The D-Day Landing—Passage 1
In September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany after Germany invaded Poland. The war, which lasted until 1945, is known as the Second World War. During the war, Germany occupied many countries, including France. The most important battle of the war in Europe was Operation Overlord, the military operation in 1944 to invade France.
Operation Overlord started when boats full of soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy in France, known as the D-Day landings. More than 5,000 ships crossed the English Channel, carrying 130,000 troops to the French coast.
Troops from the United States, Britain and Canada took part in the D-Day landings. The operation was extremely dangerous and many soldiers were killed before they even got off the boats. American soldiers attempted to land at the most dangerous place, known as Omaha Beach.
The situation at Omaha Beach was so bad that the US army commanders thought about abandoning the invasion.Eventually, the soldiers made a breakthrough and the D-Day landings were successful. It was the beginning of the end of the Second World War.
Operation Overlord started as a story of danger and confusion and ended as a story of bravery and acts ofheroism.
The D-Day Landings—Passage 2
The soldiers of Able Company crossed the English Channel in seven boats early on the morning of 6 June 1944. When they were about 5 kilometres from the beach, the Germans started firing artillery shells at them but the boats were too far away. The Germans continued firing and Boat 5 was hit one kilometre from the beach. Six men drowned before help arrived. Twenty men fell into the water and were picked up by other boats. As a result, they missed the fighting on the beach. They were lucky. If they had reached the beach, they would probably have been killed.
When Boat 3 was a few metres from the beach, the soldiers jumped out, but the water was so deep that some of them disappeared under the water. Many of the men were either killed or wounded by machine gun fire.
The soldiers on Boat 1 and Boat 4 jumped into the water, but it was too deep and most of them drowned. Half an hour after the first attack, two thirds of the company(aco mpany is a group of about 100 soldiers) were dead. The survivors lay on thebeach, exhausted and shocked.
After an hour and forty-five minutes, six of the survivors tried to climb up the cliff to get off the beach. Four were too exhausted to reach the top. The other two,Private Jake Shefer and Private Thomas Lovejoy, joined a group from another company and fought with them. Two men. Two rifles. This was Able Company's contribution to D-Day.
The D-Day Landings—Passage 3
On 6 June 2004, survivors of the D-Day landings from many different countries returned to France to remember their lost comrades. Many of them went to the cemetery and memorial which overlooks Omaha Beach.
The cemetery and memorial are situated on a cliff overlooking the beach and the English Channel, from where the boats attempted their landings. The cemetery contains the graves of 9,386 Americans who died during the landings. The memorial also contains the names of more than 1,500 men who were never found.
On the memorial, there is part of a poem called "For the Fallen", which was written by an English poet, Lawrence Binyon:
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
The poem was first published in The Times newspaper on 14 September 1914 and can be seen on war memorials in many parts of the world.
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