Saturday Hero: D-Day

It had been put off a day due to weather. Conditions over the past few days made it impossible for an invasion. The low hanging clouds would prevent aircraft from finding their targets and wind and high seas wouldn’t allow watercraft to land on the beach safely. So the plan was scratched and it seemed that the invasion would have to be called off for at least a month. But the weather cleared the following day and Operation Overlord/Neptune was a go. Because of the bad weather that had been going on, some German troops had stood down, senior officers were away for the weekend and many commanders left to take part in war games thinking no invasion could take place. Then around 12 midnight on June 6, 1944 American, British and Canadian airborne troops began an airborne assault landing behind enemy lines to provide support for the coming infantry and armored divisions. At 6:30am the assault began on a 50 mile stretch of Normandy, France. American troops took Omaha and Utah beaches, British troops took Sword and Gold beaches and Canadian troops took Juno beach. In all, an estimated 10,000 U.S., UK and Canadian troops were either killed, wounded, captured or went missing and the march towards Germany was underway.