General Dwight Eisenhower in March 1944 between British Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder, right, and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery
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And so the largest military invasion ever known, D-Day, took place on June sixth, nineteen-forty-four.
The German leader, Adolph Hitler, had known the invasion was coming. But he did not know where the Allied force would strike.
Most Germans expected the Allies would attack at Calais. But they were wrong. Eisenhower planned to strike along the French coast of Normandy, across the English Channel.
The Second World War was then almost five years old. The Germans had won the early battles and gained control of most of Europe. But in nineteen forty-two and forty-three, the Allies slowly began to gain back land from the Germans in North Africa, Italy and Russia. And now, finally, the British, American, Canadian and other Allied forces felt strong enough to attack across the English Channel.
Eisenhower had one hundred fifty thousand men and twelve thousand planes for the attack. But most importantly, he had surprise on his side. Even after the invasion began, General Erwin Rommel and other German military leaders could not believe that the Allies had really attacked at Normandy.
But attack they did. On the night of June fifth, thousands of Allied soldiers parachuted behind German lines.
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Then Allied planes began dropping bombs on German defenses. And in the morning, thousands of ships approached the beaches, carrying men and supplies.
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