As the parachutists and glider troops of the US and British airborne divisions went in on the night of June 5, Allied shipping began massing out in the Channel.
As dawn broke on June 6, waves of assault craft hit the Normandy beaches. British, American, Canadian, polish and Free French troops began to stream ashore to storm the defences of the Atlantic Wall in the teeth of overwhelming enemy firepower.
By midnight on D-Day 150,000 Allied troops were ashore and the process of consolidating the beachheads and pushing inland had begun.
