D-Day, June 6, 1944

Operation Overlord, the invasion of German-occupied France in June 1944, was staggering in its scope.

In one night and day, 175,000 fighting men and their equipment, including 50,000 vehicles of all types, ranging from motorcycles to tanks and armored bulldozers, were transported across sixty to a hundred miles of open water and landed on a hostile shore against intense opposition.

They were either carried by or supported by 5,333 ships and craft of all types and almost 11,000 airplanes. They came from southwestern England, southern England, the east coast of England.

It was as if the cities of Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, were picked up and moved--every man, woman and child, every automobile and truck--to the east side of Lake Michigan, in one night.

From: D-Day, June 6, 1944 - The Climactic Battle of World War II / Stephen E. Ambrose