June blog: D-Day Anniversary
Friday 31 May 2024
6th June 2024 marks 80 years since D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history, and the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe in the Second World War.
As Historian Max Hastings writes, 'the Normandy landings constituted a supreme feat of organisation, planning, skills and courage.'
80th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings
Teaching resources
This significant anniversary provides an excellent opportunity for learning more about the D-Day Landings with students - and there is a wealth of resources that have been produced to help teachers do this.
This resource pack from the British Council provides background information, primary sources and a wide range of teaching ideas for class work and activities.
Similarly this BBC site has resources for both primary and secondary students - including short videos and ideas for assemblies.
D-Day Teaching Resources (BBC Teach)
A collection of teaching resources to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the biggest air and seaborne invasion in history, which took place on June 6 1944.
D-Day programmes
We Were There: World War Two (BBC News)
Veterans tell their stories for future generations.
Another programme on the BBC, D-Day the Unheard Tapes (broadcast on 2nd June) uses remastered audio recordings of postwar interviews with both Allied and German soldiers which are lip-synced by actors who are cast and costumed to resemble the speakers.
As the FT review of this programme below points out, 'the series ends with a stirring reminder that it’s not enough to learn these facts, we must learn from them. “The sheer bloody waste,” surmises soldier Wally Parr. “This period should teach us something.”
New Books on D-Day
There are also new books out on D-Day covering different aspects of the military campaign; for example these two books which have just been published:
'While much has been written about the operation as a whole, little detailed attention has been paid to the battle for Sword Beach itself, the easternmost of the amphibious attack areas. For the first time, historian and archaeologist Stephen Fisher puts the British landing under the spotlight and using previously unseen research, documents and personal testimonies pieces together the buildup, the day itself and its aftermath in such a way as to uniquely bring the operation to vivid life' https://www.davids-bookshops.co.uk/products/sword-beach-the-untold-story-of-d-day-s-forgotten-victory-by-stephen-fisher
'The Army That Never Was tells the story of the biggest deception operation of the Second World War - the plan to mislead the Germans into thinking that the invasion of Europe would come at the Pas de Calais, by inventing an entirely fake Army group in the south-east of England.'