D-Day

The Normandy landings – aka D-Day – took place on 6 June 1944, when Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France. Several thousand aircraft and warships bombarded German positions along the coastline and dropped Allied soldiers behind the German defences, before troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. Codenamed operation Overlord, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history and marked the beginning of the campaign to liberate north-west Europe from German occupation. Total casualty figures are still debated, but it is thought that as many as 4,000 may have been killed on D-Day

Historian Peter Caddick-Adams

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Exclusive podcastPeter Caddick Adams on whether D-Day could have failed. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

American soldiers head towards the French coast, June 1944. (Photo by Getty Images)

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Tom Hanks, Matt Damon and Edward Burns in 'Saving Private Ryan' (1998), directed by Steven Spielberg. (Photo by Dreamworks LLC /Paramount Pictures)

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D-Day on screen: 5 TV and film depictions of the Second World War operation

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Troops from the 48th Royal Marines at Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer on Juno Beach, Normandy, France, during the D-Day landings, 6 June 1944. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Your guide to D-Day: what happened, how many casualties were there, and what did it accomplish?

To the point: soldiers prepare themselves for hand-to-hand combat by learning bayonet skills. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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The road to D-Day: the masterplan. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Members of a British parachute regiment consult their maps during a training exercise just weeks before D-Day. Training was intensive – and dangerous. (Photo by Haywood Magee/Picture Post /Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Allied troops on the landing crafts did not know if they would survive D-Day, but they knew the beaches had to be taken. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

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D-Day: the WW2 battle through the eyes of the men who were there. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The killing zone: This photograph by Robert F Sargent, known as ‘Taxis to Hell – and Back – into the Jaws of Death’, shows American troops wading towards Omaha Beach on the morning of 6 June 1944. (Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

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Troops of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade (Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry Highlanders) going ashore, Normandy, France, 6 June 1944. (Credit: Gilbert Alexander Milne/Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada/PA-122765)

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“Free people everywhere should remember them”: the Canadians’ role in D-Day

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D-Day: a resounding success for the Allies. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Holding court: Bernard Montgomery briefs reporters on progress in France, 1944. (Photo by Cynthia Johnson/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

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In defence of Monty: James Holland on the Allied commander's D-Day decisions. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Beyond Normandy: the global war. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British troops learn to swim in full kit on a training course in May 1944. "A blind man could see something big was about to happen," said one soldier. (Image by Getty Images)

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D-Day: why the training was deadlier than the assault. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Looking out across the Channel, shell craters pockmark Pointe du Hoc – a German artillery position seized by US Rangers. The promontory is one of many reminders of D-Day along the Normandy coastline. (Photo by Getty Images)

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American Flying Fortress bombers and a Mustang fighter practise formation flying over England, training for rain that would help break Nazi resistance. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

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A Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) is approaching Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, 6th June 1944. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)

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Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt exchanged almost 700 messages during the Second World War. (Illustration by Hugh Cowling for BBC History Magazine)

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A flight of Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft of No 73 Squadron RAF, over France, 19 April 1940. (Photo by S. A. Devon/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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An older couple is watching a Canadian soldier with a bulldozer working in the ruins of a house in the rue de Bayeux.10th July 1944. The church towers in the background have survived the Allied bombing intact. Caen, Normandy, France. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)

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D-Day: the successes and failures in focus. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British reenforcement land on 'Gold Beach' for the big push into the Normandy town of Caen

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An eyewitness account of the Normandy landings, France, 1944. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Q&AD-Day: How did a weather forecast change the fate of the war?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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The LibraryD-Day: James Holland answers your questions

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"If I don't come home": letters from a D-Day captain

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D-Day and the Wars of the Roses. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Worshippers inside the Duke Street Baptist Church in Richmond, Surrey, listening to a service in 1954. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Getty Images)

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Operation Barbarossa, which began on 22 June 1941, saw more than three million German troops surge into the Soviet Union along a front of more than 1,000 miles. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

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