On June 6, 1944, news of the Normandy invasion spread through German prisoner-of-war camps like wildfire, igniting hope in Allied POWs. 

In the June 7, 1944, edition of her newspaper column My Day, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reflected on the news of the D-Day landings in Normandy and the long path ahead to victory in Europe.

Planning the Overlord assault didn’t just happen overnight. It was a result of a prewar doctrinal framework built upon six identified components for an amphibious assault.

This column is the last of three D-Day columns written by war correspondent Ernie Pyle describing the Allied invasion of Normandy. 

Despite their early agreement on a strategy focused on defeating “Germany First,” the US and British Allies engaged in a lengthy and divisive debate over how exactly to conduct this strategy before they finally settled on a plan for Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Normandy.