Freeing France from their Nazi overlords on 6 June 1944 was not going to be an easy task for anyone. The Germans had entrenched themselves in the defeated country with little or no resistance. In fact, many French fully accepted their German masters and accommodated them very well. The Parisian life was in full swing, the German soldiers entertained in Cabaret clubs and life was good for the French hosts. The last thing any Parisian was thinking about was liberation.
Operation Overlord, conducted with immaculate secrecy was the largest naval, air and land invasion in military history, and took months of intricate planning.
Operation Neptune was the naval component of Operation Overlord, and involved over 7,000 naval vessels landing over 132,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy.
It was the ingenuity of the British secret service who planted the seeds in the German high command that the main focus of invasion was Calais and the Norwegian front utilising German double agents feeding Hitler false information. The British even utilised fake radio chatter, and a body double of Field Marshal Montgomery flying to Gibraltar and Algiers fooling the Germans who thought no attack was going to occur in Northern France if he was in the Mediterranean.
When the invasion came, the Germans were caught off guard and even though the Allies took heavy losses, they acquired a decent foothold in the region to push forward further into France and liberate the rest of Europe. Hitler was now not only being pushed by the Russians but by the Allied forces who had pulled off the biggest ruse and subsequent invasion right under his nose. No doubt it was the beginning of the end for his Nazi Reich in its current form, although today, we see further German hegemony via the European Union, not militarily of course, but through economical conquest.
On the anniversary of D-Day and the President of the United States’ visit, Britain must never forget our Allies, especially those brave American troops who many gave their lives on those blood soaked Normandy beaches for the freedoms we should be enjoying today, which are unfortunately being eroded by heavy handed censorship and political correctness.
The fallen heroes 2,700 British, 946 Canadians, and 6,603 Americans who gave their lives on D-Day shall be remembered.
