Normandy ’44: D-Day and the Battle for France

PBS: UK PREMIERE Monday 10 – Wednesday 12 July at 8.40pm

Launched on 6th June 1944, the Allies’ bold attempt to seize and secure a foothold in Nazi- occupied Normandy was the culmination of an immense amount of meticulous planning.

Over the decades, conflicting accounts and arguments have attributed the success of history’s largest and most stunningly complex seaborne invasion to a variety of factors. In this documentary series offering a fresh, in-depth perspective on this crucial campaign, historian James Holland and ex- US Army Ranger Dr Mike Simpson tour not only the beaches but the wider Normandy battlefield, the sites that spawned so many myths, illusions and competing theories.

Undeniably, D-Day was a triumph of logistics. But there is much more to the story than numbers, quantities and calculations, as this series seeks to explain.