Adolf Hitler was looking forward to D-Day. His plan was simple. Reinforce the western defences, launch a furious counterattack, and ‘throw the Allies back into the sea’. After that, he could turn his full strength against the Soviet Union and end the war. For Hitler, the outcome of this campaign would be decisive.

In the previous episode of our D-Day series, we looked at the air battle for Normandy. This time IWM Curator Adrian Kerrison covers the fighting on land. Why were some beaches bloodier than others? Why did German counterattacks fail? And why did it take so long for the Allies to breakout?

To help us answer some of those questions we've brought in the Royal Armouries' Jonathan Ferguson to look at some of the most important weapons of D-Day.

D-Day events:

IWM Lecture Day: D-Day https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/iwm-lec...
IWM Presents: The Longest Day https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/duxford...
D-Day and the Aerial battle for Normandy Tour https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/d-day-...

Find out more:

D-Day from a German perspective: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-ge...
What happened after D-Day: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-h...
10 Facts you need to know about D-Day: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-10...
The lies that made D-Day possible: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-li...

Explore and licence the film clips used in this video from IWM Film:
https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/co... + https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/co...

Follow IWM on social media:
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  / imperialwarmuseums  
  / iwm.london  

CC Attributions:

Thumbnail image from Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-719-0240-05 / Jesse / CC-BY-SA 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Gerd v. Rundstedt image from Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-718-0149-18A / Jesse / CC-BY-SA 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Geyr v. Schweppenburg image from Szukaj W Archiwach / CC-BY-SA 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...