Plot
A few hours before D-Day, Special Force Six, a joint American-British-Canadian commando unit, embarks to destroy an especially well-defended German coastal gun emplacement on the Normandy coast. As the landing ship steams towards it, its commander, an Englishman, and one of his subordinates, an American, reflect on their love for the same woman.
Captain Brad Parker, an American paratrooper invalided out because of a broken leg suffered during a parachute jump, is posted to the headquarters of the European Theatre of Operations in London. At the Red Cross club, he meets and, despite being married, falls in love with Valerie Russell, an Auxiliary Territorial Service subaltern. Valerie is the daughter of a crusty brigadier who's been on sick leave since being wounded at Dunkirk. Valerie is also already in love with Lieutenant Colonel John Wynter of the British Commandos, a friend of her father.
Both officers are posted overseas, but later return. Parker has volunteered to join what becomes Special Force Six, to be led by his former commander, Lt. Colonel (now full Colonel) Timmer.
With only a few hours before the operation is due to embark, Timmer goes to pieces (partly as a result of his earlier bad experiences in the failed Dieppe Raid) and is arrested whilst drunk and breaking security (this incident is clearly based on a similar breach of security by Major General Henry J. F. Miller). Wynter, now a colonel, who has recovered from being badly wounded, is brought in to command the operation. The operation is a success, despite several killed and wounded. Parker is badly wounded and evacuated. Wynter is wounded as well, and while he is awaiting evacuation, is killed when he steps on a mine.
In the hospital, and due to be repatriated, Parker sees Valerie for the last time. She does not tell him that Wynter has been killed, and, after a final embrace with Parker, Valerie leaves the hospital with her head hung in despondent loneliness.
Omaha Beach was one of five beach landing sectors of the amphibious assault component of Operation Overlord during the Second World War.
Sword, commonly known as Sword Beach, was the code name given to one of the five main landing areas along the Normandy coast during the initial assault phase, Operation Neptune, of Operation Overlord. The Allied invasion of German-occupied France commenced on 6 June 1944. Stretching 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from Ouistreham to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, the beach proved to be the easternmost landing site of the invasion after the abortion of an attack on a sixth beach, code-named Band. Taking Sword was to be the responsibility of the British Army with sea transport, mine sweeping and a naval bombardment force provided by the British Royal Navy as well as elements from the Polish, Norwegian and other Allied navies.
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.
La Pointe du Hoc is a promontory with a 35-metre (110 ft) cliff overlooking the English Channel on the northwestern coast of Normandy in the Calvados department, France.
The Longest Day is a 1962 American epic historical war drama film based on Cornelius Ryan's 1959 non-fiction book of the same name about the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944. The film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for 20th Century Fox, and is directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and Bernhard Wicki. The screenplay was written by Ryan, with additional material written by Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall and Jack Seddon.
The Brécourt Manor Assault during the U.S. parachute assault of the Normandy Invasion of World War II is often cited as a classic example of small-unit tactics and leadership in overcoming a larger enemy force.
The 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, now the 507th Infantry Regiment, is an airborne infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment was initially assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II before transferring to the 17th Airborne Division. Now 1st Battalion, 507th Infantry Regiment is part of the United States Army Infantry School, subordinate to its Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade, responsible for the Army's Basic Airborne School, Jumpmaster School, Pathfinder School, and the "Silver Wings" Command Exhibition Parachute Team.
On the Double is a 1961 comedy film, directed by Melville Shavelson, who also wrote the screenplay with Jack Rose. It stars Danny Kaye who plays, as in many of his films, two roles — in this case, an American soldier and a British General.
Shake Hands with the Devil is a 1959 British-Irish film produced and directed by Michael Anderson and starring James Cagney, Don Murray, Dana Wynter, Glynis Johns and Michael Redgrave. The film was based on the 1933 novel of the same title by Rearden Conner, the son of a Royal Irish Constabulary policeman.
Dana Wynter was a German-born British actress, who was raised in the United Kingdom and southern Africa. She appeared in film and television for more than 40 years, beginning in the 1950s. Her best-known film performance was in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). A tall, dark, elegant beauty, she played both victim and villain. Her characters both in film and on television sometimes faced horrific dangers, which they often did not survive, but she also played scheming, manipulative women on television mysteries and crime procedural dramas.
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Normandy landings. A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August.
Major General Raymond Oscar "Tubby" Barton was a career officer in the United States Army and combat commander in World War I and World War II. As commander of the 4th Infantry Division during World War II, most notably during the Normandy landings in June 1944, Barton is one of only eleven U.S. Army general officers who commanded their divisions for the duration of their combat service. He commanded the 4th Infantry Division from 3 July 1942 to 26 December 1944 and led them into battle from D-Day at Utah Beach, to the Battle of Normandy, the Liberation of Paris, and into the Battle of Hürtgen Forest before leaving the command due to health problems on December 27, 1944.
HMS Apollo, the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to be named for the Greek god Apollo, was a fifth-rate frigate of the Lively class, carrying 38 guns, launched in 1805 and broken up in 1856.
The Provisional Ranger Group was a provisional regiment of U.S. Army Rangers that was formed for the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, in World War II.
Colonel Henry John Sweeney MC, known as Tod Sweeney, was an officer of the British Army. During the Second World War he was a platoon commander in the coup de main operation, by gliderborne troops of the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, on D-Day, 6 June 1944, tasked to seize Horsa Bridge and Pegasus Bridge before the main assault on the Normandy beaches began. The following day he was awarded the Military Cross for rescuing a wounded member of his platoon while under heavy fire near Escoville. Sweeney commanded the 1st Green Jackets at Penang from April 1962 to January 1964; during the Brunei Revolt and Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.
No. 6 Commando was a battalion-sized British Army commando unit of the Second World War. Although it was raised to conduct small-scale raids and harass garrisons along the coast of German-occupied France, it was mainly employed as a highly trained infantry assault unit.
The capture of the Caen canal and Orne river bridges was an operation by airborne forces of the British Army that took place in the early hours of 6 June 1944 as part of the Normandy landings of the Second World War. The objective was to capture intact two road bridges in Normandy across the River Orne and the Caen canal, providing the only exit eastwards for British forces from their landing on Sword Beach. Intelligence reports said both bridges were heavily defended by the Germans and wired for demolition. Once captured, the bridges had to be held against any counter-attack, until the assault force was relieved by commandos and other infantry advancing from the landing beach.
The Battle of Bréville was fought by the British 6th Airborne Division and the German 346th Infantry Division, between 8 and 13 June 1944, during the early phases of the invasion of Normandy in the Second World War.
The Hillman Fortress was a German bunker complex and command post built during the Second World War and located near Colleville-Montgomery in Normandy, France. The bunker complex, designated as Hill 61 and codenamed Hillman by the British, was attacked on 6 June 1944 by the Suffolk Regiment and the fortress finally surrendered the following morning. The delay in taking the bunker complex has been cited as a reason for the Allies not completing their major D-Day objective of taking Caen.
The June 6, 1944, order of the day was issued by Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Allied forces on the eve of D-Day, the first day of the invasion of Normandy. The message was intended to impress upon the troops the importance of their mission which Eisenhower called a "Great Crusade". Eisenhower had been drafting the order since February 1944 and recorded a spoken version on May 28, that was broadcast on British and American radio on D-Day.
