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Omaha Beach: The Bloodiest Morning of the Normandy Invasion
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
On June 6, 1944, American soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division waded into the deadliest stretch of sand in history — Omaha Beach, where the D-Day plan nearly collapsed before it began. This chapter follows the men from the landing craft to the bluffs, and asks how a single beach came so close to ending Operation Overlord.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Picture a German reconnaissance aircraft flying over southern England in the spring of nineteen forty-four. Twenty thousand feet below, it photographs exactly what German intelligence has been told to expect.
To understand what the Allies built, you have to understand what they were trying to prevent. The Atlantic Wall stretched two thousand miles from the Arctic Circle down to the Spanish border.
The First United States Army Group, designated FUSAG, was the centerpiece of Fortitude South. On paper, it was a massive formation.
The physical deception needed human credibility to complete it. And that's where the Double Cross System came in.
The deception didn't eliminate the cost of the invasion. It just made the cost survivable.
The measure of Fortitude isn't found in the clever rubber tanks or the scripted radio chatter. It's found in what didn't happen in the days and weeks after June sixth.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.