All language subtitles for Morning June to August 1944.Engilsk

October, 1940.

Winston Churchill
to the defeated French people:

Good night, then.

Sleep to gather strength
for the morning.

For the morning will come.

Brightly will it shine
on the brave and true,

kindly on all who suffer for the cause.

Vive la France!

Allons, bonne nuit.

Dormez bien.

Rassemblez vos forces pour l'aube,
car l'aube viendra.

Now, at last,
after nearly four years,

that dawn was about to break.

The invasion of the Continent
was at hand.

Dieppe, 1942.

The first major attempt to land
Allied troops in France was a disaster.

Almost half the assaulting force
of 7,000 was lost

trying to storm
the port's powerful defences.

Many troops never got
beyond the beaches.

Hundreds of others
walked straight into captivity.

We learnt so much from Dieppe
that I think it was quite invaluable

as far as the final invasion
was concerned.

I think everything that could go wrong
went wrong with that operation.

The result of it was that, by the end,

one was appallingly impressed

by the dangers and the hazards

of any kind of combined operation

on that kind of scale.

We'd never attempted to do a combined
operation on that scale before.

And, really, nobody knew how to do it.

There are three conditions necessary
for a successful invasion.

First, obviously, to get ashore
against no matter what opposition.

Secondly, having got ashore,

to stay ashore no matter
what the weather conditions.

Thirdly, to stop the enemy

from building up his forces
against you quicker than you can,

otherwise he'll throw you
back into the sea.

Given these essentials,

the two likeliest landing areas
were the Pas-de-Calais,

across the English Channel
at its narrowest point,

and Normandy to the west.

The choice was the first task
of Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan

and his special Allied staff,
known as COSSAC,

appointed in 1943
to frame the initial invasion plans.

Tentative invasion planning
had gone on since 1941.

COSSAC's choice in the end
was Normandy,

a 50-mile stretch of shore
just east of the Cherbourg peninsula.

Normandy had several advantages
over the Pas-de-Calais.

Though farther from England,
it was less strongly fortified.

Its beaches, mostly without cliffs

and with a minimum
of clay and depressions,

were more suited
to the landing of troops and supplies

and to rapid deployment inland.

And it was close to Cherbourg
and the Brittany ports.

At Quebec, in August, 1943,

COSSAC's outline plan for invasion
was approved by Churchill and Roosevelt.

The cross-Channel assault
was now, at last, to become reality.

Its codename - Overlord.
Its target date - May, 1944.

The springboard for invasion
would be England.

Britons, displaced once by
Hitler's bombs, were on the move again.

This time, to make way
for the great invasion armies.

For many, this meant upheaval,
financial loss, personal problems.

But the cause was momentous -

the long-awaited second front.

Already from the United States,

the packed troop ships
were streaming across the Atlantic.

By now, the number of Americans
in Britain

approached one and a half million,

and London's streets
displayed every known Allied uniform.

In this great floating barracks,
morale was all-important.

We've had some grand trips.

But it's been wonderful.
I'm very thrilled to be here.

I have nothing new to report
from the States.

You know, the States -
that's where Churchill lives. I...

But he really travels.
Boy, he's been around.

He's been to Casablanca
more than Humphrey Bogart.

On a different stage,
another American,

General Dwight David Eisenhower,

named by Roosevelt
Overlord's supreme commander.

Eisenhower had commanded the Allied
North African expedition in 1942.

As well as generalship,
he would need the finesse of a diplomat

because he was now
to lead a huge multinational force.

You always have problems,
but General Eisenhower,

being the supreme Allied commander,
he had this wonderful knack

of getting along with people
of all different nationalities.

He didn't think of himself
as an American,

he didn't think of himself as British
or French or Polish or anything.

He just thought what was best
for the whole Allied effort.

Best known
of Ike's commanders-to-be

was General Montgomery,
victor of Alamein.

Famous for his plain speaking
to his troops,

Monty now urged the war workers
to maximum effort.

Why is it...
why is it that today the tide has turned

and we are beating the Germans

and coming towards
the final climax of the war?

I'll tell you why it is. It's because
we've got far the best equipment

and we've got far the best men.
And women too. Far the best.

If the battle front and the home front
really get down to it this year,

we can get the thing almost finished,

we can get it so tight,
that next year we just topple it over.

Goodbye to you all.
Thank you very much.

Monty's optimism was
infectious, but Britain, like America,

was already working at full pressure
with or without music.

The massive effort was straining
towards the final Overlord targets.

Aircraft - 13,000.

Tanks and vehicles - 17,000.

Parachutes - 90,000.
Bombs and shells in millions.

And Overlord would also need
4,000 assault and landing craft.

But, at first,
they simply weren't there.

The absolutely
crucial thing for an invasion

is to get the troops across the water.

For that you want
landing ships and craft.

They had to be built
in large quantities,

at a time when
all ship-building facilities

were required
to fight the Battle of the Atlantic.

By the spring of 1944,
the landing craft were built

and ready for intensive,
constantly rehearsed, invasion training

in tough battle conditions.

Many Overlord troops
would invade from the air.

More than 20,000 were earmarked

for the biggest airborne operation
of the war so far.

Some assault troops
would have to scale cliffs.

Training in rough Channel waters
could be as deadly as the real thing.

Across those waters,
Von Rundstedt and Rommel

had divided views
on how to meet the invasion.

Von Rundstedt, the commander-in-chief,

wanted a mobile reserve
kept back to fight inland.

Rommel, commander
of the anti-invasion forces,

wanted to repel the assault
on the beaches.

But Hitler's Atlantic Wall, a chain
of steel-and-concrete fortifications

planned to stretch from Denmark
to the Spanish border, was incomplete.

Rommel made belated efforts
to fill the gaps

by laying lines of formidable
underwater obstacles,

including millions of hidden mines.

To overcome these defences, the Allies
evolved various ingenious contraptions.

To help tanks over sand
and mud and concrete,

the Swiss Roll and the Carpet Layer.

The Panjandrum, supposed to destroy
beach obstacles, was not successful.

Pluto - PipeLines Under The Ocean -

a flexible pipeline miles long.

Pluto would minimise the hazards of
transporting petrol to France by tanker.

It could carry over a million tons of
fuel daily to the continent, underwater.

Shore pumping stations
were innocently camouflaged.

Still more remarkable was Mulberry,

two artificial harbours
each the size of Dover harbour.

All the components
had to be towed across the Channel.

The problem
of staying ashore was a difficult one,

because of weather conditions
in the Channel.

You couldn't expect
more than three or four consecutive days

of weather fine enough
to supply across the beaches.

So, obviously, we thought
we'd have to take a port.

That's why we tried Dieppe.

But we found in Dieppe
that we couldn't capture a port

without using such heavy bombardment

as would destroy the facilities
we wanted to use.

So the obvious thing was to bring
our own artificial harbour with us,

which we called Mulberry, and which
everybody thought was absolutely crazy.

Eisenhower met constantly
with his commanders

to coordinate strategy.

His deputy, Air Chief Marshal Tedder,
Admiral Ramsay,

Generals Bradley and Montgomery,

and Air Marshal Leigh-Mallory.

A major preoccupation was the weather
that could be expected

for the start of Overlord.

General Eisenhower
made it clear quite early

that he wanted to build up confidence,

not only in what we could do
as forecasters,

and I in particular for him personally,

but he wanted to know what reliance

he could put on the very words I used

and the tone of voice I used.

He could tell,
even before I presented the forecast,

almost each time
what I was going to say.

He used my face, I think,
as a kind of hall barometer.

Deception plans
also occupied Supreme Command.

Among the most elaborate were fake
preparations for an attack on Norway,

to be launched from Scotland.

And, more credibly, for a main assault
on the Pas-de-Calais

from the southeast ports.

Also crucial was the bombing plan

to cut German communications
to invasion areas - interdiction.

What one had to do was to
interfere with the communications.

Again, I think this was
a lesson learned from Dieppe.

That we hadn't realised at Dieppe

how absolutely essential it was

to have an absolutely overwhelming
weight of firepower

both from the air and from the land.
The result of this was,

and I think this caused a good deal
of difficulties at high level,

was that Air Marshal Harris,

who still thought
that he could win the war on his own,

had to be persuaded
to use his heavy bombers

to attack the German
road and rail communications.

And I think he resisted very strongly.

He thought it was really a diversion
from the whole point of the war.

But he was made to do it,
and it was done enormously effectively.

Spring 1944
saw widespread air attacks

on road and rail targets
and on airfields.

At the same time, all over the South
of England, camps were springing up,

ready for the tens of thousands
of invasion troops.

The staging areas for Overlord

were spread the length
of England's south coast,

round the ports of Falmouth, Dartmouth,
Weymouth, Portsmouth and Newhaven.

All was now prepared
for the great move south.

The lines were cleared
for invasion traffic.

Amid the rash of military notices,
one telltale sign stood out.

The vast concentration
reached its Channel rendezvous.

Some wit claimed
that only the barrage balloons

floating overhead
kept Britain from sinking.

Late May, 1944.

The assault troops were sealed within
their marshalling areas, ready to go.

Now - a pause.

Fear feeds on delay, of course.

And we didn't really know
just when we were going.

Shot crap, played cards,
lost all our money.

Some people won money.
I lost all mine.

Didn't do me any good. I had no place
to spend it when I got on the beach.

Rations, currency,
ammunition, kit.

Packing and repacking,
checking equipment.

The exact invasion date
was not yet revealed.

Most men still did not know
the beaches they were going to attack.

Only officers and NCOs
had been told the precise landing areas.

100 miles across the Channel
in Normandy,

these landing areas
comprised five beaches.

From west to east, Utah and Omaha
waited for the Americans.

Gold, Juno and Sword
for the British and Canadians.

But all now depended on the weather.

On the evening
of that Wednesday, 31 May,

even then I advised General Eisenhower

that conditions
for the oncoming weekend,

especially over Sunday night
and Monday morning,

the crucial times for Overlord,

were going to be stormy,
but we went on with the meetings.

I had to go before General Eisenhower
and his commanders,

who met for nothing else twice a day
during those fateful days -

1, 2 and 3 June.

On 3 June, despite Supreme
Command's concern about the weather,

embarkation went ahead.

The troops knew nothing
of a possible hitch,

though some men thought
it was just another exercise.

When we first went aboard,
we had no knowledge of the actual day.

We had been aboard ship so many times.

For six months,
we were constantly on and off ships.

In the ports and harbours
of England's Channel coast,

the vast and complex process
of loading and embarkation went on.

In the Channel, the worsening weather

now faced the supreme commander
with a grave crisis.

It was a time
of dreadful tension.

We all knew that there could be
only one day's deferment.

If there had to be another day,

then all the landing craft
would need to return to base,

so it couldn't be done
on a second day's postponement.

It would have to be deferred
for a whole fortnight

until the next tides were right.

And at that time, our charts
were so black in the Atlantic

that there didn't seem
to be any prospect

of getting this operation going at all.

We didn't know how long
it was going to be postponed.

Because the weather looked so bad,
we wondered if it would ever clear up,

and whether the whole thing
would be called off

and we would be taken back off the ship.

Troops primed for action.

An armada ready to sail.

And, then, anticlimax.

We were then told

that the invasion had been put back
for at least 24 hours.

Of course,
this increased our apprehension.

And we used to have
these long conversations with each other

about the kind of things
that might happen,

whether we'd ever
get off the beach alive.

Routine continued
under a cloud of uncertainty.

All the troops could do was wait.

As the hours passed, it seemed that only
a miracle could get Overlord going.

Then, mercifully,
the almost unbelievable happened

about midday on that Sunday.

We spotted that there might be
an interlude between two depressions.

By the evening, my own confidence

in the forecast for this quieter period

had so increased from
further reports that had come in,

that I convinced General Eisenhower
and his commanders

that it would indeed arrive
later on Monday,

after the storm of Sunday night
and Monday morning.

It would indeed arrive late on Monday,

continue through Tuesday
and probably into Wednesday.

The next morning, early on 5 June,

they met again to confirm this decision.

When I could tell them
that we were even more confident

than we had been the previous night

that the fine, or improved, quieter
interlude would indeed come along,

the joy on the faces

of the supreme commander
and his commanders

after the deep gloom
of the preceding days,

was a marvel to behold.

I remember it very well.
4:15am on the morning of 5 June.

I wasn't at the meeting,
but I drove him there,

and he came out and he really looked
so serious as he got in the car.

And he said, "D-day is on.
Nothing can stop us now."

It was an historic decision.

Overlord's further postponement
might have meant total cancellation.

The troop commander
read a message from General Eisenhower.

"God speed" and all that sort of stuff.

We read this
great message from Monty

about "good hunting in the fields
of Europe" and all this rubbish.

Naturally, being a soldier, we thought
what a load of old cods it was.

Never had Channel waters
seen such a mighty force.

Heading for France
were some 6,500 vessels of all types,

marshalled and escorted
by the Allied navies.

Glider fleets were waiting,
wearing their D-day markings.

The first division would go in
by glider and parachute,

dropping behind the invasion beaches.

Their losses were expected to be
as high as seven out of every ten men,

as Eisenhower well knew.

They all had blackened faces.

They were going to jump Nazi-occupied
Europe in a short time.

You kept thinking, "I wonder
how many are going to come back."

Later, General Eisenhower said,

"You know, Kay, it is very hard
to look a soldier in the face,

knowing you might be
sending him to his death."

In the last hours of 5 June,
the airborne troops set out for France.

Butterflies in your stomach.
You wonder what you're doing here.

"Why am I here? Why did I volunteer?
Am I crazy?"

Everything is going through your mind.

You're worried.
You know it's coming up soon.

I was afraid.
I was 19, and I was afraid.

Many men were afraid that night.

They were storming Hitler's vaunted
Festung Europa - Fortress Europe.

Across the water the Germans waited,

not knowing when or where
the blow would fall.

D-day.

Ahead, the Normandy beaches.

After four years,
this was the road back.

It was a fantastic sight to see
so many ships of all shapes and sizes,

and all going one way.

Quite a few boys wrote letters
and gave it to friends

so that they'd take them home
or see that their parents got them.

It was their farewell letter.

The sea was rough.

They'd put their gas capes
over them to keep dry,

and it made them sick
cos they didn't get enough fresh air.

I had several men get seasick,
and they upchucked,

and they had to use their helmets
to catch it in.

We'd throw them over the side.

They were washed out
and given back to the men.

One felt absolutely dreadful,
physically,

just wishing to God
that the whole thing would be over,

or at least
that we could get onto dry land.

At 5:30 the armada
was off the French coast.

After a massive air assault,
a devastating naval bombardment.

As far as your eye could see,

you were surrounded
with craft of some sort,

and it was just sending out
shell after shell out of its turrets.

The Germans
were surprised and stupefied,

but some batteries soon recovered.

It was far just more
than sickness.

Men loaded their pants
and everything else.

I had rarely seen that before.

I know the men were sick,
many of them were very sick.

By this time the waves

were pitching the craft up and down,
I would say, six or seven feet.

A lot of boys
got caught in the nets.

We had quite a time getting them loose.
Their legs got caught in there.

Smoke, smoke. There were
a lot of shells coming over us.

All smoke, black smoke,
just like a volcano from afar

that one would see in the movies.

The run-in to the beaches -

6:30 for the Americans,
7:30 for the British and Canadians.

After all the waiting,
the training, the toughening,

this was it.

We were the first attackers,
we were the initial wave.

There's always great losses
in an initial wave,

so each of us had to be given at least
30 minutes to live on the beach.

Protected by total
air supremacy, the first assault waves

raced and scrambled
for the five invasion beaches.

The soldiers were so glad
to get off the landing craft,

to escape the seasickness,

that they were just ready
to go anywhere by that time.

For the men
of the five assault divisions,

those first hours of D-day
were hours of death, fear, courage,

of plans gone wrong,
of rapid improvisation.

We expected a clear beach

with an indication
as to exactly how we should proceed.

We were even told
the military police would greet us.

It became quite obvious that the beach
was in a considerable state of chaos.

On the run-in, craft ran into
underwater obstacles and into mines.

One of them went over a mine.
The front half of the craft,

with the personnel in it,
went straight up in the air.

The sea was quite a different colour
when that craft blew up.

Some units
landed in the wrong area.

Some met unexpectedly light resistance,

others were cut down
almost on the shoreline.

The Americans got the worst of it.

I didn't think I'd make it.

I didn't think there was any way
to get across that beach and survive.

I really thought it was my last day.

The first man, the sergeant,

raised up to see how far
we had to go to reach land,

and fell back dead.

We had been told
that the air force would come in

with the heavy bombers

and would crater the beaches for us
to give us a place to hide.

And this did not take place.

It was bloody awful.
Every time I got up,

I thought that it was pure terror
that was making my knees buckle,

until I finally hit the shale
and I realised

that I had about 100lbs of sand
in those pockets.

I remember taking my trench knife
and pressing it in people's backs

to see if they were alive.

If they were, I'd kick 'em
or say, "Let's go."

It dawned on me
after I checked two or three

that some were alive but they wouldn't
turn around. Just absolute terror.

On the three British
and Canadian beaches, opposition varied.

On Gold, while one unit was hammering
at a strongpoint for eight hours,

another was off the beach in 40 minutes.

On Juno, the Canadians suffered
heavy losses but advanced.

On Sword, the fighting
was bloody but brief.

Many defenders emerged
from their bunkers to surrender.

And on Utah, by the end of the day,
the Americans were doing well.

They had taken prisoners,
established a firm foothold,

driven five miles inland.

But on Omaha,
the Americans ran into difficulties -

rough seas, strong defences

and a newly arrived
German fighting division.

From where I was,
it seemed a failure.

At that time there were
so many people on the beach

you could literally walk on the bodies
from one end to the other,

either the dead or the wounded.

I saw people laying out there
with no head,

and some with arms blown off.

Some of my friends.
It was pretty sickening.

At Omaha it took all day,
with grievous losses,

to gain a beachhead a mile deep.

It was the most
heart-rending experience that I ever had.

I hope I never have another one like it.

Look back and see the remains of
a crack battalion strewn over the beach.

And men floating in the water, face-up.

Perhaps it was better
that we were green,

because if I'd have known then
what I know now,

I'd have got on that boat
and went back to England.

A day of continuous thinking
thoughts of home.

A day of prayer.

And, without a doubt,
the longest day of my life.

You feel that you're...
Well, you've accomplished something

that you didn't think you would probably
end up being around after it was done.

I think we were proud in some way
that we'd done it

and that the army
we'd been in for so long,

and with all sorts of experiences
of how they could bungle things,

had actually managed this invasion.

Oh, we feel very happy. Very happy.

Ah, the best day of my life. I think so.

La plus grande joie.
How you say in English?

The biggest joys in our life.

And we admire those courageous soldiers.

They came from so far away
to liberate us.

And we gave to them
everything we could give them.

Cider and so.

Calvados, also.

And our... our friendship.

And...

It was very... emotional.

And...

We, we feel... we became free.

By midnight,
130,000 troops had got ashore.

Footholds had been gained
on all five beaches.

Casualties: 9,000.

D-plus-one saw the first laying
of the Mulberry harbours.

The early build-up of supplies
was vital for the success of Overlord.

It was essential to pour in

the reinforcements of men and material
faster than the enemy.

And pour in they did.

By D-plus-seven,
miles of vehicles were ashore,

stretching inland from the beaches
bumper to bumper.

At some points,
traffic jams extended 15 miles.

At this critical phase,
Mulberry's two harbours -

Arromanches for the British,
Saint-Laurent for the Americans -

were the only ports
available to the Allies.

In the four days before 18 June,

the average daily landings were
troops: nearly 35,000,

vehicles: 5,000, stores: 25,000 tons.

If a single device invented for Overlord
produced results, it was Mulberry.

Only the insistence of Eisenhower
and the king himself

had stopped Churchill
from coming over on D-day.

Now, within days of the landing, he was
there to see how things were going.

The top commanders were aware

that the Overlord timetable
was falling behind.

They were anxious now
about phase two of the operation -

the battle of the bridgehead.

The Allies were fighting bitterly

for space to deploy the mass of men
and materials assembling behind them.

It was a slow, dogged advance

against an enemy
who had recovered strongly.

The close-hedged bocage countryside
was difficult for the Allied tanks.

By 10 June, the Allies were opposed
by only three panzer divisions.

The other seven available divisions

had not been released
by the German high command.

Despite this, the invaders
were little more than inching forward.

By 12 June, the five beachheads
had been linked

to give a lodgement 60 miles long
and up to 20 miles deep.

The ancient town of Bayeux

now welcomed the leader
of the Free French, General de Gaulle,

setting foot in France
for the first time since 1940.

19 June, and the unpredictable
English Channel struck again.

For four days a raging storm,
the worst in June for over 40 years,

battered Mulberry almost to destruction.

Vessels dragged anchor.
Vital equipment foundered.

Unloading was drastically curtailed.
Tonnage was down by four fifths.

Frantic efforts were made
to repair the damage,

for the disruption had threatened
the very continuance of Overlord.

Soon the traffic was rolling again.

The Overlord lifeline was restored.

A prime objective
to supplement the Mulberry harbours

was the port of Cherbourg
in the American sector.

By 19 June the Americans
had cut off the Cherbourg peninsula

and were driving north towards the port.

Cherbourg was strongly fortified.

The Germans hoped to delay the Allies
by staging a long resistance there.

But by the 21st, after tough fighting,

the Americans
reached the port's outskirts.

On the 26th, the garrison surrendered,

leaving only a few strongpoints
to be mopped up.

Prisoners streamed out,
among them the garrison commander.

Cherbourg was the first major objective
to be captured in the campaign.

25,000 prisoners
were taken in the Cherbourg area.

Some French women
were losing their German lovers.

Right across the front from Cherbourg
was the town of Caen.

Caen was the centre for German troops
moving to the beachhead.

Montgomery had been
attacking towards it since D-day.

Now at last, in early July,
he prepared for the assault.

First the bombers went in.

On 18 July over 2,000
heavy and medium bombers hit Caen

with nearly 8,000 tons of high explosive
and fragmentation bombs.

It was the heaviest
and most concentrated air attack

in support of ground forces
ever attempted.

Caen was christened "the crucible".

When it fell, the troops entered
a bomb-cratered town choked with rubble.

Half of it was destroyed,

several thousand of its inhabitants
killed or wounded.

For the people of Caen,
it was liberation - at a grievous price.

Now, after seven grinding weeks,
the start of the break-out.

The Americans broke through
at Avranches.

They fanned out west and south
into Brittany and east to Mortain,

and swept up to Argentan.

From the north,
the British and Canadians

edged south towards Falaise,
in an attempt to close the neck of a bag

now threatening to trap
the German forces.

There were very great
practical difficulties

in this closing
of the Falaise Gap quickly.

And it was difficult for the one side,

British, Canadian, Polish,

to appreciate the point of view

of the other side, the Americans.

We were coming down from the north,

launched from the congested, bombed
and difficult areas of the Caen sector.

Secondly, the Germans facing us
on that north side of the corridor

they were trying to keep open
for their escape,

were in areas where
they had been fighting against us

for two months or more.

The Americans were coming up
to meet us from the south

in more open country

and against much less prepared
and organised German resistance.

Falaise, one of the bloodiest
battlegrounds of the campaign.

This was Montgomery's next target.

Hundreds of rocket-firing Typhoons

strafed enemy communications
and transport,

leaving a trail of burning vehicles.

On 6 August, the Canadians
were on the outskirts of Falaise.

They entered the town on the 16th.

By now only a narrow corridor separated
the Canadian and American spearheads.

The remnants of the German 7th army,
some 15 fighting divisions,

were pressed into a tiny sack.

At last the trap closed.

10,000 died. 50,000 were captured.

For the Germans, Falaise was one of
the worst disasters since Stalingrad.

The toll of prisoners rubbed in
the magnitude of the defeat.

But 40,000 German troops escaped,

and this caused friction
between the Allies.

Had the British
and Canadian forces

been able to move faster,

we might have trapped many more
Germans in the Falaise pocket.

Very little of their equipment got out,

but quite a number of the Germans

were able to escape
toward the Seine river.

And this was too bad.

I think perhaps the basic reason

was that Britain had been in the war
for much longer than we

and had taken very heavy casualties.

And the Americans were fresh,

and they had had
practically no casualties in comparison.

So while we were anxious
to drive forward

and were not too concerned
about the casualties

as long as we could get our objectives,

it was natural, I think,
that the British and Canadian forces

did it in a more orderly, pacing way.

And perhaps this was part
of Monty's characteristic,

and one of his drawbacks.

In other words,
that he never did quite drive

the way the American commanders did.

This was part of his nature, I guess.
He was a more cautious man,

combined with the fact
that he couldn't afford the casualties

that we could take
if it was necessary to take them.

Falaise earned
the name of "the killing ground".

The carnage and destruction
were appalling.

Eisenhower visited the battlefield
and wrote:

"It was literally possible to walk
for hundreds of yards at a time,

stepping on nothing
but dead and decaying flesh."

Paris.

The main Allied drive
was going to bypass the French capital.

The Parisians,
under Nazi domination for four years,

sensed liberation at last.

As the Germans began to pull out,

the Resistance forces emerged
into the open to take revenge.

Remembering the oppression,
indignities, humiliations,

Parisians gave vent
to long-stored hatred.

In 1940 they had seen Paris fall
without a shot.

Now they made up for it

in a burst of violence
not seen in Paris throughout the war.

Parisians had one thought -

reprisal against the enemy,
the settlement of old scores.

Morning had come.