Dominic Sandbrook

It's insane.

And this is why D-Day, this is arguably why D-Day is so remarkable.

Well, it's partly because they had the lesson of Gallipoli.

I mean, Gallipoli is at the back of their minds all through D-Day because it was such a shambles.

So to go back to the Anzacs, they've been given a very narrow window of time between 3 o'clock in the morning and 4 o'clock in the morning.

So this is the time between, you know, the moon will vanish at 3, the sun will come up at 4, this is your time.

The assumption is it will be very straightforward and it doesn't turn out that way.

So this is Private Walter Stagels of the 3rd Australian Battalion.

He was part of the second wave that went ashore.

I'll read what he said.

It was pitch dark, then all of a sudden the coast, a dim outline of the coast, loomed up.

As we got closer, we were all beginning to get tensed up, nervous, wondering what was going to happen, as everything was so quiet.

Then a single shot rang out and a yellowish light flared up in the sky, and from then on the Turks let loose, machine gun and rifle fire at the boats.

As soon as the boats grounded, it was every man for himself.

And it's very Saving Private Ryan.

So an army surgeon, Australian surgeon, wrote in his diary that he watched the men going ashore under all this Turkish fire.

Several fell as they ran, and on the beach I saw even more men lying untidily, some quite still, others making an occasional movement.

Then I jumped over into two feet of water and waded heavily ashore.

The lapping edge was already pink and frothy with fallen men.

Oh, God.