It is Spring of 1944. Four years have passed since the invasion of Holland, Belgium and France. Britain has stood firm.

Inspired by the far-sighted vision of President Roosevelt, the United States have brought their decisive might to bear upon the war. Wilting beneath the German onslaughts, Russia has seem to waver, but has recovered magnificently. 

Then came Stalingrad. The enemy, for eighteen months, was in steady retreat. Two-thirds of his forces wore themselves out against the ever-increasing pressure of the Red Army. El Alamein, Africa has been cleaned up, Italy invaded, and Rome is about to fall. Straining towards its liberation and eager to fight for it, France overnight forged its own weapon of Resistansce.

Then came June 1944 and all the World felt the hour was at hand.

Normandy: a province of France which everybody travels through, but few know really well. Houndreds of thousands of visitors land every summer in the great ports of Cherbourgh and Le Havre, but they only passing though. En route for Paris, the banks of the Loire, the Alps or the Mediterranean, they catch a glimps of pastures, orchards, copses and smiling valleys, and all they carry with them is a memory of placid greenness.

Such is the first impression of Normandy, and it is comforting one amid the devastated post-War Europe. Despite its ruins, this country of butter and cheese, of herds and flocks, of cider and Calvados, can still place a generous table before its guests.

In the 8th and 9th centuries the Vikings came down from the North Sea in their light-built boats, seized upon the peaceful lands of the Seine esturary, and Normandy was born. In 1066, led by William the Conqueror, their adventurous spirit launched them forth in on the conquest of Britain.. And now, once again, after centuries of comparative peace, it was from these coasts between the Orne and the Cotentin that the operations of the D-Day developed.