omaha beach was about three miles of pretty rocky beach. you didn't have a whole lot of sand there. you didn't have a lot of shelf. and you had kind of a coastline that gave way to some prominent ridges. and even cliffsides. but it had to be taken because omaha beach was the key link between the british and canadian beaches to the east and utah beach to the west. so omaha was going to be tough because germans had the high ground and had so heavily fortified it. you also had four key draws that came in from omaha beach. they were gullies that nature had created over many thousands of years and they were important because the allies needed them to get their vehicles and supplies to use them as convertib convertibvetera veritab veritable roads. that is where you see quite a bit of bloodshed. so everyone knew omaha would be probably the toughest of the beaches because there was so much high ground looking over the beaches below. so the way they figured they would combat that was to hit omaha beach with strategic bombing, with four-engine bomb he is, b-17's an b-24's. the problem is they

if we would have failed on omaha beach and on the other beaches on the 6th of june in 1944, the struggle for europe would have been a struggle between hitler and stalin, and we would have been out of it. if stalin had won, the iron curtain would have been on the english channel. if hitler had won, i don't think he would have been able to take britain, at least not in the immediate future, but he would have gone all the way to the urals. hitler's plan was to turn the problem of conquering america over to the next generation, utilizing the resources that he intended to have as a part of the greater german reich as a result of victory. it really did turn on getting ashore and penetrating that atlantic wall. now, once that atlantic wall was penetrated and we had a beachhead and you could begin to move from england into the continent, this tremendous outpouring of america's factories that we had managed to get over to england by winning the battle of the atlantic in 1943, if you penetrated the atlantic wall then it was no longer a question of who was going to win. it was when is the end goi

guest: to give you the highlights of it, when you talk about omaha beach, getting ashore was really the hardest part. after that you see a pretty steady advance inland for about the next week. utah was almost the opposite. not a getting ashore was easy because utah beach was under intense artillery fire on d-day and days thereafter. but the hard est part was advancing and this was a bitter campaign during the summer of 1944. the british and canadians were stalemated so the allies spent the better part of 1944 pinned into normandy fighting this battle of attrition with the germans. and time wasn't necessarily on their side to a great extent. they really needed to break out and to match the soviet advances that you had in eastern europe at the same time. so, the allies also launched an invasion of south france which is not well known but was planned from operation over-lord that there would be a complementary invasion of southern france along the rive riviera beaches. churchill was against it but it was august 15, 1944. by then the swaituation had improved in normandy, the eastern front s

one of the first american soldiers who disembarked on omaha beach wrote later, " it seemed entirely unreal, sir real, like a living nightmare. you could walk over the entire beach without ever touching the ground, because there's so many bodies littering the beach." the young german who took his machine gun and started to fire also felt the same nightmare as he looked at the vast spaces before him, littered with bodies, with hundreds and thousands of lifeless bodies. 120,000 allied soldiers had disembarked in addition to the 32,000 men from the air divisions. among them were more than 10,000 dead, wounded, and missing. on the evening of june 12, after ferocious fighting, the allied soldiers had managed to establish a front that was 90 kilometers in length and 10-20 kilometers deep. the battle of normandy was to last until august 29. on that date, 2 million allied soldiers had disembarked. 38,500 had been killed, 150,000 wounded, and 19,000 were missing in action. on the german side, 60,000 were dead, 140,000 wounded, 200,000 or taken prisoner, and 20,000 civilians had also lost their lives

the american forces landed, numbered about 73,000, 23,000 250 on utah beach. 34,000 250 on omaha beach and over 1500 air borne troops. 21,400 britance landed on juneo beach. and 7900 british air borne troops came in from the skies. back to the phones. oakland, california. go ahead. caller: good morning. every time i watch your program on d-day, i never hear anything about the participation of africa or our ex-clone yl powers. oim from west africa. we have the second, the most natural beach in the world. the ships from all these powers came to our shores to collect possessions and water -- positions and water. our men were sent to these wars from my jeeria. a lot of them participated and i'm sure others participated for the french clone yl matters. yet, nobody ever talks about the participation of african countries in these wars. i was six years old and i coming into our city. so how come nobody ever talks about the participation of the african soldiers in this war? host: you have today, and thank you for enlightening us. caller: good morning. host: ron, you're a family member of a vet?

we went up the hill, then we crossed over omaha beach and eventually made it to a little french town. the day after d-day, i walked up to the beach, went up and down the beach and saw guys lying in the beach who were dead. they were there with their eyes open, their rifles ready. they were solid in their death. mr. speaker, these brave men who cracked the nazi grip on europe began with the liberation of france 65 years ago. and then from there, they went on to germany. nothing like it has ever been done before in history. over 150,000 allied soldiers hit the beaches during assault landings on the 6th of june. by the fourth of july, over one million joined the invasion force through normandy. it was a miraculous feat from 1944. these young men were from every state and territory in the united states. they were young and hailed from places from the farmland to the big cities. many had never been but a few were miles from home until they went ashore from overseas. they have been called the greatest generation. growing up irk learned my dad, a farm boy, served in the great world war ii as

on june 7, 1944, when sergeant bob sutler found himself standing on omaha beach where he had disembarked the evening before, he was overcome by the vision, the side of all these bodies strewn along the beach, of soldiers and friends he had known since the child. he wrote, we were brothers. we will always be brothers. they died so that we could live, and i thank them for what they gave us. for the rest of his life, he would remain haunted by these austere basis, their mouths wide open, their eyes fixed in the coldness of debt. as the german brigadier wrote later, since that time, i have always and constantly seen in my dreams a loan gi, floating in the great waves of my dreams, as he lands on the beaches, he takes his weapon, and is, and fires. his helmet rolls away in slow motion. he falls face down on the sand, carried away by the waves that had just brought him to the beach, and then he fades away before my very eyes. just as the american soldier who saw the hallucinated look at beit importee who was stupefied to have survived hell, as this american soldier said, he understood finally

we want to mention that his grand father and great uncle landed on omaha beach. there you see prime minister gordon brown on the left side of the screen and on the right side the french president. we want to thank john mcmannis for being our guest. we are going live to normandy as we await the speech by the president. ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] >> president obama, your royal high ness, prime minister brown, prime minister harper, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. it's our privilege to welcome all the visitors joining us today. we extend a special welcome to the d-day and world war ii veterans and their family members in attendance who honor us all with their presence. [applause] today, we commemorate the 65th anniversary of the d-day landings that took place in the early morning hours of 6 june, 1944. today's ceremony will honor the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who made the supreme sacrifice so that europe might be liberated. included among those so honored are the 3,881 who lost their lives on d-day at omaha beach and the 9,387 of our dead who

three years later congressman rating the fallen warriors at omaha beach, reagan said we will always rememberways be proud. we will always be prepared so we may always be free. today our freedom is defended by 1,092 foot long air carrier and 5,500 sailors on the ronald reagan and their motto is peace through strength. ronald reagan's legacy is intact, and i am confident it will be for generations to come. if you study the man and his times you will see the rhythm of life described by shakespeare. all the world's stage and all of the men and women are merely players. and one man in his time will play many parts. ronald reagan played his parts brilliantly with words and deeds. he inspired his countryno one great heights and inspired a great vision. we are honored to grab his likeness. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the republican leader of the united states senate the honorable mitch mcconnell. >> friends, fellow members of congress, trustees of the ronald reagan presidential foundation, mrs. reagan, today we celebrate a great man's life. and as we dedicate this statue we affirm that man's

we are about to start shooting a couple which will be follow-up films shooting the president on omaha beach65th anniversary of d-day which if you can't find some of his most grindle words, you know, on that particular occasion will. but i was also a journalist when i graduated from college and was never quite sure what i wanted to be between doing at least even some i worked for harold on the sunday times of london and it's rather glorious investigative phase in the small role in a couple of days a week hired by a friend of mine working for the paper. i worked for the occasional magazine and i felt it was the job in a way of good journalists almost always read the first draft of history. i was lucky. i was the sort of undeserved that in cambridge to did to kinds of history after we simplified. goodness, how time flies when one is having fun. where is andy, stand up and be counted? there you are. how long do i have? >> [inaudible] >> that sounds alarming. [inaudible] [laughter] door life will expire in three minutes. [laughter] i'm counting now, two minutes and 59 -- yes? >> [inaudible] >> 8

care about -- other 15 year olds -- then what happened -- they don't care about what happened on omaha beach, they care about what happened that week in the cafeteria. what happened between the captain of a football team and the cheerleader counts more than anything that happened between anthony and cleopatra long ago and that is just the nature of adolescence. what the internet does is empowered adolescence to increase those peer contacts, those in group fixations, the social life of one another, peer pressure 24/7. 24 hours a day they can be in touch with one another seven days a week. and they can improve their lives to contacts with themselves and shut out more and more the voices of adults, not to mention the tax of history and civics and foreign affairs. this is unprecedented. to be able to sit in your bedroom at midnight and have chats with six buddies and down the block in your city and another state, around the world. so that there is no and to appear to appear contact. that is a unique condition of our time. >> but how is this a bad thing? >> sure, kids will be kids and when i was

>> guest: yes, he is still alive, and we will be together at omaha beach on d-day, tomorrow. c-span: where does he live? >> guest: he's moved to kentucky. he used to live in washington. he lived in washington until about two years ago. c-span: i have a strange feeling i passed him every day in the building i lived in here, 20 years ago. did he live in arlington, va.? >> guest: that's where he lived, 111 army-navy drive. that's it. he is a great man. c-span: i saw an article about him a couple of months ago, or maybe a year ago, about george marshall. >> guest: he did a four-volume "life of george marshall," which is one of the classic american biographies. forrest had exclusive interviews with marshall that stretched over a 10-year period, and that's awfully good. c-span: go back to general eisenhower. what was he like to know? >> guest: he was without any question the most impressive man i've ever met. monty once said of eisenhower, "he has but to smile at you and you trust him at once," and i certainly had that experience of eisenhower. monty said, "he has the power of draw

omaha? >> guest: oh, yes. i lived there one summer. i walked every inch of the beach. i went swimming, pretending to be a soldier and charging ashore through the surf. i wanted to climb pointe de hoc, but i didn't do it. i really wanted to, and i gave it