The Allied forces launch the D-Day invasion of German-occupied France.

In 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower makes the momentous decision that the combined Allied invasion of Europe will take place on the 6th of June. The decision proves to be strategically wise: the German High Command, assuming the invasion will not take place during the current inclement weather, is caught unawares; Panzer divisions are awaiting the attack at Dover, the Luftwaffe is scattered, and Hitler himself has taken a sleeping pill and left orders that he is not to be disturbed. Allied sources alert the French Resistance, who cut telegraph wires and blow up ammunition trains. Dummy parachute figures are dropped to confuse the Germans. Airborne glider infantry are landed near the key site of the Orne River Bridge. Then, at dawn, the full Allied might is unleashed as 150,000 troops, backed up by 5,000 transport and fighter vessels, storm the three major Normandy beachheads of Juno, Omaha, and Utah. Although a division of paratroopers is slaughtered when they overshoot their mark, French commandos capture the seaside town of Oistreham and American Rangers successfully scale the supposedly-impregnable cliffs of Point-du-Hoc. It is at Omaha Beach that the assault falters; held back by a seemingly impregnable cement wall, the troops are unable to advance. But Brigadier General Cota rallies his men, urges Sergeant Fuller to place a dynamite charge, and blasts a clear path from the beach. With the coming of nightfall, the Allies are firmly entrenched on European soil.