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it was the turning point of world war

two three million soldiers hundreds of

thousands of ships planes and tanks a

logistical complexity unprecedented in a

military operation this was the Battle

of Normandy

more than 75 years since the end of the

war certain details of this tremendous

battle have gone untold

very few people can tell you what

happens in June and July and August and

how the battle for Normandy actually

ended now unpublished archives 20 years

of research experts from the United

States the UK and Canada bring to life

the boots on the ground reality of

Normandy's 85 days of hell liberation

has come to Normandy but so has war

three months of savage conquer

we can destroy the German army in

Normandy then the rest of France will be

saved during which the Allies and the

Germans will fight mercilessly it's a

battlefield where they live and they die

when they fight in where they kill when

they average sold the point of view this

just seems to be a hopeless situation it

was a very dirty baffle the schrutes

give kaboosh Creed a dirty bush war

everyone paid a heck of a price for this

d-day was just the beginning

June 6th 1944 early morning thousands of

ships embarked from England headed to

the French coast of Normandy

two years in the making it's an allied

operation to take back France from the

Germans

they call it overlord rarely in history

will you find a time where these major

powers are all mobilized almost to the

full extent of their strength to have

this confrontation over what is to

happen with the Normandy invasion allied

soldiers will face a territory that the

Germans have occupied for four years

calm Cherbourg sound low all the great

cities of Normandy are under Nazi

control a landing zone chosen is 80

kilometers long placed under the command

of US General Eisenhower the troops will

land on five sectors Utah and Omaha

beaches will be taken by the Americans

gold Juno and sword beaches by the

British and Canadians

around 6:30 a.m. the first waves of

Allied soldiers land on French soil

during the first hours of the landing

the allies suffer heavy losses from the

entrench to German defenses but soldiers

and armored vehicles continue to lend

putting pressure on the enemy

the vital part of any seaborne invasion

like Operation Overlord was to get

ground rapidly because only then could

you start to push back the enemy said

that they could not keep firing at the

beaches after just one day thousands of

Allied soldiers have already been killed

but the wide scope of the landing has

been fatal to the Germans the first

phase of Operation Overlord is completed

scattered throughout the landing zones

the Allies must now regroup the

different units on the ground

you've got to link up those five beaches

as quickly as you can

if they're not linked up then the

Germans can fill the gaps and can begin

attacking the Allies from any direction

they want from what military people call

the flanks Eisenhower and his generals

needed to create a buffer zone to

protect against the German

counter-attack that would come and in

fact they prepared for that the plan for

sealing off Normandy was called

transportation and this meant bombing

all of the bridges over the River Seine

to the east and over the river Loire to

the south said that the whole of the

Norman area was completely cut off but

also it meant smashing houses and towns

and villages at crucial crossroads and

places to prevent the Germans bringing

up reinforcements and supplies

the American phrase which had been

invented in Italy was called putting the

city in the street which basically meant

simply blocking the roads so that

traffic could not get through

even before the fighting starts inland

Normandy is partially destroyed

no water no electricity no phone lines

and now after taking the five landing

beaches the allies must advance whatever

the cost to push the Germans back and

occupy enemy territory the first

objective of general Montgomery

commander of the British and Canadian

Forces is to seize the city of calm

located nearly 20 kilometers from sword

and Juno beaches on day two Montgomery

is convinced that he will succeed in

rapidly capturing count

but facing him his general Erwin Rommel

known for his feats in Africa and

nicknamed the desert fox Rommel

mobilizes his most powerful armored

division's to meet the British Canadian

forces advancing towards cow and block

Montgomery's allied offensive

first days of fighting north of camel

are devastated but perfectly organized

German defenses invariably repel all

English and Canadian attempts facing the

German mark for mark 5 and Tiger tanks

the American Sherman tanks used by the

Allies are just not up to the mark we

have to remember is every American

Sherman tank has to be shipped to the

battlefield so it means you have to

produce something that's reasonably

light enough to be able to ship it's

small enough that you can get it on the

ship it's a reasonably good tank but you

don't want to be in a toe-to-toe battle

for the German tank head on 33 tons for

the Sherman more than 43 tons for the

German tanks more robust with armor

superior to the Americans they delivered

devastating cannon power

the muzzle velocity those tanks meant

that if it hit you that shell was gonna

penetrate your armor probably you know

especially along the sides and either go

straight through or worse rattle around

inside and explode while the British and

the Canadians are defeated on the east

flank the Americans start advancing on

the other side general Bradley commands

the troops their first objective is 17

kilometers from the coast a small town

of catan tall and its network of roads

and railways Carentan is really the key

to seal off the Cotentin Peninsula and

then capture Cherbourg which is the you

know the greatest Harbor in Normandy but

also in tandem with that you're gonna

start moving southward towards the town

of San lo

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the 101st American Airborne Division's

surrounds Covanta on June 9 1944

the fighting ruthless and savage would

last four days and four nights

On June 12th Gallinger falls into

American pens with heavy losses on both

sides but the Allies have achieved their

goal six days after the landings all the

coalition forces are finally the linked

up the troops occupy a beachhead 80

kilometers long reaching at certain

points 10 to 30 kilometers deep while on

the west side

the Americans advance towards Cherbourg

and salvo on the east side the British

and Canadian was still clash with the

Germans who maintain their positions

around calm these repeated defeats put

Montgomery in a difficult position with

the u.s. command he's desperate to win a

first irrefutable victory on the

battlefield On June 12th he attempts an

encirclement maneuver by skirting caja

from the West to trap the German

divisions the 7th British armored

division is sent to the small town of VA

Bocage

but the Germans anticipate the move and

ambush the British with a tiger tank

battalion commanded by Mikhail vintner

the most impressive tank commander of

World War two

one by one the British tanks are

destroyed

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the failure to capture Villa bocaj by

the Samsung division and 30 Corps did

impact badly on morale they just

realized that it was going to be a far

tougher job than they had thought about

or imagined when they said so

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in these conditions

taking the port of Cherbourg becomes an

absolute priority for the Allies after

capturing Kanto the Americans take 10

days to travel 50 kilometres and reach

Cherbourg the 4th 9th and 79th US

divisions finally reached the city on

June 21st they launched the attack the

following day

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three US divisions are all just

advancing north towards Cherbourg and

try to get into the town as quickly as

they can

the city is defended by 30,000 troops

trapped by the Allies

they're doomed because the Allied Navy

from the seaward side can pound them and

then the American army coming from the

landward side can kind of just catch

them in a vise so the whole thing kind

of just devolves into this sort of

block-by-block fight

it will take a few days before the

American soldiers drive out all pockets

of resistance in Pacific

On June 26th the Germans surrendered

thousands of soldiers are taken prisoner

after four long years of occupation

Cherbourg finally tastes freedom once

again

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[Applause]

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Cherbourg is certainly the biggest city

at that point that is liberated there is

a slardar German surrender and the

Allies then have it as an average

soldier that still wasn't necessarily

your typical day so those who were there

say it's shareable tended to remember

that

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despite this first victory and Cherbourg

the casualties after three weeks of

fighting are staggering thousands of

soldiers have already been killed or

wounded

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on the battlefield the medical teams try

to intervene as quickly as possible they

transport blood set up field hospitals

but complex organization is established

to follow the troops as they advance

in spite of the losses the allies keep

moving forward day after day after day

after the Americans take Cherbourg they

head south

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the next allied target is less than 90

kilometers away the city of San Logue

but the American soldiers face one of

the most dangerous regions for infantry

and tanks the Normandy Bocage

the Bocage is made up of cultivated

field separated by ditches and

embankments canopy by hedgerows several

metres high

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it's basically a maze of these hedgerows

most of which are about 8 feet to 13

feet high that thick norman soil clay

like soil packed around fences and

stones that certainly individual

soldiers can't get through so the

hedgerow opening becomes a kill zone

the Germans had four years to prepare

their defense heavy machine guns were

positioned in the corners of each field

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mortars target every spot the Allies

might cross

and mines hide in their pathways

with a visibility of no more than a

couple of meters the Americans

advance blindly

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up against the Germans

dozens of Allied soldiers died taking

back c'mere meadow

or a single [ __ ]

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the US Army finds itself in Normandy in

the middle of a bloodbath absolute

bloodbath day by day hedgerow by

hedgerow chokepoint town by chokepoint

town every one of them were you fight

they're gonna suffer casualties

from the average soldiers point of view

this just seems to be a hopeless

situation you just know that this seems

to be kind of the road to nowhere in

Normandy

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as the Americans try to navigate the

Normandy hedgerows the British and

Canadians are still attempting to break

the German stronghold around the city of

kaol a British general Montgomery

decides to change his offensive he

launches Operation Charnwood on July 7th

467 Allied planes dropped more than

2,500 tons of bombs on enemy occupied

areas around Cao

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after having been heavily bombed on June

6th the city of Cao is decimated

on July 9th the British and Canadian

soldiers finally enter the city from the

north

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as the Canadians and British fought in

to call through the rubble they saw

French civilians who had survived the

bombing but whose family members had

been killed they talked about hearing

the screams of the French civilians who

were trapped

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but for the Allied command the

annihilation of kaol and the thousands

of civilians killed under the American

and British bombs was a necessary evil

the price to pay in winning the battle

it's always hard talking about ends and

means and what justifies what in warfare

a moral decision would be that the

killing of civilians is by almost by

definition a war crime but you're not

going to be able to avoid it in reality

the priority was we've got to defeat the

Germans because in a way we accept that

Normandy is going to be really the

sacrificial lamb for the whole of France

if we can destroy the German army in

Normandy then the rest of France will be

saved

while the British and Canadian troops

gradually liberate the city of kaol the

Americans continue to struggle against a

strong German resistance on their way to

salut

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thousands of Allied soldiers are trapped

in the Normandy bocaj the incessant rain

and mud slow their progress even more to

escape this fate elaborate they try an

ingenious strategy we've got to create a

new opening through the hedgerows

because the main one the Germans have

covered and they're gonna kill everybody

who moves through there so they begin to

weld ironically enough the remnants of

German Beach obstacles the metal onto

the front of Tanks with prongs

and begin to use the the tanks than to

punch a new opening through the head

rope

with these so-called Rhino tanks the

Allies take the Germans by surprise but

for every hedge crossed they remain at

the mercy of the enemy soldiers

because the Germans have in the ditches

beyond the hedgerow a lot of Panzerfaust

Gunners it's a one-time one-shot kind of

anti-tank weapon that could blow up your

tank so the infantrymen have to move

very close to the tank and basically

what the military calls clean out the

Germans and the ditches that basically

means kill them and very close

face-to-face quite often and then the

tankers will lay down what's called

white phosphorus fire and that white

phosphorus is a terrible weapon it's

basically a chemical that will just burn

through you as long as it has oxygen

it was a very dirty battle I mean the

Germans themselves described it as ash

Witzke bush Creek a dirty Bush war and

general Collins who've been fighting in

the Far East said this is worse than the

jungle

on July 18th after three weeks of

relentless fighting since the capturing

of Cherbourg the Allied soldiers finally

enter the city of Santa Lou but upon

arrival not much remains

the soldiers have to advance extremely

slowly as the Germans have mined the

entire city

a few civilians emerge from their

shelters to search the rubble for

objects that might have survived the

onslaught of Allied bombs

after Cherbourg san lo is the second

great victory for the Allied command but

the state of the city which is later

nicknamed capital of the ruins

exemplifies the high price of liberating

Normandy

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after a month and a half of fighting the

troops morale is at an all-time low

every foot gained against the Germans

comes at the cost of intense and

merciless cover

there's the stress of not knowing when

the next German shell is gonna come in

and whether it's gonna hit near you or

not they see a very limited battlefield

it's a battlefield where they live and

they die when they fight in where they

kill

for the soldiers the warm welcome of the

locals reminds them why they came here

to risk their lives

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a little alcohol cigarettes simple gifts

that lift the men's spirits before the

next advancement the next mortar fire

the next dead over time many of them

realized that the only way out was to be

killed or wounded even as reinforcements

came behind them

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their world became very small battle

stress became a tremendous problem in

the fighting in Normandy and in July and

in August as the strain continued

between about 20 and 30 percent of the

casualties were combat stress

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to compensate for losses reinforcements

land daily on the Normandy beaches and

are immediately sent to the frontline

after a month and a half of intense

fighting the main cities of Normandy

have been taken from the hands of the

Germans but the battle is far from over

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to pierce the German defenses and

accelerate the troops movement the

Allied command launches Operation Cobra

Cobra is conceived around the idea of

gosh we have all these great bombers all

this airpower we've been using to pummel

German cities what if we carpet bombed a

part of the German lines of these

hedgerows to punch a hole and have an

opening now for our armor and all of

other other troops to get who through

here very quickly it makes a great deal

of sense on paper it's in the

implementation that it creates some

serious problems why because the bombers

are not that accurate you're asking them

to do something they're not really

capable of doing which is the bomb close

within about a thousand to 2,000 meters

of their own ground troops they're lucky

to hit a target within three miles or so

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for two days thousands of bombs hit the

front line southeast of San lo

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over the course of two days July 24th

and 25th 1944 the heavy bombers come

over from England and they bomb in front

of the US assault Division

they bomb short and they kill several

hundred Americans

this is I believe the greatest friendly

fire incident in the history of the

United States

but are also the good news is it does

tremendous damage of course the Panzer

layer division the Germans who are on

the wrong side of this and so Cobra does

what it's designed for

the Panzer Lehr division of the German

divisions were so badly thrown by the

heavy bombing that they were in a

completely dazed State when the

Americans cops'll within two days the

real breakthrough had been achieved in

just a few days thousands of Germans are

taken prisoner the Reich forces have

suffered one of their heaviest defeat

since the beginning of the war despite

the collateral damage the military

success of operation Cobra brings the

Battle of Normandy into a new phase

on July 28th the town of ketosis is

captured by the Allies the same day a

new commander arrives

General Patton

famous for his feats in North Africa and

Sicily Patton has just taken command of

the 3rd US Army his mission make a

breakthrough to the south of Normandy

the Germans feared patent more than any

other allied general patents new job

which he was extremely excited about was

the prospect of taking over having his

own army went the breakout came from

Normandy

in just four days

Patton's troops will retake the cities

between cou Thomson Davos and advance

more than 50 kilometers to the south at

a pace not yet seen in this battle

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as they progress thousands of German

soldiers are taken captive this really

took the Americans all the way through

down past a branch and out of Normandy

even into northern Brittany it was a

spectacular smashing of the German

armies in Normandy this was definitely

the start of taking the fight right the

way through into France

on July 31st Patton and his troops

reclaimed the potable bridge that

crosses the saloon River they gained

direct access to the west of France and

to Brittany

the following day the Americans arrived

at Massa me Cheryl completely abandoned

by the enemy

patents breakthrough is a serious

setback for the German army

the Germans are in an existential

situation in Normandy the logical thing

to do would be to simply retreat

eastward and get out of there and fight

somewhere else we're not talking about

logic and we're talking about someone

like Adolf Hitler

instead of ordering his troops to

retreat Hitler decides to counter-attack

his plan send his tanks to the town of

Mortain close to where several American

units have joined up the goal is to

create a breach in the Allied

configuration meant to reach a flaw by

cutting the American army in two and

regaining control of the area

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reluctantly the German generals on the

ground prepare the counter-offensive

they had these firm orders from Hitler

even though most of the commanders of

the German Panzer units were dubious

about this particular operation but they

had an option but they had to go ahead

and attack

on August 7 1944 the Germans launched a

counter-attack in volterra code named

Operation new T

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columns of Panzers attacked xxx the US

Infantry Division with full force

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the GIS resist the powerful German tanks

and managed to slow the Nazi troops

progress giving time for reinforcements

to arrive

within a few days the massive influx of

Allied forces pushes back the German

counter-offensive Hitler's operation

booty is a total failure

the Germans suffer at least 50%

casualties particularly along the roads

that kind of envelop on either side of

more time it's really a disaster for the

Germans

by mid-august the German forces are

defeated on August 15 1944 Hitler throws

in the towel and orders his troops to

flee Normandy

arriving from the West

the Americans advanced at full speed

towards our Zhang toe to join forces

with the British and Canadians

village after village one by one they

occupy enemy positions they annihilate

the areas of German resistance

a small village of Rennes tirelessly

held by the vert market and an SS unit

is reduced to rubble

dozens of civilians are killed but now

is the time to expel every last standing

German soldier in Normandy

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Bradley and Montgomery coordinate the

Allied troops movement in the West the

Americans advanced towards the sin in

the north the British and Canadians

increase their pressure on fellows in

the south the French armored division of

general Leclerc along with the Americans

head back up to our Chantal between the

cities of fillets and jean gua a pocket

starts to form trapping nearly 100,000

German soldiers if the Allies managed to

close the gap on the east side they will

cut off any chance for escape

Bradley boosted to visit astre

headquarters never does a general get an

opportunity like we have now to close

this gap and basically to seal them off

the Battle of Normandy had been fought

over hundreds of square miles but it

seemed to funnel at the fellows gap

and this enormous battlefield of

hundreds of miles gets focused down to a

very small deadly place

to weaken the enemy's final defenses the

Allied airforces hammer the German

positions

on the ground the fighting is

unprecedented

the Canadians take fillets on August

17th trial the 18th little by little the

vise tightens on the Germans they have a

corridor of no more than seven

kilometers wide to flee to the east

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z massacre inside of the pocket ad farce

was horrific the fight Obama's kept on

coming in all of the German transport

horses dragging field hospitals or guns

or whatever were just simply machine

gunned in their traces the smell the

stench of corpses for weeks afterwards

that was simply appalling it was a

turkey shoot as Americans would have

called it on August 21st the Falaise

pocket is closed once and for all in

shanwa

tens of thousands of Germans are taken

prisoner and thousands lay dead

the battle will later be known as the

Stalingrad of Normandy you have

thousands of dead bodies animals and

humans that are in that area Eisenhower

the later wocket famously and say it was

possible to walk from one side of a

field to another without ever stepping

on anything but dead flesh

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I think that is something to try to

imagine today that fellas gap filled

with corpses and wounded screaming men

and that was the price of victory

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in the city of ours on tone liberated

the day before by the 80th US Infantry

Division cameras immortalized the

meeting between the soldiers and the

city's mayor

in the middle of the ruble some

civilians finally dare to emerge from

their shelters

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the phallus Shinhwa battle will be the

last one in these three months of

fighting in Normandy on the Allied side

220,000 soldiers were killed or wounded

and 20,000 civilians were killed on the

German side the Reich army lost more

than 200,000 men and another 200,000

were taken prisoner

on average a battalion and a half were

being ground down or destroyed roughly

every single week in many cases a

division would last no longer than say

two weeks well this gives one an idea of

how much Normandy contributed I think to

the overall Allied victory just purely

in the case of the destruction of German

formations

by the end of August hordes of soldiers

and vehicles land at Cherbourg and head

east to eradicate the rest of a Nazi

army

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everybody knows about the landings on

the 6th of June very few people can tell

you what happens in June and July and

August and how the battle for Normandy

actually ended

and I think to this day we are still

dealing with those battles that war

trying to come to grips with it trying

to make sense of it trying to understand

the ruins of Normandy 75 years ago

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as few as 50 cameramen tirelessly shot

each day of this historic battle they

left behind hundreds of hours of footage

some of which only surfaced decades

later

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for future generations these images will

remain the final witnesses of Normandy's

85 days of

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