D-Day 80 years ago: the world remembers the Normandy landings, the last major military operation of the West

June 6, 1944 was the "longest day" that changed the fate of the Second World War

RIMINI – Without D-Day, who knows what course history would have taken. Today the world remembers the success of that battle which began the liberation of Europe from the Nazi forces and pays homage to the fallen of Operation Neptune. The landing of the first three infantry divisions, beginning at 6.30 am on June 6, 1944, on the coast of Normandy.
It was one of the largest amphibious invasions in history, carried out by the Allied Forces in the Second World War to open a second front in Europe and get closer to Nazi Germany. The landing on 80 kilometers of coast involved the largest fleet ever assembled in the history of humanity. But it was also one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict: during the operations, 4,400 soldiers lost their lives among the allies alone. Today, June 6, 2024, world leaders gather for commemorations for the beginning of the liberation of Europe from the Nazis, on Omaha Beach, one of the beaches that was the scene of the battle. Together with French President Macron, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, US President Joe Biden, Zelensky, King Charles III and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are also expected.

In the Normandy landings, code-named“Operation Neptune”, which was part of the larger “OperationOverlord“, the Allied troops used 6,939 ships and over 11,000 areas, . The first to touch the northern coast of France, at 6.30 am, were US soldiers with three infantry divisions on the beaches called Utah and Omaha. An hour later it was the turn of three more divisions on the beaches called Sword, Juno and Gold in the Anglo-Canadian sector.

The battle of Normandy was ultimately the last major military operation preordained by the Western world. Between June and August 1944, following the largest amphibious invasion in history, armies of over a million men decided the fate of Europe. The day of the Normandy landings, D-Day, was the “longest” of the entire battle. From 6 June 1944, with the successful opening of the second front, the developments of the Second World War changed direction: less than a year later, in fact, Germany was forced to surrender.