via the winds this is cnn, the world s news welcome to the whole story. i m anderson cooper on june 6, 1944, american, canadian, british, and other allied forces launched the largest amphibious invasion in history. nearly 160,000 troops landed along five beaches in normandy, france. and what became known as d-day it was a turning point in the war in europe world war ii was fought against fascist regimes and germany and italy and imperial japan the victory of democratic principles was hard. one but 80 years have passed since d-day. and we thought it a good time to take a look at the state of our democracy today over the next hour, cnn s jake tapper looks back at d-day sacrifices. so many young men made on those beaches in normandy that day. and what it means to us now what were we fighting for? we were locked a battle with fascism. we re fighting for our freedom, for the freedom to think as we wish kopan with they gave their life to preserve and protect that constitution the
already so that was welcome to the european theater of how operations halfway into the beach, we started seeing bondage everywhere that floating or semi floating or what navy man tally fletcher was a 19-year-old gunners mate from baton rouge, louisiana his task escort the lcis, the landing crafts, ferrying infantry fighters such as corporal states to shore is that we re going to take in to water up to your knees and they dropped the front of the lci. now the answer says a go nobody moves that s a yells go nobody moves. this is all right. billy kotb, to 50 guy ring back on the 50 gallon river shiga he says we re very given 30 seconds. the start shooting from back to front. i m going to back you know what i m doing? push a first step up to our