Just after midnight on June 6, 1944, 1,200 transport planes and 700 gliders delivered over 23,000 American and British paratroops behind the German coastal defense in Normandy.
At dawn, 4,000 transports and 800 warships, plus innumerable smaller craft, began an amphibious assault that landed 130,000 soldiers at beaches code-named Sword, Juno, Gold, Utah, and Omaha.
These names will live as long as mankind studies military theory.
We are not likely to see anything so audacious or so necessary to the continuance of Western civilization ever again.
In remembrance of the men who died at Sword, Juno, Gold, Utah, and Omaha – the soldiers who died there defending the West against totalitarianism – I offer some further reading:
D-Day on the Web
WWII Museum
American D-Day
19 of the World’s Best World War II Museums and Historical Sites