On this 80th anniversary of one of the hinge moments of history we'll go with a few reposts, starting with the early minutes of the invasion.
No need to click through, all our headlines have hyperlinks but in this case they serve no purpose other than relaying the time in Double British Summer Time.
We usually mark the anniversary of D-Day with the story of a little
boat, and we'll do so again around dawn.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10878674/D-Day-6th-June-1944-as-it-happened-live.htmland:
https://www.dday-overlord.com/en/d-day/timelineD-Day June 6, 1944 00:07 Double BST
– German sentries spot low-flying aircraft north of Carentan in the Cotentin Peninsula.
D-Day June 6, 1944 00:10 Double BST
– The first US pathfinders jump on the Cotentin to mark the parachute zones for the C-47 pilots who will arrive in the next few minutes.
D-Day June 6, 1944 00:11 Double BST
– German paratroopers of the 13th company of the Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 6 report the presence of enemy paratroopers.
– The first of the 3 British gliders lands less than 50 meters from the bridge of Bénouville, the Pegasus Bridge.
– The German battery at Merville is attacked by 5 Avro Lancasters bombers of the 7th Squadron of the Royal Air Force.
D-Day June 6, 1944 00:17 Double BST
– The second of the 3 British gliders lands near the Pegasus Bridge.
– The last of the 3 Horsa gliders lands near the Pegasus bridge.
As first mentioned in 2009:
There were so many heroes on June 6, 1944 that it is not right to single out any individual or group.
From the lunatic glider troops of the British 6th Airborne Division securing the Pegasus Bridge at 0016 hrs in Operation Deadstick, the pilots landing within yards of their objective, in freakin' gliders!, with a skill that Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the commander of Allied air forces, would later praise as the finest feat of flying in the entire war.
D-Day June 6, 1944 00:20 Double BST
– Six Albemarle aircraft drop 60 pathfinders from the 22nd Independent Parachute Company (Brit) on Drop Zones N, V and K east of Orne.
Both bridges are captured in less than 15 minutes, with two men killed and 14 wounded. L/Cpl Edward Tappenden sends the “Ham and Jam” victory radio message.
Major Howard later says:
We were coming in at 90 mph on touchdown. I suppose that really was the most exhilarating moment of my life. I could see the bridge tower 50 yards from where I was standing. Above all, the tremendous thing there was that there was no firing at all. We had complete surprise, we had caught old Jerry with his pants down.