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  D-Day
What was D-Day?
What happened?
Where did it happen?
How fierce was the fighting?
Why was it called D-Day?
The 60th anniversary

 
Scene from the BBC drama D-Day What was D-Day?

It was an invasion, the biggest one in history. It's a key date in the story of the second world war.

The whole operation was codenamed Overlord. It happened on 6 June 1944 after five years of war with Germany.

A massive military force set out from England towards France. It was going to overthrow Nazi Germany and its leader Adolf Hitler. The Nazis had taken over nearly the whole of Europe.

The allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy and started to break through the German army's defences. They began an attack that lasted for eleven months and took them all the way to the German capital Berlin, to the bunker that was Adolf Hitler's headquarters.


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  next   
Our clickable map of the D-Day beaches
Take a virtual tour of a D-Day beach
Winston Churchill Churchill:
Britain's wartime leader
Schoolgirls join D-Day ceremonies
World War II is a story not to forget
Poppies How do we remember the war dead?
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