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

In May 1944, the Western Allies were finally prepared to deliver their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord.

US Army Captain Leonard T. Schroeder Jr. was the first man down the ramp and straight into waist-deep water at Utah Beach. As he trudged toward the shoreline, his M-1 helmet stayed firmly affixed to his head as he tried to avoid enemy fire.

On June 6, 1944, two brothers from Kansas landed at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. They promised to meet on the beach after the fighting was done—a promise that would remain unfulfilled.

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

While the Overlord operation was a combined effort of land, sea, and air forces, the amphibious assault plan was given the code name Neptune.

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.

Often referred to as the “Friendly Invasion,” the mixing of Yanks with British subjects often made for a clash of cultures.

The British landing area lay between Port-en-Bessin and Ouistreham where they would link up with 6th British Airborne Division along the Orne River, after their landing to protect the eastern flank of the Allied lodgment.