The people that made D-Day possible

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On 6 June 1944, Allied forces launched the largest combined land air and sea operation in the history of warfare – Operation Overlord. The landing was one of the most important events of the Second World War and marked the beginning of a long and costly campaign to liberate north-west Europe from German occupation.

Our new three-part series, we’ll cover all the elements of D-Day with episodes exploring the fighting at sea, in the air and on land. In this first episode IWM Curator Nigel Steel examines the naval operations that made D-Day possible. Why did the Allies select the Normandy beaches? How did Allied naval guns turn the tide of the battle? And why did the Allies almost cancel D-Day altogether?

Discover IWM's D-Day 80 programming: https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/d-day-80

HMS Belfast and D-Day | A Guided Tour: https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/hms-bel...

What did HMS Belfast do on D-Day?: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/hms-be...

How D-Day was fought from the sea: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-d-...

What you need to know about the D-Day beaches: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-y...

Explore and licence the film clips used in this video from IWM Film:
https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/co...

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