An experienced history educator, Erinn Moriarty most recently taught high school students at Bay District Schools in Panama City, Florida. Erinn Moriarty has also served as a volunteer docent at the Southwest Florida Museum of History, where she crafted a D-Day presentation that received a Presidential Award for Educational Excellence.
On June 6, 1944, armed forces from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada crossed the English Channel and came ashore on the beaches of Normandy in France. The invasion required the participation of 13,000 aircraft and 5,000 seagoing vessels, making the effort the largest amphibious invasion in military history. The invasion proved to be the start of a battle that liberated France and ultimately all of Western Europe from Nazi control.
The invasion of Normandy, known as D-Day, has become perhaps one of the best-known battles in contemporary military history, but there are a number of details that have not yet become part of common knowledge. For example, American and British troops had scheduled a rehearsal of the event for April of 1944, but German intelligence picked up on radio traffic and intercepted the effort with an attack. Approximately 800 people lost their lives as a result, but a military decision to hide the information meant that many families never learned what had happened.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had felt apprehensive about the day itself, a fact that his bravado hid effectively from many except those closest to him. Similarly, US General Dwight Eisenhower authored a letter to be released in case the mission failed.
The ultimate success of the mission was largely thanks to the work of numerous experts, including Allied forecasters, who delayed the invasion by a day due to bad weather. Leaders also attributed much credit to engineer Andrew Higgins, who designed the amphibious vehicles that crossed the channel.
