D-Day: 80 Years since Operation Overlord by Chris Riley

The world had already been at war for five years and although soviet forces had made considerable gains in the east, Hitler’s Third Reich was proving almost impenetrable in the West with much of Europe still under the Nazi jackboot. Planning for the invasion of Europe began back in 1943 at the Tehran Conference where U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin set out just how they would defeat the Axis powers. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the planned invasion of Europe would be the largest amphibious landing in human history and would see over 2 million men from 12 countries take part in one of the most important events of the 20th century. The landings, codenamed Operation Neptune, would take place across five beaches in northern France where 130,000 British, French, Canadian, American and Allied soldiers would aim to crack through the formidable Atlantic Wall, a collection of pillboxes, tank traps and minefields spanning from Scandinavia to the Spanish border. 2024 marks 80 years since D-Day, a day that saw 4,414 men lose their lives in perhaps the greatest collective effort in military history. We will remember them.