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OPERATION OVERLORD

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But to postpone again would be agonizing and dangerous. The men had been briefed; they could not be held on their transports and for two weeks; the risk that the Germans would penetrate the secret of Overlord would be very high. “ Typically, Eisenhower’s concern was with the men. “Don’t forget,” he said in an interview twenty years later, “some hundreds of thousands of men were down here around Portsmouth, and many of them had already been loaded for some time, particularly those who were going to make the initial assault. Those people in the ships and ready to go were in cages, you might say. You couldn’t call them anything else. They were fenced in. They were croweded up, and everybody was unhappy.” Eisenhower went on, “Goodness knows, those fellows meant a lot to me. But there are the decisions that have to be made when you’re at war. You say to yourself, I’m going to do something that will be to my country’s advantage for the least cost. You can’t say without any cost. You know you’re going to lose some of them, and it’s very, very difficult.” He stopped pacing, faced his subordinate, then said quietly but clearly, “OK, let’s go.” And again, cheers rang through . Then the commanders rushed from their chairs and dashed outside to get to their command posts. Within thirty seconds the mess room was empty, except for Eisenhower. His isolation was symbolic, for, having given the order, he was now powerless. As he put it, “That’s the most terrible time for a senior commander. He has done all that he can do, all the planning and so on. There is nothing more that he can do.”

— From D-Day: , 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen Ambrose ”

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Operation Overlord HIGHLIGHTS • London: Tour the WWII places of Tour interest in London, Churchill Cabinet The Operation Overlord Tour covers Rooms, the Imperial War planning, launch and battles of the D-Day Museum Invasion. This itinerary, designed by Dr. Portsmouth and : Depart Stephen E. Ambrose, is based on thousands of • for Normandy from Portsmouth hours of interviews with veterans, studying where Eisenhower set up the of the battlefields, and other World War II advance command post for the research. Thanks to his experience with the Supreme Headquarters Allied terrain and its history, Stephen Ambrose Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) Historical Tours is able to present this WWII Ste-Mere-Eglise: Visit Ste-Mere- tour that is unmatched in its authenticity. • Eglise where the effigy of John Steele As Dr. Ambrose said, “The American citizen still hangs from the church steeple soldiers knew the difference between right and • Normandy Beaches: Tour the wrong, and they didn’t want to live in a world invasion beaches of Omaha and in which wrong prevailed. So they fought, and Utah, as well as Pointe-du-Hoc won, and all of us, living and yet to be born, where the rangers scaled the cliffs must be profoundly grateful.” to silence the German artillery

Our Operation Overlord Tour will indeed leave • : Pay our respects at you profoundly grateful. the American Cemetery where the graves of 9387 American fighting men lie on a bluff overlooking Activity Level Omaha Beach As with all of our tours, we prefer to spend our time on the battlefields. There will be some museum stops, but please be prepared to walk ENGLAND on sandy beaches and cobblestone streets. London

There is a fair amount of walking, especially in NETHERLANDS Portsmouth Normandy. BELGIUM Recommended Reading

Citizen Soldiers – Stephen E. Ambrose Normandy Paris D-Day: June 6, 1944 – Stephen E. Ambrose Voices of D-Day – Ronald Drez & Stephen E. Ambrose

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DAY 1 Overnight Flight to London Guests travel independently to London on an overnight flight from the USA. If you would like to arrive early and have some extra nights in London, we can arrange your hotel for you.

DAY 2 London After arrival, make your way to the tour hotel on-your-own. The entire group will gather for an evening welcome reception at the hotel. Our historian will treat us to our first lecture, with introductions all around.

DAY 3 London The morning will feature key sites in London that figured prominently in the War. We then proceed to the Churchill War Rooms, the underground nerve center for Britains war effort. We will also visit the , which houses authentic examples of World War II weaponry, and aircraft and an exhibit of WWI trench warfare. We will have free time to enjoy London in the This afternoon we will tour Southwick House, evening. the advance command post of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. In DAY 4 Portsmouth the months leading up to D-Day in 1944, Depart London for where we the house became the headquarters of the will visit the nerve center for intelligence main Allied commanders, including Naval used in the Allied War effort, Commander-In-Chief Admiral Ramsay, Allied . Here we will see the place where the Supreme Commander General Eisenhower, is housed and where the and the Army Commander-In-Chief General cyphers and codes of several Axis countries Montgomery. were decrypted during the war.

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DAY 6 Normandy We will begin at Brécourt Manor where Lt. Dick Winters with members of Easy Company successfully silenced German artillery firing on American troops landing at . From there we will visit Utah Beach itself, where the 4th landed, and the Invasion Museum that DAY 5 Normandy depicts their heroics. Following breakfast, we will board the cross- Next we will stop at Ste-Marie-du-Mont where channel ferry and embark for Normandy as still stands the unique Renaissance-style the troops did in 1944. In the afternoon, we steeple used as an observation post by the will begin our visit to Normandy at Ste-Mere- Germans. From there, we will proceed to the Eglise, one of the villages where the American town of where we will follow the Airborne descended on D-Day. Here we will exact steps taken by American view and explore the iconic church where during the Battle of Normandy. John Steele and his landing on the steeple are memorialized. We also visit La Fiere Bridge Finally, the day will conclude with a visit to where the 82nd Airborne successfully delayed Pointe-du-Hoc, where Rudder’s Rangers scaled a German Panzer counter-attack against the the cliffs to neutralize German heavy guns Allied landing forces. defending the expanse of beaches on D-Day.

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DAY 7 Normandy Well spend the morning at Omaha Beach where the Americans landed and faced the strongest German resistance of the day and In the afternoon we will view the battery incurred the greatest losses. We will walk the at Longues-sur-Mer, a fine example of the beach and visit some of the German defense great defenses that made up Hitler’s Atlantic fortifications. We explore these sands from the Wall. We will proceed along the British ebb to the distant dunes to understand Beaches from there to Bridge where the emotions of the young soldiers of the 1st the first shots were fired on D-Day. Here the and 29th Divisions as they approached the British Sixth Airborne led by Major John gates of hell. We will pay our respects at the Howard’s miraculous glider landing carried American Cemetery with its 9387 American out a surprise attack that yielded great soldiers graves stretching along the top of the success in overtaking this crucial bridge bluff overlooking the beach. across the Canal.

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DAY 8 Paris OPERATION OVERLORD TOUR INCLUDES We arrive in Paris this afternoon. The • Itinerary designed by Dr. Stephen E. Ambrose Allies, preceded by Free French troops, • Full time historian and tour manager symbolically reclaimed the French • 3 or 4 star hotels capital from the Nazis in August 1944. As did the American troops on leave, • Rooms with private bath or shower, hotel taxes, you may explore the city on your own. porterage (where available) and service charges The evening is free. • Touring by private first class air-conditioned motor coach

DAY 9 Home • All breakfasts, some lunches, most dinners After breakfast, an airport transfer • Channel crossing to Normandy via ferry will be provided to the Paris Charles • All entrance fees to museums and attractions DeGaulle Airport (CDG).

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After Operation Overlord, continue the Allied Path with our Drive to Victory in Europe Tour!

Drive to Victory in Europe is a study of , and the liberation of part of . This eight tour is the second half of the D-Day to the tour. Guests have a choice to start the tour in Paris or Brussels.

Our first site visits are in the Netherlands ultimately an Allied victory. Site visits include where we explore Operation Market Garden. Bois Jacques; Lanzereth; Malmedy; General Although Allied forces failed to capture all of McAuliffe’s NUTS! Museum; the American the objective bridges over the Rhine River, this Cemetery in where General operation liberated the towns of Eindhoven Patton is buried; and the Siegfried Line. and Nijmegen.Site visits include bridges at Our last three nights we continue deeper Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem, as well as into Germany. Sites visits include Dachau the Airborne Museum at Oosterbeek. concentration camp, German bunkers, Our next three nights are in Bastogne, Eagle’s Nest, and in some cases the town of Luxembourg and Frankfurt, where we study the Nuremburg where we see the pre-war Nazi Battle of the Bulge. This German offensive was rally grounds and sites of the post-war trails.

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