Was it necessary to invade the European continent to defeat Nazi Germany, or could the continual aerial bombing of towns and factories alone have done the job? Or was the invasion really mounted to forestall a Soviet victory and communist takeover of Europe? Some historians still debate the question.

D-Day

Code named Operation Overlord, the D-Day Invasion occurred on June 6, 1944, as elements of five Allied infantry and three Allied airborne divisions assaulted the Normandy coast of Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Under the overall command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the landings on Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and Omaha beaches succeeded in establishing a foothold on the continent. Following an arduous campaign in Normandy and savage fighting across the German frontier, troops of the Western Allies met the Soviet Red Army, advancing from the East, and Nazi Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.

During a conversation with Attorney General Francis Biddle (left), J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gestures toward a display at a conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House on April 7, 1942.

D-Day

Walter Koehler & J. Edgar Hoover

By David Alan Johnson

Throughout his lifetime, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover always boasted that no enemy agent, either spy or saboteur, ever operated at large in the United States during World War II. Read more

British commandos march through the ruins of the French town of Caen. An objective of the Allied D-Day landings that was supposed to have been captured on June 6, stiff German resistance prevented the city from being liberated until a month later.

D-Day

Fleming, Ian Fleming

By Hervie Haufler

Some accounts of Ian Fleming’s life make it seem that only at the age of 44, as an antidote to the shock of finally agreeing to get married, did he suddenly commit himself to the unplanned task of creating his James Bond novels. Read more

American paratroopers, with their weapons at the ready, advance cautiously through a field near Carentan littered with the bodies of their comrades, picked off by German sharpshooters, June 14, 1944.

D-Day

Bloody D-Day Clash for Carentan

By Mitch Yockelson

On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, at nearly three in the morning, Chicago-native Lieutenant John E. Peters safely landed Snooty, his Douglas C-47 Skytrain, on the massive 5,800-foot runway at Greenham Common airfield in southern England. Read more

Pegasus Bridge attack

D-Day

Pegasus Bridge: D-Day’s Textbook Mission

By Flint Whitlock

Late on the night of June 5, 1944, while American paratroopers were on their way to drop behind Utah Beach, another, smaller air armada carrying 170 British airborne troops was also dashing headlong into battle like an aerial cavalry charge towards the far eastern flank of the Normandy invasion site. Read more

Mulberry Harbor

D-Day

Winston Churchill’s Secret D-Day Weapon

By Alan Davidge

BACK STORY: The author has always had a soft spot for the story of the Mulberries. His mother, who was a skilled maker of wedding dresses in London, was conscripted to learn welding and sent to Jones’ Cranes, at Letchworth, just north of the capital city. Read more

Roosevelt Junior

D-Day

Teddy Roosevelt Junior: Steadying the Troops at Utah Beach

By Mason B. Webb

Teddy Roosevelt Junior had enjoyed a distinguished career even before D-Day. He had commanded a battalion in France during the Great War, served as secretary of the Navy from 1921 to 1924, been the governor of Puerto Rico from 1929 to 1932, and been governor-general of the Philippines for a year in the early 1930s. Read more

D-Day

D-Day Assault on Juno Beach

By Nathan N. Prefer

Most students of World War II know that there were five invasion beaches included in Operation Overlord, the invasion of northwestern Europe, on June 6, 1944. Read more

D-Day

Remembering D-Day

By Michael E. Haskew

Few events in human history have been so fraught with drama as the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Read more

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