The unloading in Normandy, on on June 6th, 1944, was preceded by a formidable air preparation aiming at destroying the German arms factories and the means of communication in occupied country (marshalling yards and bridges, in particular), intense bombardments on the Atlantic Wall June 2nd and 3rd, and, on the side of interior Resistance, a vast work of sabotage.

The Overlord operation understood 4266 ships framed by 702 men-of-war and protected by 11' 000 planes which occupied the sky without division.

On June 12th, the English Canadians and the Americans held a head of bridge going of Holy-Mother-the Church in the English Channel west of Ouistreham in the Apple-brandy and passing by Isigny and Bayeux, released. On June 27th, Cherbourg fell, but the Germans managed to contain the Allies until July 25th, day when Patton, by the opening of Avranches, succeeds in hustling the enemy lines.

On August 15th, 1944 took place the unloading of Provence, in which the 1st French Army of Lattre took part. The surprise, German side, were total: of a head of bridge made up soon, of Cavalaire with Saint-Raphaël, the Franco-Americans engaged in the valley of the Rhone after having released Marseilles and Toulon.

In Paris, the Parisian Committee of release, animated by the Communists, proclaimed on on August 19th the insurrection of the capital; it accepted soon the support of Leclerc division, detached at the request of De Gaulle of the face of Normandy, and whose first tanks entered the capital the evening of August 24th. On August 25th, the German garrison of Paris capitulated.

With this date, two vast zones are released: the first in the west, of the Seine in the Loire, including Brittany and Basse-Normandie and going until Paris, Troyes and Gien; the second in south-east, from the Mediterranean in Grenoble, and the Italian border in the Rhone. The Germans beat everywhere in retirement. They move towards the North-East or are locked up in “pockets” of resistance on the Atlantic: Royan, La Rochelle, Saint-Nazaire, Lorient, Brest, and on the North Sea (Dunkirk).

The role of Resistance in the release of the metropolis was considerable, as was to recognize it the commander-in-chief of the interallied troops, the general Dwight D. Eisenhower, who compared his military operations with the action of fifteen divisions working with the back of the enemy face. The US government (which had thought of founding in France a “direct administration”) was thus obliged to recognize the provisional government of the French Republic like legal government of released France; this one settled in Paris at the end of August 1944.

Mid-September, most of the national territory was released, with the exlusion of part of Lorraine and Alsace and “pockets” of German resistance. The 21, November 22nd, 23rd and th, Mulhouse, Metz and Strasbourg was taken successively; at the dawn of the year 1945, very whole France (except the “pockets”, which will capitulate on on May 8th, 1945, and Royan, reconquered by Leclerc division) was released.