By 1944, the Allies (Britain, Canada and the USA) were ready to invade Hitler's ‘’. The invasion was codenamed ‘’ and was led by the American General Ike Eisenhower, who was to decide the of the invasion at the last minute.

Preparations
It was decided not to try to invade at Calais (where Nazi fortifications were strongest), but in .
1. Immensely careful research of the landing sites was done from:
- Low-level aerial photos
- French holiday guide books
- The BBC asked for (10 million were sent)
- Sailing books
- French
- Col landed secretly at night to test that the sand was hard enough to bear the weight of tanks.
2. Huge forces were gathered in the south of England. Wooden tanks were sent to Dover (they were called ‘Patton’s ) to make the Nazis think that the invasion was planned for Calais.
3. Thousands of were posted to Britain (‘, oversexed and over here’) – some of them eventually married British girls.
4. Months of training, so realistic that many men were in these exercises
5. Building ‘’ – floating harbours that could be towed across the Channel and set up once a bridgehead had been established.
6. Specialist machines (e.g. ‘crab’ tanks to clear mines/ bridge-carrying tanks) – nicknamed ‘’.
7. A Spanish convinced the Nazis that the main invasion was going to take place at Calais.

The invasion force was fully ready by 1 June – but delayed the invasion. predicted (one of their first important roles ever) that clear weather would for 6 June, and Eisenhower ordered the attack.


D-Day
1. At 3 am on 6 June 1944, a huge armada of ships – including landing craft – set sail for Normandy in 47 convoys. They carried 200,000 seamen, soldiers and 20,000 vehicles. The weather was still bad. soldiers joked that they were glad to go into into battle, just to get off the ships!
2. A few Royal Navy ships tried to fool Nazi operators think that the invasion was taking place at Calais.
3. 20,000 men were dropped by or landed in behind enemy lines to disrupt communications and seize key points. The invasion was supported by 11,000 , which attacked the Nazis from the air.
4. 7 battleships, 23 cruisers and 105 destroyers destroyed Nazi .
5. Then the infantry went ashore. The British and Canadian soldiers landed on three beaches – , and Sword. They experienced heavy but had captured a large area of coastline by nightfall.
6. The Americans were less successful.
- at Utah beach they landed at the wrong place but found little Nazi there and captured the beach with only casualties.
- at Omaha beach, because of the B17 bombers overshot the Nazi defences, the naval bombardment fell , and instead of just the weak 716th Division, the Nazis had just moved in their crack 352nd Division. A powerful swept many men and vehicles out to sea, and 10 landing craft sank (inlcuding most of the 'floating tanks' planned to give the infantry firing cover). The Americans sustained casualties in first few hours. By 10 am, only 300 men had managed to struggle ashore safely, and by nightfall the Americans still only had ‘a toehold’ on the beach.
Even so, by the end of D-Day, 132,715 men were , and by 12 June million men were in Normandy.

On to Victory
The Nazis fought desperately, but Germany was at the of her strength, and many Nazis soldiers were just 16-year-olds.
- August 1945: fell
- December 1944: short Nazi counter-attack called ‘The Battle of the ’
- 23 April 1945: the Allies advancing from the west met up with forces advancing from the east.
- 7 May, 1945: the Nazis surrendered ( Day).