he stole the plans of the rtification from the coast of normandy between cherbourg and oslo, then colonel remi forwarded them to london. for months, preparations went on in great britain with dummies, dummy tanks, fake uniforms, and tom brady a message is to give the idea that there was going to be a landing in norway. calais in france. operation overlord was prepared in secret. there was a huge armada, the largest of all time, being prepared to face up to the fortifications. 80 years ago, on the sixth of june, 1944, we saw the beginning of what seemed impossible. to face up to the implacable. behind us, we had the english channel. disappearing to the horizon, deep and dark, officers in the shadow standing still with france. sleeping in the long night after the defeat of 1940. they had failed to do so, but there were glimmers of hope of the resistance. just after midnight, general eisenhower gave the order. the bombing began. 23,000 paratroopers. 800 came. they were convinced that when they dropped over the beach, they were leaping into history. there were battleships, cruisers and destro

with these joint efforts, these forces brought together, cherbourg fell after a month.late august lyons, calais, and in late november, strassburg, and then germany. which in may 1945. then we had to rebuild europe, doing so through peace and friendship between people, through forgiveness and promises. we had to build europe as a treasure of freedom and, c. -- and democracy. it has been so for 70 years. some part of the west was taken in central and eastern europe under other forces. we had to set the basis for new international orders. we did this by sharing an ambition with germany. this was the foundation of our union. we joined together to the destiny of our peoples. as is the case for the d-day veterans, the past can be changed. a 19-year-old german paratrooper who on d-day was on the other cited the beach. he was taken prisone they say he came back to france and settled in normandy. he requested french citizenship, was given it, and he married therese, a french girl from normandy, and became profoundly european. johannes met leo gucci, a former member of the comman

work of the troops, so the germans think, well, what kind of normandy do they need. ..or dover or cherbourg matter of hours a day , would build an artificial port of mulberry in the same normandy and solve this problem. the americans then and the british completely outmaneuvered them, first of all with intelligence, because that was history, yes there, well, yes, as for the same houthis, again this is my value judgment, for example, this blow could have been really painful, if, for example, well , then only, as they say, a personal opinion, if you put them, for example... mobile coastal anti-ships, the kusits' main specialists in launchers are al ivanov and al petrov, well, yes, absolutely absolutely, but again , which means, again, if on the other side they act in a similar way, then who is stopping us, well, who will raise the houthis in our ranks, and with our own hands, here are the coastal anti-ship missile systems, mobile, again , mines, means of laying them, i mean sea mines . and it will be quite painful, again, well, you want to hurt us, well, well, excuse me, we can do that too, e

we can't get to cherbourg or le havre in time. and hughes holland said, well all i can say is that if we can't capture report, we'll have to take one with us and laughed, just like you did. just like that around the table. and then it got quiet and somebody said, well, why not. and of course we did. now, churchill, who loved gimmick weapons instinctively was a huge advocate of this. the facility at mulberry, a constructed off beach, and mulberry b of gold beach are often claimed to be one of the major reasons why the allies were able to be triumphant. even samuel eliot morris then argued that the artificial harbors were a key to allied success. now, far be it from me to samuel eliot morison, but i wonder if this too isn't of that hindsight about cleverness. we can talk more about during the q&a if you're interested. in the end, of course, none of this would have mattered without the courage and determination of the soldiers themselves who stormed the beaches, dropped into the dark night, who glided down silently. so in that respec

advantages of quick turnaround in your air cover and your your c resupply it has two harbors and cherbourg and conn that are considered to be key for our logistics once we're ashore and has suitable landing beaches. but what once eisenhower in place with his larger kind of command team by the end of 1943 in 1944 they simply expand on the original three division invasion concept morgan had come up with and come up with five divisions or five divisions plus an five landing features and whatnot that we are so familiar with today, especially this where you can see the actual five different landing beaches. so the key before you get there is to isolate this battlefield. as you saw a moment ago. you're obviously, you know, with this invasion, it's a it's a continental littoral operation, which means that your enemy controls, that continent, you are invading, it's like a pacific island where the japanese could be cut off because you control maybe the air and the sea and they're not going to be able to reinforce. well, in this case, if the germans control much of the european meaning that wherever

and the thinking was we may not have cherbourg and con or even other supply ports know as soon as oneso let's artificial harbors on the landing beaches by creating breakwater. you've got tetrahedra, you've got sunken blocks, ships, all that kind of thing. ramps, places and what will have those in place. so t-?hese are going to be built by the engineers in the aftermath of d-day, famously at gold beach, which was near harriman, you know, one of the british beaches and now on, fortunately, there's a terrible storm that comes along june 18th, the 20th, that severely damages the british mulberry harbor and basically destroys the american ones. so in the broader sweep of things, the though it's an incredible achievement are a bit overrated in terms of what they're going to be able to t to contribute. i'm only off top of my head but i think something in the order of about 10 to 15% of our logistical needs are served by the mulberry harbors. so what are they going to do instead? just off lands, offload stuff the on t lng beaches, the what are called landing ship tanks or lst ts, which is arg

adjutant found a note in his pocket, yes, you can quote it, a case of defeat, our landing in the cherbourg-le, my decision to attack at this time in this place based on the information i had, the air force and navy did everything that courage and devotion to duty could do if one were to blame for failure. attempts, then it’s just me, there was no experience of operations of this scale, it was the largest landing operation in world history, and at that time, of course, it was necessary to take into account the possibility of failure, especially since, as in our historiography they sometimes say, that there were some very weak fortifications there and so on, there were fortifications there after all, after all the german troops soon began to be commanded by not the latest german general rommel, as the transfer of forces looked like, but on june 6 they landed on their own. units of equipment, yes, yes, that is, a huge number, that is, in fact , for six people there is one unit of equipment, but these are different equipment, this is from jeeps, yes to there, well, of course, yes, yes, plus more

calais, westerham, cherbourg, brest. that's where the predominant mounts goes.moreover, for all the reasons we talked about besides under air cover, the closeness to berlin, the idea that that is the most likely landing and, the most consequential one, most of the responses or most of the resources go to calais. now, when they start to build that atlantic wall. this is the western defenses. what we should think about this is a living beast. okay when you see these concrete bunkers, they're going to build 15,000 of them. it's. 1.2 million tons of german steel. it's 5% of the german steel production is found in the rebar in those bunkers. think about this is the bones of this defensive beast. okay, the bones of the defensive would be connected by trench lines. those the ligaments that hold it together, you see these artillery pieces, 8000 artillery pieces from 28 countries in 21 different calibers. and the point you go, oh, those germans are so creative to use all of those are captured that they found from all those countries they occupy. true, except do you resup

in his own handwriting, general eisenhower wrote our landings in the cherbourg-havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and i have withdrawn the troops. my decision to attack was based on the best information available. the troops, the air, and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. if any blame or fault attach to the attempt, it is mine alone. of course general eisenhower was ready to take the blame alone. because that is what honor demanded. eight years later, general eisenhower was elected president of the united states. after his faithful service, became the first republican president in 20 years. and in a tragic collapse of honor, in dwight eisenhower's political party, it is now impossible to imagine the last republican president taking the blame alone for anything. in fact, donald trump's last white house chief of staff john kelly who was a marine corp. general says that donald trump quote rants that our most precious heros who gave their lives in america's defense are losers. and wouldn't visit their graves in france. earnest hemmingway was

we disembarked at cherbourg, we boarded a train and went down town by town by town along the normandy battlefronts and lo colville, san laurent by you con you all these things. and i remember the tens of thousands of people who gathered at every train station just don't forgettable scenes. the surging crowds in paris and bonn cope hague in paris again, and in london. as my grandfather calls on degaulle, he calls on churchill. he calls on the british prime minister. the wonder of this scene, the euphoria of it, the sadness in a way, in the tumult. all of this was firmly etched into our minds. and we came to grasp what an important event that had just simply happened just before we were born. as it turns out, by the way, that trip in 1962, dwight eisenhower was actually on a in part on a diplomatic mission for president kennedy. and so as he met heads of leaders, heads of state, he was tasked with sounding out their flexibility on the question of berlin, which president kennedy felt the soviets were going to stoke again that fall, or perhaps later. and so several years ago, the kennedy

. >> don owens landed on d-day plus seven at utah beach and fought in the battle for cherbourg.the army for three years. lewis, u.s. army, mr. so cox was so eager to serve his country in world war ii, that he enlisted in the army at age 15, lying about his age. he was soon discovered and sent home, but when he was old enough , he served during the korean war where he was a driver for the m 39 armored utility vehicle and merited the purple heart. joseph elmer stroud, u.s. navy, mr. stroud served probably in the navy from 1943 to 1946. theodore budd seuss, u.s. army, mr. sue served from 1942 to 1946 in the united states is a technician and mechanic on communications equipment, including the crucial teletype machines. billy vye, he served in the european theater of operations with the famous adf infantry division, participated in the battle of the bulge and was awarded the bronze star. he will celebrate his 100 birthday next week. [applause] dan, u.s. marine corps, dan enlisted in the u.s. marine corps as soon as he was old enough. and served in the occupation of europe after comba

a long line of flares hangs over cherbourg, or i suppose it is cherbourg, and a few anti—aircraft tracer44, troops from more than a dozen nations had arrived — coming from across the world to join the fight for freedom. many of the 1.5 million americans had never travelled abroad. but the united states war department did their best to prepare them by publishing instructions about life in britain. boys, you will soon face the enemy. but before that, you will face the people of britain. and you must be prepared for both. i present you with "a short guide to great britain". let's start with customs and manners. you will quickly discover differences that seem confusing and even wrong. like driving on the left side of the road, and drinking warm beer. but once you get used to things like that you will realise that they belong to england just as baseball and jazz and coca—cola belong to us. the british have seen a good many americans, and they like americans. they are shy about showing their affections. but once they get to like you, they make the best friends in the world. don't be misled by

expect that the allied forces landing, for example, in the area of ​​podekale duvar or there in the cherbourg it simply requires the transportation of a colossal amount of material resources for... they could not have imagined that the same americans would build an artificial port of mulberry in the same place in a matter of hours a day normandy itself and will solve this problem, the americans then and the british completely outplayed them, first of all, first intelligence, there it was history, and there, as for the same houthis, again this is my value judgment, for example, this strike could be really painful. mobile, again, mines, means of laying them, i mean sea mines, and this will be quite painful, again, well, you want to hurt us, well, well, excuse me, we can do that too, especially it doesn’t seem like enough, here we are again there is also a commercial interest, because then interest in the northern sea route will increase, but i still think that the formation, ansaralla, will not refuse, they will not refuse the transfer. the leadership can be said to the last ukrainian, then wit

operation, stalin immediately admitted this a week after... the case of defeat our landing in the cherbourg-leithdrew the troops, my decision to attack at this time in this place was based on the information i had, the air force and navy did everything that courage and devotion to duty could do, if anyone was to blame for the failure of this attempt, then it's just me. there was no experience of operations of this scale, it was the largest landing operation in world history, and at that time, of course, it was necessary to take into account... the possibility of failure, especially since, as in our historiography they sometimes claim that there there were some weak fortifications, there and so on, there were still fortifications there, after all, the german troops soon began to be commanded by not the very last german general rommel, what the transfer of forces looked like, but on june 6 they landed, by june 11 more than 326 had already arrived at the bridgehead thousand people, and note, 326 thousand people and more than 54 thousand pieces of equipment. by the end of july this was successful

but with these joint efforts, with all forces rot together, share board —— cherbourg fell after a months some part of the west which was taken, in the centre and eastern europe, under otherforces. we had to set the basis for new international order, based on rights such as the declarations of philadelphia and san francisco. we did this by finding the path, sharing and ambition with germany. this is the foundation of our union. wejoin together, the this is the foundation of our union. we join together, the destiny of our peoples. as is the case for the d—day veterans, the path can be sure, and here, iwould like d—day veterans, the path can be sure, and here, i would like to cite a 19—year—old german paratrooper who, on d—day, was on the other side of the beach. he was taken prisoner. later, he came back to france and settled in normandy. he requested french citizenship and was given it, and he married therese, a french girl from normandy. and he became profoundly european. he opened a restaurant and johannes met a former member of the commander unit. and a firm friendship develops betwee