sea walls, the rising tide had reducedthe gauntlet of the beaches to as littleas one hundred yards at the narrowestpoint, and the battles of the beacheson the flanks were already from one totwo hours old. The Canadians had nointention of being left behind.The Canadian 7th Brigade, the Royal

Winnipeg Regiment and the ReginaRifles leading, came in on the right,west of the Seulles river, beating theCanadian 8th Brigade to the beach bya minute or two. With them wereeight, possibly ten, DD tanks mannedby the Canadian 1st Hussars. Thetanks had taken to the water eighthundred yards out, threatened by theturbulent sea, in constant danger ofswamping, threading their waysthrough a maze of scantlings juttingout of the water like the stumps ofsome petrified forest and, plasteringthe enemy strong points point blankas they crawled out of the surf withthe spume pouring from their greyhulls, down over their ridiculousskirts. If anyone had an eye for farceat such an hour, they might haveseemed like some absurd old seaanimals paddling.On the left, the Queen's Own Regi-

ment of Canada and The North ShoreRegiment led the Canadian 8thBrigade without armour, and racedfor the sea wall, the heavy machineguns of the enemy cutting swathesout of the Queen's Own in the thirtyseconds or so it took them to reachthe shelter of the wall. The landingcraft carrying the assault armour ofthe Engineers were still battling withthe heavy seas and the obstacles, andthe DD tanks were coming in to landdry-shod when the spearhead infantrywere well away, blasting the enemyout of Courseulles and Bernieres, andpressing on. When the Regiment de laChaudiere came in fifteen minuteslater there was scarcely a shot.On this morning of the 6th June,

when there were still a few tatteredshreds of the heroic in the threadbaregarment of human combat, at half-past eight o'clock, one hour late, theCanadian Battalions were borne in ona rough sea driven by the wind whichflung them on to the beaches, and inone bound across them. The dangerousreefs and rocks of that narrow coastforced the assault craft to wait for the

tide, and when at last they were clearof the reefs the larger craft had tocharge the obstacles, hoping for thebest, while the small craft strove toswerve and weave through tangles ofangle iron and stakes. At one pointtwenty out oftwenty-four assault craftblew up, and men struggled for theshore with the splinters oftheir landingcraft falling from the skies about theirears. According to the record, 'chunksof debris rose a hundred feet in the airand troops, now hugging the shelter ofa breakwater, were peppered withpieces of wood.'Driven by the wind, the rapidly

rising tide piling up the heavy surf,the helmsmen of the assault craftcould only hang on and pray. The firstthree craft coming in on the Canadianleft blew up, but their entire comple-ment, save two killed, struggled outof the debris and water to make thebeach and fight.There were many brave men man-

ning the landing craft all along theline from 'Sword' to 'Utah', men

Below: The cost

fighting- lone battles against out-breaks of fire and exploding ammuni-tion, one man at least, a man namedJones, saving wounded from drowningin a flooded hold and amputating twohorribly mangled legs. He was nodoctor, merely a 'sick-berth atten-dant', but he did the job. Andthere were scores of 'Joneses' at seathat day off the beaches, but none hada struggle to compare with that of themen who carried the Canadians ashoreon 'Juno', and none had troops moreworthy the carrying.The LCOCU - landing craft obstacle

clearance units - of the Naval demoli-tion teams, and the beach units,striving to sort out the horriblemuddle of mined obstacles, machinesand men, fought like demons, andwere under shell fire from enemycorps and divisional artillery longafter the last mortar, machine gunand '88 of the beach defences, even thelast sniper, had been silenced. Bull-dozers not only bulldozed debris outof the way, but bulldozed beachedcraft back into the sea, giving them astart on the way back.When the Engineer assault armour

of the 22nd Dragoons and the 26thAssault Squadron, Royal Engineers,reached the beach on the Canadian 7thBrigade front, the DD tanks which hadlanded with the infantry, had settledthe score with the worst of the enemystrong points mounting the 75-mmguns and the heavy mortars andmachine guns, but there was plenty ofmortar and automatic fire coming infrom a bit further back. The flailswere urgently needed to carve clearroads through to the exits for themass of armour and vehicles building-up, and the Petards and bridgingtanks lumbered up behind them, tokeep the infantry going at highpressure.East of the Seulles the going was

good, and on both sides of the river theflails had opened the exits before half-past nine, the fascines and bridgingtanks had bridged the worst of thecraters and culverts, and opened thesluices of the Seulles to drain a crateras large as a village pond and twice asdeep.On the left at Bernieres, flails and

Petards had smashed exits throughthe twelve foot high sea wall, and

cleared lanes and laterals well in timeto work in with the infantry againstthe pill-boxes and strong points.Before noon on the right flank theflails were advancing inland underCommand of the Canadian 2ndArmoured Brigade.Twelve lanes were cleared that day

on the 'Juno' beaches by Hobart'sarmour, and the exits linked rightthrough to join the Brigade fronts.The DD tanks, beaching dry shod anhour behind the infantry, were swiftlyoff the beach, adding their fire-powerto the men storming on inland to keepthe enemy off balance and not givinghim a chance to form a second line.By late afternoon the Canadian 7thBrigade was challenging the 69thBrigade of '50 Div' for the lead, itsarmoured patrols probing for themain Bayeux-Caen road at Bretteville,while on the left, the Canadian 9thBrigade, breaking loose from thechaos and confusion on the beach,was through the 8th Brigade, andgoing fast astride the Courseullesroad to Caen.The centre bridgehead from Lang-

rune to Arromanches was solid,twelve miles wide and growing deeperevery hour. The bottle neck wasbehind, in the congestion of thenarrow beach, the struggle of armour,vehicles and men, to break loose fromthe appalling traffic jams. And on theright, there was the growing aware-ness of an ominous gap, the dangeroustoe-hold of 'Omaha', inching slowlyoff the beach, its progress measuredin yards.Whatever happened the enemy

reserves must be prevented fromreaching 'Omaha', and it was thisabove all which made Dempsey pause,ready to reach out a helping hand,holding back his armour.

Canadian troops breaking clear of thebeaches

148

149

The end

of the day

Field Marshal Rommel had beenright about the first twenty-fourhours: they would be decisive. He hadmade repeated efforts to move the12th SS Panzer and the Panzer LehrDivisions on a line St Lo - Carentan.Had these Divisions been there the'Omaha' beachhead must have beensmashed; even had Rommel himselfbeen there on the day, able perhaps torouse Hitler out of his early morningdreams, it might not have been toolate. It was too late when Hitler heldhis afternoon conference, and releasedthe 12th SS Panzer Division.All that could be done against the

Allied Air and Seaborne assaults hadbeen done by the forces immediatelyavailable. Feuchtinger, Commandingthe 21st Panzer Division, the onlycounter-attacking force within reach,had reacted swiftly against the BritishAirborne landings on the Orne, ac-cording to his standing orders. But atonce there followed a long period ofuncertainty, due partly to a break-down in communications. When atlast the Division was put underCommand of the 84th Corps, GeneralMarcks, the Corps Commander, wasright in his appreciation that theBritish 3rd Division was the morepotent threat, and that Caen must beat once powerfully screened. Never-theless, too much time had beenwasted, and he might have done betterto commit the Division against theAirborne bridgehead. Had that beendone the great glider-borne forcemight have arrived to a terriblewelcome.

150

1

i1*

As it was, Feuchtinger could notdisengage his Infantry Battalionsfrom the British, nor his anti-tankguns from the German 716th Division.He had been shot away from thePeriers Ridge by British guns when hemight have shot the British armourout of the way with his own guns - ifhe had any.But 21st Panzer Division did very

well. Had they not taken fright at theimpressive spectacle of 250 air-tugs,towing their gliders li^e trains overthe coast, as though they rode throughsome great terminus in the sky, andthe evening sky black with the fighterescorts, his battle group, powerfullyand swiftly reinforced, might havedisrupted the British right flank on

'Sword' beach, and driven a dangerouswedge between the British andCanadians, down to the sea.There was no second chance.But I don't believe that the 21st

Panzer could have prevailed, even the-first time. The dice were too heavilyloaded against the Germans. Airpower had done its work, sealing offthe battlefield, holding the ring,denying mobility to the reserves. Ofthe eleven thousand-plus sorties flownby the Allied Air Forces on the 6thJune, not one single aircraft was lostto the Luftwaffe. Air superiority, ithas been estimated by some staffauthorities, multiplies superiority onthe ground by three. On 'D day', Alliedair power was overwhelming, and

v m. m. -

Cotentinh^_Peninsula^*

U.&lstARMY(Bradley)

U.S.IstDIV.

BAY

8?

y Planned airborne dropping and landing zonesUTAH Assault areasx Green Beach Red Beach

* First Allied assault waves

"^ Attacks by Allied Commando and airborne unitsC) Areas held by Allies at 2400 Hrs on D-Day

Line of planned Allied beach head at 2400 Hrs on D-Day

RCT Regimental Combat Team

decisive.

The pattern of the Battle forNormandy was beginning- to set at theend of the first day, with the Britishand Canadians held and holding- theentire enemy reserve, and the Ameri-cans exploiting the open flank. If - ifthat right flank could have beensmashed at the outset, vulnerable,almost defenceless, on the long beachof 'Omaha*, then a terrible, naggingbattle of attrition might have gone onand on and on. the British bridge-head virtually sealed off. But the 6thAirborne, and then the British 3rd

Division, and then the Canadian 3rdDivision, had made that "if" impossible.General Bradley may have feared aGerman counter-attack, but GeneralKraiss. Commanding the German352nd Division, knew that it wasimpossible.And the maintenance of an "open

right flank' was essential to Alliedvictory. That was the point andpurpose of General Montgomery'sstrategy, and by the end of the day heknew that he would win.Meanwhile, by taking a chance, von

Rundstedt had dared to move a power-

152

1st ARMY GROUP(Montgomery) .

BRITISH 2nd ARMY(Dempsey)

BRITISH 30th CORPS(Bucknall)

BR.50thDIV.

BR8thARMD BDE

BRITISH 1st CORPS(Crocker)

OF

47th RM \COMD. \

SEINE

I

CAN.3rdDIV

CAN.2ndARMD.B0E.BR. 3rd DIV

BR.27thARMD.BDE.

f56th BDE. 151st BDE.^

\ \

' CAN 9th BDE

]CAN CAN

7th BDE. 8th BDE. 48th RMCMDO.

4th SS BDE.9th BDE.

oKS g* toSSBDE4thCMDO.

D Areas held by German troops at 2400 Hrs on D-Day

' Major German gun batteries

W XXI Panzer Division counterattacks- Railways

Roads

Flooded areas (Prairies Marecageuses)

5

1 i' i i'i'i i ' i I i' i iIQMiles

10 15Kms.

ful force of the 12th SS Panzer Divisionto Lisieux, and as soon as the releaseorder came through from the HighCommand, this group, under KurtMeyer, was ordered at once to thebattlefield. By midnight, constantlyharassed and desperately short ofpetrol it reached Evrecy, nine milessouth-west of Caen to find its petroldumps a burned-out ruin. When it wasable to move it had to counter apowerful Canadian threat, for it wasopposite the line of advance from'Juno' beach. Thereafter, the Britishand Canadian 3rd Divisions absorbed

its offensive power, and severelytaxed its defensive strength.The Panzer Lehr Division was no-

where near the battlefield on 'D day'

;

or the day after.'As a result of the "D day" opera-

tions a foothold has been gained onthe Continent of Europe', GeneralMontgomery was able to report.For General Bradley, Commanding

the US 1st Army, it must have been anight of grave anxieties, even - butthere is no evidence - of some self-questioning. For General Dempsey.commanding the British 2nd Army,

153

there was cause for some satisfaction,but not for jubilation. Dempsey, ofwhom very little has ever been written,is a good strategist and a soundtactician, in my view one of the finestsoldiers of the Second World War.distinguished then, as now. by hisdignified silence. He confined himselfabsolutely, and with a remarkabledevotion, to his work of soldiering.On that night of the 6th June,

Dempsey knew that his army haddone enough. It was a good army,perhaps the last real 'army' Britainwould ever produce.The first of the landing craft,

turning about, had reached the hardsof England, the small ports, theestuaries, in the afternoon, swiftly re-plenishing ammunition, stores, men.cleaning and greasing the guns, settingforth a second time through the greatmaze of shipping. Through all theday and night the Mulberry towswere breaking loose, the tugs fightingscores of desperate battles withhawsers, winches and chains, clawingat the huge unwieldy objects theysought to drag through the seas.40 per cent of the 'Whale' roadwayunits broke away and were lost. But itwould go on. and on. There would beenough.To the battalion, company and

platoon commanders, in the forwardpositions, each with his small pieceof the puzzle, it seemed pretty dicey.They knew only that they werethere". To the armoured patrolsprobing into Bayeux. and the Caen-Bayeux road, and drawing back, toothin on the ground, it was all "Dragon"country. The Canadian left at Anisy,six miles' in from the beach, layupon "nothing", an empty gulf in thearkness between them and the^hronshires at Bieville. But the gulfwas not empty, rumbling with Feuch-

nour. And Caen, aut ofhree mile?, a million miles,

le Britisn otn Airborne, reinioiheir Air Landing Brig heir

felt strong dnd confident. They weretrained to be out on their own. Theyheld a good bridgehead, and fortifiedby success, conscious of their strengthrather than their weakness, theyfaced the long night, which was al-

154

ready their second night, with highhearts. Their light tanks, coming outof the gliders under their own power,tangled hopelessly in the cords anddebris of parachutes, sprockets jam-med tight, did not dismay them.But the Commandos were having

rugged times. Cabourg refused to fall.At Sallenelles on the left, in the three-mile gap between 'Sword' and 'Juno',and in the chasm between 'Gold' and"Omaha', there was no rest.

It was a strange day and a strangenight both on and off the' British andCanadian beachheads. Men clungmarooned to obstacles and debris, onrocks, on the tops of drowned vehicles,while naval small craft, DUKWS andoutboard motors, buzzed and weavedabout their business, impervious tocroaking cries for help, and to thefull-blooded curses of frustrated,angry, frightened men. Many of thosepicked up by craft on the 'turn-about'were carried straight back to Englandwhether they liked it or not, the in-dividualists among them to 'stowaway' on the first craft back, others togo slowly through 'military channels'.Three men stood with their headsand shoulders just out of the water,like giants, for the water was fifteenfeet deep. The ramp of the landingcraft had gone down, 'Off you go, keepmoving' ! And off they went into deepwater. Up went the ramp. In went theship. No backward look. 'Statistics,mate. Unavoidable error'.There were a good many men

wandering about for days in Normandytrying to find their units. Mostly theydid.

Others on that first afternoon andevening, the ordeals of seasicknessand the beaches behind them, lay inthe lush grasses of meadows, andwrote about 'butterflies' and 'birdsong', which seemed the oddest thingsof all in the day. On 'Sword' the pipersplayed 'Blue Bonnets' as the 9thBrigade of the 3rd Division came in,and the strains went with the Scots,forward.The smoke rose in grey wisps from

the burned-out houses lining thebattered sea fronts from Ouistrehamto Arromanches, and in the midst ofthe monstrous chaos of the beaches,in the jungles of shattered craft, tanktracks, wheels, and tortured iron and

steel, the bodies of men lay under gascapes awaiting burial.Several thousand men wrote home.

They lay in basements, in the backs oftrucks, under trucks, in slit trenches,in enemy dug-outs. Field kitchenscooked. 'Fatigue parties' dug latrines.All the normal human functions were'taken care of in the midst of thegreatest seaborne assault the worldhad ever known.

Civilians stood, mostly bewildered,outside their doors, dull eyed at therivers of men and machines filling thenarrow ways, not reacting very muchany more, drained dry.Morale was high. To most of those

not 'in contact", and not 'fighting' -and very few are ever 'in contact'doing any fighting - it seemed an anti-climax. One man called it 'a crashinganti-climax'. In a sense it was an anti-climax not to be dead, after so muchwaiting, training, thinking, and ex-pecting 'God knew what'.Some thought that the French were

warm and friendly, others that theywere suspicious and unfriendly, stillothers that they were indifferent.Many were startled by the extremeyouth, or age, of the captured enemyand inclined to believe that it wasgoing to be, what they called in thosedays, 'a piece of cake'. But the menwho had charged the strong points,and gone into cellars behind grenadesknew better. The German 716th Divi-sion had been cut to pieces, but itsisolated 'bits' fought on.The men, above all, who felt them-

selves to be 'out on a limb' that nightwere the US 82nd Airborne, holding onin St Mere-Eglise, and with the 101stin scores of tiny 'pockets', wonderingwhen 'Howell Force', their small sea-borne 'attachment' was going tocatch up. They didn't realise - andcould not - that all their small bitsand pieces would presently come to-gether and give a much greater lengthand breadth to the 'Utah' bridgeheadthan it looked.'Howell Force' had tried hard. They

spent the night, unhappily, at LesForges, frustrated in their attemptsto get through, and watching theC47's coming in, many of their glidersgoing straight into the arms of theenemy. The enemy held a ridgescreening St Mere-Eglise, and the 3rd

155

Battalion, having a go at them, hadcalled for artillery support withoutany luck.But the 'Utah' bridgehead was

sound. The entire 4th Division was onshore well before midnight, and muchmore besides. 20.000 men and 1.700vehicles in round figures. The two

ling regiments had lost twelvemen killed between them. GeneralCollins was far more worried about thepossible actions - or lack of actions -

of Admiral Moon, than about thebridgehead. The General wanted togo on shore, but he dared not leavethe Bayfield. The Admiral, worryingabout his 'losses', wanted to suspendlanding operations through the night,and the General had 'to hold down

Admiral Moon", as Bradley put it.General Gerow. commanding the

US V Corps, with no such sea cares,but with plenty on shore, had set uphis Command Post on the bluffs of thatdesolate stretch of coast. There wereno rear areas on "Omaha".' thatnight according to the record, nocomfort, no feeling of security. Enemypockets were still firing from beachpositions, sniping all night, and allthrough the next day. Barely 100 tonsof supplies had come on shore all day,the men. weary, hungry, hanging ongrimly behind Vierville. St Laurentand Colleville. were short of ammuni-tion, sleep, short of most things. Butthey had found their hearts.At the deepest point the penetration

vtrtftt* rj*u&'r.

- t.

^t^r Mi

on 'Omaha' was not much more than1,500 yards, and there wasn't 'a line',not even the planned 'Beach Main-tenance Line'. The American de-stroyers had closed the beach, ragingup and down like wolves, engagingthe enemy strong points at a thousandyards. And the men of the 1st Divisionwho had thought, if they had thoughtanything at all, that they would neverstand up again, had found the strengthto follow men like Colonel Taylor andBrigadier-General Cota, and a handfulof others off the beach. It was a miraclethat they had gained a foothold, butthey had. Men without armour. Itwas going to take them several daysto catch up, and the counter-attackthey feared would not come, because

German trenches deserted even by thevictors

it could not.The thoughts of everyone who knew

anything about it, from GeneralEisenhower downwards, and not leastthe thoughts of General Montgomeryand General Dempsey, were with theUS V Corps for a week, willing themon.Forrest Pogue wrote : 'On the central

front concentric drives by US andBritish forces by 8th June, had closedthe initial gap at the Drome riverbetween V and 30 British Corps. TheV Corps then pushed through thebocage country to within a few milesof St L6 before grinding to a halt inthe face of stiffening enemy defenceand increasing terrain obstacles'.In a further paragraph, Pogue

comments; 'The Germans, consider-ing Caen the gateway to Paris, massedtheir reserves to defend it and stoppedthe British short of the city'.The US 1st Division had its beach-

head ordeal on the beach. They hadbroken the crust, and the crust hadbroken itself on them. For a week itwas clear ahead.The enigma of General Bradley

remains.The Supreme Commander's report

states:'Apart from the factor of tactical

surprise, the comparatively lightcasualties which we sustained on allbeaches, except "Omaha", were inlarge measure due to the success ofthe novel mechanical contrivanceswhich we employed and to the stagger-ing moral and material effect of themass of armour landed in the leadingwaves of the assault. It is doubtful ifthe assault forces could have firmlyestablished themselves without theassistance of these weapons'.No one may ever know what General

Bradley thought about it. Why had herefused the flails, the Petards, and allthe rest of Hobart's armour?Chester Wilmot believed that it was

Bradley's contempt for British 'underconfidence and over-insurance'. Hewasn't 'scraping the bottom of thebarrel' for men, as the British were -and the Germans. So far as Bradleywas concerned both British and Ger-mans were finished, as indeed theywere.'Analysis makes it clear that the

American troops paid dearly for their

157

higher commanders' hesitation toaccept Montgomery's earlier offer togive them a share of Hobart's special-ised armour'.Liddell Hart goes on to point out

that this was the more remarkablebecause the flails were fitted toSherman tanks 'so that no problemof adaptation arose'.

It may be that Bradley's acuteanglophobia had found a focus onGeneral Montgomery. But whateverit was the Americans paid the reckon-ing on 'D day' at 'Omaha' beach.But on the night of the 6th June, all

that was a long way off. What con-cerned the Regimental and BattalionCommanders was to get their Unitswell in hand, and strive with all speedto gain the 'D day' objectives.The cost of the day in killed was not

more than 2,500 men, 1,000 of them on'Omaha'. At Towton Field, on the29th March, 1461, 33,000 men perishedby the sword and were buried there.Nearly 20,000 British troops werekilled on the first day of the Battle ofthe Somme in 1916. Few facts under-line the end of the long story of war

more strongly, and mark the begin-ning of something new, infinitelyterrible and shocking to the very soulof mankind. War had become a battleof machines against machines. Tensof thousands of tons of explosive, ofcopper, tungsten, bronze, iron, steel,bombs, bricks, mortar, concrete, guns,tanks, vehicles, ships, all 'blown tosmithereens'. Bridges, railways,dumps, factories, whole towns, flat-tened to rubble, a war for bulldozers.And presently the men controlling

the bombers sensed their power,making it almost impossible for menon their feet to get through. It will bean unhappy day for the world whenmen on their feet cannot get through.

Eisenhower; D plus 1 . His plan hadsucceeded

Bibliography

By Air To Battle: The Official Account of the British 1st and 6th AirborneDivisions (HMSO London)The Battle for Normandy E Belfied and H Essame (Batsford)Biennial Report of the Chief-of-Staff to the US Army, (1st July, 1943-30 June. 1945)to the Secretary of WarA Soldier's Story Gen Omar Bradley (Eyre & Spottiswood)The Second World War Vols. 3, 4 and 5 Sir Winston Churchill (Cassell)Operation Neptune Com Kenneth Edwards (Collins)Grand Strategy Vol. 5 John Ehrman (HMSO London)Crusade in Europe Dwight D Eisenhower (Heinemann)Victory in the West, Vol. 1 L F Ellis (HMSO London)Panzer Leader Heinz Guderian (Michael Joseph)Cross-Channel Attack Gordon A Harrison (Dept. of the Army, Washington)Air Operations by the Allied Expeditionary Force in X W Europe. 15 November,1943-30 September. 1944 Air Chief-Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory (4thsupplement to London Gazette, 31 Dec. 1946)The Tanks, Vol. 2. The Other Side of the Hill Capt. Sir Basil Liddell Hart(Cassell)

Armoured Crusader Kenneth Macksey (Hutchinson)Memoirs F-M Montgomery of Alamein (Collins) Normandy to the BalticF-M Montgomery of Alamein (Hutchinson)Operations in North-West Europe from June 6th. 1944-May 5th. 1945 F-MMontgomery of Alamein (London Gazette Supplement. Sept. 3. 1946)Overture to Overlord St.-Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan (Hodder & Stoughton)The Supreme Command Forrest C Pogue (Dept. of the Army. Washington)The Assault Phase of the Normandy Landings Adm. Sir Betram Ramsay( London Gazette supplement. Dec. 31. 1946)Report by the Supreme Commander to the Combined Chiefs-of-Staff on theOperations in Europe of the Allied Expeditionary ForceWe Defended Normandy Hans Speidel (Jenkins)Utah Peach to Cherbourg, Omaha Beach-Head (American Forces in Actionseries, Historical Division, Washington)Above Us the Waves C E T Warren and James Benson (Harrap)The Struggle for Europe Chester Wilmot (Collins)

160

am

From the skies, paratroops of the U.S. 101st and 82nd

Airborne Divisions, linked with the British 6th Airborne

Division, paralyzed the Germans with their disorganized

landing and scored a much more decisive victory than if

it had gone according to plan. Meanwhile, infantry sol-

diers splashing from their landing craft onto the Nor-

mandy coast encountered as much resistance from the

forces of nature as from the enemy. The violent battles for

the strips of beach known as Utah and Omaha passed

heroically into history.

In the succinct words of General Montgomery: "As a re-

sult of the D-Day operations, a foothold had been gained

on the Continent of Europe." This book is the real record

of that momentous achievement.

It was difficult, in the last days, for any Britishman or woman involved to the humblest degreein the vast effort of D-day, to imagine that any-thing else existed. The climactic event itselfseemed total. For four years Britain had been atfull stretch, going all out for the assault. Now themoment of truth was approaching fast.

D-L,71-0bbEM-2