Lest we forget....

70 years ago today....  05:30 Hrs, June 6th, 1944.  Shortly after sunrise, Allied naval forces begin bombardment of the beaches of Normandy France; seven battleships (including the Dreadnought USS Texas), 23 cruisers and 103 destroyers pound the shoreline marking the beginning of the D-Day Invasion.  More than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-forified French coastline to fight the Nazi German war machine on the beaches of Normandy.  Within 5 days more than 326,000 troops and 104,000 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches.  More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high with more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers killed or wounded but their sacrifice allowed for the Allied forces to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe that brought an end to the Nazi Third Reich.

The Telegraph has a rather good "hour by hour" as it happened chronology on their site here today.