Operation Overlord

The Allies decided on a cross-Channel invasion in 1943 and promised it to Stalin at the Tehran Conference as the second front. General Dwight Eisenhower became supreme commander, and General Bernard Montgomery commanded the ground forces in the first phase. The seaborne and airborne assault itself, D-Day, was codenamed Neptune; Overlord meant the whole undertaking: winning and building up a lodgement from which further offensives could be launched.

On 6 June 1944 about 156,000 men landed on and behind five Normandy beaches, and by the end of August there were more than two million in France. The operation closed with the liberation of Paris on 25 August and the German retreat across the Seine. Polish ships and airmen took part, and General Maczek’s 1st Armoured Division helped close the Falaise pocket in August.