from an hon outfit for a cup fake

Misto hearts in common here are back

win

Turn army hinsets and top an air and shame

this was much fato prove

After struggling trying to progress towards khan

That became really clear to british forces

that actually capturing khan was not gonna be straightforward at all

As any route towards it was increasingly

Well reinforced by germans in the area

getting to the city itself became nonimpossible

And for that very reason

The allies turned to in increasingly applying airpower bombing cn in order to break the german defense

Nobody quite expected that extent of bombing

Over call and over normandy in those days

Bombing is , you know , inaccurate at the best of times

All around are the homes in the neighborhoods

And the workplaces of french civilians

The city was subject to this bombardment

With huge consequences for the civilian population

But it was considered to be so necessary to target

The german tanks servicemen resources in the area that it was

It was a price worth paying

Because i still boss over

I walk out the circuit

The bat is of your rose bois on the connected three hour

Andre had been working secretly with the resistance for very long time

And when the bombing started to come

He went with his sister to the hospital

You know , helping anyone he could

It does all ball that they don't be don't recall them i didn't rea

But you know with the master could acion the shrussian

I saw him well on ita late don't jun

and potentially the only suis allah a

The little krim cody do

like what krian the hari have you a persin marge a

On the corpies of over here

in the both of videpartition

The germans threw as many of their forces as they could into defending khan

Because they knew that was the gateway into france

They had to hold it

But it came at the expense of the defensive chairborg

The advantage of that for the allies was that the american forces could advance with greater ease

We were marching tour of village

Everywhere you look you could see homes with damaged , destroyed blown up

it was a horrible sight to see

And i thought to myself

What the halloween done to these people over here in their houses

My god don't forget the french was supposed to be our friends and all that

And i thought to myself

This is the price that they have to pay for their freedom

They have to sacrifice their lives , their homes

It's a horrible man

After a grinding and bloody four day battle

The americans finally managed to take the port of sherbourg

But they discovered that the german garrison who had been in retreat

Had destroyed the port installations

Now this meant that they couldn't use it for those all important supplies

they turned south towards a town of san lowe

And relied more than ever on supplies being brought up to them from the landing beaches by road

We were up at sink lol

Twenty third regiment of a second infinity division

got nihilated up there and we had to go up there and clean all embodies up

And we had a few fellas kill some wounded

Every times when i grow up a hill

Somebody not coming back

Every time you go into detail somebody not coming back

Alan was running supplies up to the front line

Part of the quartermaster battalion

Which was a predominantly black unit

The army was segregated black served in separate units

And then were subjected to the exact same kind of racism they experience in the united states

Allan was coming from a country where blacks in the south

Couldn't drink out of the same water fountain as white people

You couldn't show the same bathrooms

You couldn't go to the same schools

When we was in england

Seven us went over try to get in the path

Troopers didnas see see what you want

I said we we understand you're looking for pad troopers

He said you see anybody in this room your color

We say no

He said good to hell . out they went exacted

So what you gonna do it's held with thing

You wanted to fight

Yeah , you wanted to fight

What the hell ? we go to service for fight

It was very , very hard to be a black soldier in the us army

You were almost always put in roles that would subserve to white people

they weren't allowed to fight with dignity on the front line

And they like to keep you far away from anything

Where glory could happen

Where you could be a hero

Where you were doing something honourable

We was in the black army

And they were the white army

We were second class citizen

We did all the dirty work

And i admired fellows up there were being popped and we supplied

Then we got popped that going up to take supplies stor

She never hurt me

And you go to a child times home

They want to feed you

After you bought them food and ammo and gas and water

And all that other other stuff you bring up to them

And they don't want to feed you

That's what i got ticked off in

Still makes you angry when you talk about it

That's the way it was talk to think it was superior to anything other than white

They were superior . so that's what it was talking

As collective allied forces attempts to press german defenses out of khan

The war became one of attacks and counter attacks

Progress was very slow and casualty rates were incredibly high

take figo , go , go

James and the commandos was stuck trying to hold the eastern edge of the allied territory

Whilst losing men at an appalling rate

He was very , uh , very hard going

Because he never stop fire

No

Somebody go always shooting else

And you got some light concealed all through the day

You can't drink or eat properly

That your movement is the thing that's going to give you away

Yeah , i promoted to a couple

When i said i didn't want to be a coral and i didn't want any responsibility

I said i don't want to do that

that they said , well , you're already juniors

Looking after other people who became the thing with me

more than not enough to herself

There's always the feeling there that the more of these things we do

The more of the troop will disappear

And there you know it be a table come

And , uh , entually my men were a ui in a trey boss state

Some of the men actually were on a breaking point

They were ready to refuse where outtake us from rest

It's a very hard thing to tell men

You know , if you have come out to go over there and judice

And do not knowing how it's likely to be killed

And really , you know , you're sending him to a se

Gg ni mention of cuzi for who i see it in the moment

zanzi mitch tastes can also mention v

With the cool five links on the restaurant in bed cerly under mum

And they will out to sh lgba day or day

and sobine

to deeps the converanders

We had been joined by some of these , uh

British commandos and our own ranges and power robers

I thought i was crazy

They were absolutely crazy

I , i would listen to a number of

what i would call instance is a butchery

Where we dig out your german and two and

Uh

As well as the throat cutting and disembowment

We were crazy

It was kind of creepy because i considered myself a good soldier

And next few hours i was involved

And when i was madness

One of the things which really marks out the normandy campaign from d day

Onwards is , is the level of brutality

Both sides have been told that these people are , uh

Kind of an existential threat to them

So there's two sides that are like coiled springs

And when they come face to face

They absolutely go at each other

This is extraordinarily bloody and brutal

It becomes particularly brutal when you've got formations fighting against each other

Which consider themselves to be elite

So particularly when you see ss troops fighting against us paratroopers

You see quite a lot of atrocities is happening on both sides

I asked what about my coral with our company

And somebody related the story that they found his body

The germans had been headed that mutilated his body

In the cut he cut his testic all

And the spinis soft , and he stuffed it in his mouth

we found gi corpses , concentries and bad

Right to live

The danger for the allies is that the longer that this campaign was going on

And the more attritional it was becoming

Morale was starting to drift lower and lower and lower

But one thing that the allies did have very much going in their favor was ongoing air superiority

If the allies could cut off the german supply chains

That have a much better chance of winning the battle

So they destroyed railways

They destroyed roads

Ammunition , stumps , tanks

convoys that they saw moving

Anything to hold the germans up

well over time that started to really take a toll on the germans

Because they weren't able to reinforce as quickly as they otherwise would have been

and so aerial bombardment that really helped the allies

We were marching tour village that was heavily damaged

It was like a nightmare

It was really horrible

They were dead germans land all over the place

The front part of a hospitwas still standing

All i remained was a window in the door

I saw a rosemarine clinging to the wall

And i said to myself

This rose is a lie

One all is death and destruction

Over here it's a lie

And to me it seemed like it was in direct defiance

To all the horrors of neck create

And there it stood

I went over to the wall

And i picked about three them off the divine

And we might through the village

No one spoke

Everything was quiet

It smell the death of the day

could smell it your filter

You felt all of that , that , that , that , that have that thing

I don't know i told you this

I just want you to know

I want to you know that what it was

It wasn't too easy

There is a body in this sword

so the thought the first body let we've seen

And notice that had was was gone

And was just a toss so left

and there was a big hole where that in the rib cage

couldn't believe it was a human being in

what got me all upset that the some of the gas a martia were eating a krashes

they were throwing the rubbish on cans inside this bo

I distance see was stung

And i could believe even if we are war

That we have such disrespect for the remains of a human body

it just can't believe

Was wonder why

Why did they why did they do this and that

While the only reason i could think god was that they felt that a soldier's life is

Is sudden to being wasted

To be discarded like a trash

Your body needs not looking after your dead

the only one you're alive

Took the roses that i had and they dropped them in in the cavity of the body

And i just kept going

but it's something i love but forget

By july , the allies had been battling in normandy for weeks

they needed a final push

And that he has a bended dagger

And fleeing the fu all my hup with two shots

Your mother and share flag

bob

And anami bomb most cking kashine is on it

That we find the other also brick these or nazano

And then the share one from the man not trey buy

who could then a trek off bean ha

It was decided that the only way to really free call of the germans

Was to absolutely obliterate the city

The king in the northern master for me

Or called the boxes safemalfits

And the good that was here

these have been issusin some bin as str 是在反映

Carpet bombing

It was a strategy during the war

And here you see in kong that strategy happening

But no one in normandy had experienced anything on this scale

before

Thousands of tons of bombs hit the city

It's horrifying

The sound is deafening

People are running

Time would have stopped for andre

He was drawn into a moment of urgency

Responding to immediate needs of those around him

And though it is za move or spectivous smoke

improve very good physical mode

The imprint after this bombing campaign

Would be so heavy on the civilians in kon

And on the town as a whole

It would last for not years but decades

It would traumatize generations of families

Who would live with this memory of grayness

Of rubble , of death for years to come

The attack on khan was considered to be one of the heaviest air attacks in the second world war

The germans were overpowered

And when the allies moved in

The germans were either killed

Captured or they fled

And for the moment and hai

Nor need a la lion

Aragon me hand of pokhoi

We are works and are a strong

they are never that we are even to your mission giving culture

He's in holy one day for either company

even with sex man of him very bleed

the opening the door ， a khan opened the road towards paris

and ultimately towards victory

it puts the allies in a position to finally liberate france

And then to move on towards germany

And the liberation of all of mainland europe

The device of of you didn't need the function of calm the navia

uh

Lord on deez from the front

Calm on just one lad

Who magic flain control zhe i'm exactly have good kfear

i'm good k 短命第12次地方

老老 these swatts and the armonds by vt

you the under the device and the armed and dblues of sea mhy

what was the attitude of civilians towards you and non oh fantastic absolutely fantastic

Well , you can imagine ky they've had four

Four and a half years of captivity

And they now for want to ready to turn

They're free

And they liberated

and they were

Delighted

Winning the battle of normandy was absolutely essential

In order to move onwards and go on to win the second world war

But from the allies perspective

D day was a massive gamble

It was a huge risk

It was a calculated risk

But it was a risk nonetheless

And had it not succeeded

Its impossible to know what the consequences would have been

This period is when you see the whole of humanity

And everything that humans are capable of

From the most glorious aspects of it to its most horrendous aspects

This kind of spectrum of of humanity and inhumanity

which live side by side

This mossy song this is i need a helpless and sight

man his lames

It's been off wine

And the bed person on on top nic suck

But this name of the border

Despite all the awful things that had happened to me and mine

i'm proud . very proud indeed to be a royal marine

I was very proud to come here

i hope i showed it a time

We came back to balford in the same rooms

We were in before we , uh , left

I'm trying to heavily chaps that we ism company

I had them less than half

And none of my original officers

What would you say to the guys who you lost

How would you remember those guys

one hell of an outfit

That's

I remember i wouldn't want to serve with a better bunch of fellas

Would you do it again

If you were called up

Yeah

Just my country

Yep

This is my country , the only home i ever known

What am i doing

You talked to most african american

They'll tell you

I go back that viers called up

As they march towards the boat

I remembered the people of normandy

Their country was ravaged

Their lives changed forever

I remember that that enemy soaked who had once been alive and young as careful as weet

My thoughts were of all the troopers who denied

And we were leaving behind

Suddenly i felt that i was all alone

I realized it was return to england without my polies

I was the only one of seventeen men

Who jumped with me on deday to return

He is still running down my face

I turned to the fields of normandy

And i gave a fair else salute to all those we left

And the swamps and the fields and the heads rose

We had come with so many

And we are now living with so few

I think the one thing that comes out of all looking back over the years

Was the sheer bloody waste

there was a waste as i see you can put it down to any more than ever

Was small one big one or whatever

the share bloody voice

Go out

Spirit should teach you something

The open university has produced a free booklet highlighting key moments of dday

To order your free copy marking the eightieth anniversary

call o three hundred three o three o five five two

Or go to bbc dot code dr uk forward slash dday tapes

And follow the links to the open university