(This summer is the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. We salute Paul Wolfgeher for sponsoring this historical series.)

——— In the early 1940’s Hitler was waltzing through Europe picking off capital cities and collecting crowns just like Napoleon. He didn’t taste his first true defeat until the battle of El Alamein in Egypt at the end of 1942.

My mother recalled the family sitting around the radio nightly listening to the inconceivable war reports. “It seemed like the whole world was falling apart, I had trouble coping.” She was pregnant with my older brother and Dad was in the army stationed mostly in Washington D. C.

Famed CBS radio voice Edward R. Murrow in his matter of fact tone delivered what seemed to be gloom and doom every evening ending each broadcast with his standard call, “good night and good luck.” Even that sign-off was unsettling.

Hitler made a major mistake concerning his military strategy, stretching German forces too thin in all directions. From Norway to Egypt, Leningrad to the Pyrenees, Der Fuehrer thought he was invincible.

In February of 1943, the Wehrmacht was finally dealt a blow that in hindsight turned out to be the turning point of the War, Stalingrad. The Nazis had committed 3 Army groups, over 3 million men, to the invasion of Russia, code named Operation Barbarossa.

Germany’s Northern Army encircled Leningrad putting Russia’s second largest city under siege for almost 3 years. The Central Army, again like Napoleon, was defeated on the door step of Moscow by the distance, winter and Russian resolve. The Southern Army met its demise at Stalingrad trying to get to the coveted Ploesti and Caspian Sea oil fields.

The big 3 allied leaders Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in Tehran on November, 28th of 43’ to coordinate efforts. Stalin demanded a western front to help take pressure off of battle worn Russia.

All knew an amphibious assault on the western coast of Europe was needed to liberate the continent but where, when and how.

England had held off the Nazis from invasion in 1940, absorbed massive bombing runs over cities and airfields but as a nation, held a stiff upper lip through it all, “Keep calm and carry on!”

In late 1943 the Germans were losing ground in Russia and Italy. Timing was right for the Allies to plan the inevitable naval, air and ground invasion of Europe. Hitler knew they were coming, but where and when?

Axis forces fortified all the beaches facing west from the Arctic Circle to Spain. Hitler put his most capable Field Marshal in command, Erwin Rommel.

Calais, France is just 20 miles from the white cliffs of Dover, England. That short crossing of the English Channel for centuries has been the traditional invasion route of armies. The Germans were students of history, bolstering their defenses around Calais.

United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower was selected overall supreme commander of the invasion, code named Operation Overlord.

Location, time and disbursements was the most critical information known not to get into enemy hands. Spy networks, on both sides, did everything in their creative powers to find out or misdirect and confuse the enemy. Who knew where and when meant lives.

Eisenhower decided on a diversion, rather than fortified Calais; the top-secret beach landing sector was to be 150 miles south in Normandy.

To deceive the enemy of the actual plan an elaborate ruse was concocted to baffle and mislead, Operation Bodyguard.

An Army was artificially formed in Scotland. Through fake messages sent and received by double agents talking about cold weather gear needed for the men and issuing a boatload of false wedding announcements in local papers involving soldiers hastily getting married.

The Allies went to great lengths wanting the Germans to believe one arm of the invasion was attacking Norway. The hoax paid off, 2 weeks before the actual invasion a Panzer Division was sent to Scandinavia.

In the South opposite Calais, thousands of blowup tanks, jeeps, artillery pieces and decoy wooden planes dotted the landscape. From the air they looked like the real thing to any Luftwaffe reconnaissance pilot.

Rollers were used creating track marks behind the fake tanks to illustrate movement, exemplifying the extent of the deception.

Messages were transmitted, sure to be interpreted and decoded that General George Patton was commanding the Calais assault. “Old Blood and Guts,” to the Germans, thought to be the Allies best and most talented General having made a name for himself a year earlier in Sicily and Italy.

To throw the Axis off further on timing, 2 weeks before D-Day, the British sent a look-alike actor Australian Lieutenant Clifton James to Gibraltar and Algiers portraying England’s highest ranking General Bernard Montgomery.

Without question an invasion wouldn’t be forthcoming if England’s top brass was in the Mediterranean.

If you are a Ken Follet or Donald Southland fan, Eye of the Needle tells the harrowing story of a Nazi spy discovering the Allies’ charade and desperately trying to relay the ploy back to his superiors.

My favorite James Garner movie is “36 Hours.” Garner plays an American diplomat in Lisbon, kidnapped, drugged and when awakened made to believe he’s in a mental institution 7 years later.

Can the enemy keep the con going long enough to get the real information out of Garner, where the actual D-Day landings were about to take place? Little did the Germans know, the attack would commence in “36 Hours.”

Meanwhile scattered throughout Southern England were hundreds of thousands of real soldiers with thousands of vehicles, armor, munitions and supplies to support the largest military invasion the world had ever seen.

Over 7,000 ships and landing craft were assembled to make this armada the biggest in naval history.

Next time, D-Day, 82 years ago, the Longest Day. Never have I felt so humbled as I did walking those beaches of Normandy.