On the night of June 5-6, 1944, Churchill sent a coded message informing Stalin that "the second front, about which so many spears have been broken, will open in a few hours." In fact, by this time the invasion had already begun - in the operational rear of the German troops defending the Normandy coast, the paratroopers of the three Allied airborne divisions were fighting for key transport hubs and bridges. And at dawn, a large-scale landing from the sea began ...An unprecedented armada of ships of the joint expeditionary fleet delivered the strike forces of Operation Neptune to the beaches of Normandy, which were to test the strength of the Atlantic Wall declared impregnable by the Nazis. Although the operation was preceded by two years of painstaking planning and meticulous training of troops, literally from the first minute, events began to develop not as expected. Uncertainty on the coast of Normandy persisted for seven long days, until the invasion forces finally managed to complete the first of the tasks of the "Crusade in Europe" - to unite the scattered coastal bridgeheads into a single whole and prepare for a breakthrough into the depths of France.< p> This book is dedicated to the first week of the landing in Normandy, which was difficult for the allies. A detailed description of the fighting in the five beachheads precedes an overview of the massive efforts that made the successful invasion of northwestern Europe a reality.