Omaha Beach

They have to take Carentan.

And Carentan matters enormously because it's the link between the American landing areas at Utah and Omaha Beach.

And capturing the town helps to connect the American beachhead give the Allies an important crossroads because whilst all this has been going on in the morning of June the 6th the men have stormed the Normandy beaches including Omaha and Utah and so you've got lots of men and equipment on those beaches that you have to get moving forward and so towns like Carrington are crucial to be able to connect all Connect all those beachheads.

But before they do head out, we're treated to another great George Luz impression, quoting a commanding officer's flimsy promise of, remember boys, after three days and three nights of rough fighting, you will be relieved.

Yeah, we've mentioned it a few times with the kind of handheld cinematography and the way that it's shot really lends itself to this.

But just before we get into the actual Carentan battle, I mentioned previously about how important Carentan was, but I just want to pause, set the scene and explain in a bit more detail why Carentan was such an important strategic objective.

So when you look at a map you can see that Carentan sits between Utah and Omaha beaches and so the Americans have essentially created separate beachheads and they need to join those two areas so they can establish one continuous position in Normandy and Carentan is the key to doing that.

It also controls important roads and waterways through the surrounding marshland which makes it a crucial crossroads for moving men and equipment inland because the amount of equipment and that they needed to make this a success.

But nobody tells these stories in the United States.

Everybody thinks, you know, that was Saving Private Ryan on Omaha Beach.

Yeah, but there were four other beaches.

You know, two of them were American, but three of the others, one of them was Canadian, two others were British.

D-Day is June 6, 1944.

The objective is to put Allied troops, equipment, and supplies on sections of Normandy beaches, codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gull, Juneau, and Sword.

The landings begin at 6.30 a.m. Normandy time, H-hour.

BBC correspondent Colin Wills tells of landing with infantry troops.

And soon we'll be out in the salt spray, and it'll be impossible for us to broadcast anymore.

Another American radio correspondent, George Hicks, with the NBC Blue Network, is aboard the USS Ancon, a U.S.

Naval Headquarters and Communications Command ship, part of a combined British and American naval convoy stationed off Omaha Beach, Normandy.

Hicks is using a 75-pound Amortype RecordGraph film recorder on loan from the Navy.

All we have to do is vote.

We don't have to storm Omaha Beach.

We don't have to storm the shores of Iwo Jima.

But in their honor, we have to vote.

And beyond Aachen lay the plains of North Germany, where the Allies could put their armored units to good use.

The Allied force facing Aachen was the U.S. First Army, which included the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions, which you may recall had landed on Omaha Beach back on D-Day.

In mid-September, they began their advance north and south of the city, intending to encircle it.

The approach of the Americans spread panic among the Nazi party in Aachen.

I mean, the Queen Mary was sliced in half, did slice in half the Curacao on the night of in October 1942.

Omaha Beach, as we all know, the D-Day landings, all of that really happened.

And if you're going to be true to your readership, then every detail of real events that happens has to be correct.

And I think that's maybe something that my father taught me when I was very young and uh he was a perfectionist but if i was trying to do anything he'd say no no you've got you you know you've got to go back and check and check and maybe that's why you know um that stuck with me