Between May 31st and June 6th 2004, to mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day, The Northern Echo published a series of articles that followed the invasion through the eyes of local soldiers from the first drop of Paratroopers through the aerial and naval bombardments to the landings on the beaches and then the hard part; the bloody push through Normandy.

To Winston Churchill, D-Day was "much the greatest thing we have ever attempted", while Supreme Commander Dwight D Eisenhower told troops they were about to embark on "the great crusade".

Both leaders were right in their assessments, for June 6, 1944, was to prove one of the key dates in history as Allied forces landed in northwest France to free Europe from Nazi tyranny.

In 1940, the British Expeditionary Force had struggled back to England from Dunkirk, having been routed in France.

Four years later, British troops, this time with thousands of US soldiers, Canadians and a Free French force, were back on the beaches of France - not in retreat, but in a courageous advance.

The first the British public knew of Operation Overlord and the largest ever seaborne invasion was a BBC Home Service announcement on the morning of June 6.

In his usual clipped tones, newsreader John Snagge told listeners: "D-Day has come. Early this morning, the Allies began the assault on the north-western face of Hitler's European fortress."

Amid utmost secrecy and with numerous ploys to fool the enemy as to their real intentions, the Allies had chosen the beaches of Normandy for their landings.

The beaches there were less heavily defended than in the more obvious Pas de Calais area, and the Allies had almost total air superiority.

More than 5,000 craft carried, escorted and landed the assault force along the Normandy coast.

Allied air forces carried three airborne divisions into battle, protected the force as it crossed the English Channel and attacked targets throughout the invasion area before and after the landings.

More than 1,000 transport planes dropped paratroopers to assist those arriving by sea. Between 3am and 5am, more than 1,000 British aircraft dropped more than 5,000 tons of bombs on the German defences and beaches.

Each of the landing beaches in the 50 miles of coast between the Cotentin Peninsula and the Orne River had been given a codename. The British and Canadians landed on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches to the east, while the US soldiers went ashore at Utah and Omaha beaches in the west.

Taking up a suggestion from Churchill, the Allies had come up with "Mulberries" - large artificial harbours that were constructed in England and towed to France.

It was also decided to use ships called "Gooseberries" that could sail into position, then scuttle themselves and add to the harbour construction.

The Allies also introduced "Funnies" - specialist vehicles armed with mortars designed for tasks such as clearing obstacles or minefields and the destruction of large, fixed fortifications.

Funnies included the flail tank - a Sherman tank that cleared mines.

It was the Americans' reluctance to use the Funnies that was mainly responsible for the heavy losses suffered on Omaha beach.

At Omaha, men of the 1st and 29th Infantry divisions and Army Rangers found that pre-landing naval gunfire and air bombardments had failed to soften German resistance.

For much of the morning the US assault could get no further than the water's edge, and the US First Army Commander, General Omar Bradley, considered pulling off the beach and landing troops in another spot.

But the Americans bravely fought back, gained the heights from which the Germans had rained down fire and drove the enemy inland.

Moviemaker Steven Spielberg used the Omaha beach battle for the dramatic start of his film, Saving Private Ryan.

Resistance from the Germans proved less strong on the other beaches, which were all part of the Atlantic Wall, a network of concrete gun emplacements, machine gun nests, tank traps and mines, barbed wire and booby traps that the Germans had
built up since 1940.

But not all went well. The US airdrops were scattered over a wide area of the Cotentin Penisula, with some troops ending up 25 miles from their drop zones.

The British drops were also scattered, but most of their objectives were met, including a daring glider assault on the Orne River/Caen Canal bridges.

By the end of the day, the Allies were beginning to advance inland. Fierce fighting would continue, but Eisenhower was to be proved right in his June 6 message to the people of Western Europe that the hour of their liberation was approaching.

Much of the success was down to careful planning and the successful duping of the Germans, who continued to expect an invasion in the Pas de Calais area.

The breaking of German codes in 1941 had led to the capture of German agents.

Some were turned into double agents and fed the Germans misleading information.

The Allies also created a mythical 1st US Army Group, consisting of a few men based at Dover in a dummy encampment, whose deliberately slapdash transmissions further convinced the monitoring Germans that the Pas de Calais area was the intended invasion zone.

Finally, all depended on the weather. A massive storm led to a postponement of D-Day on June 4.

Because of the strict landing requirements, an invasion before the end of June was only possible on June 5, 6 or 7.

A short break in the weather, of which the Germans were unaware, led to D-Day going ahead on June 6.

A postponement would probably have led to the Germans being better fortified.

By August 1944, most of France was liberated and less than a year after D-Day, the war in Europe was over.