To commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, we'll be releasing three special episodes to tell the full story of the longest day.

This second part is a complete remastering of our original Overlord episode with the addition of much new content. ... ...

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... From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.

Welcome to this special episode of the Bletchley Park podcast.

D-Day 80, Part 2, Overlord.

80 years ago today, more than 150,000 allied troops were boarding planes, gliders and landing craft as they prepared to invade Fortress Europe in Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion.

Meanwhile, 200 miles away in the Buckinghamshire countryside, the codebreakers of GCNCS

were also ready and waiting.

Naval section spent the day decrypting German messages and forwarding that vital intelligence

to Allied commanders, in many cases only two and a half hours after the German operators had sent them.

Today at Bletchley Park, our archive holds hundreds of these handwritten decrypts,

and using a selection of these, we will tell the story of the longest day. Our research officer,

Dr Thomas Cheatham, and research historian Dr David Kenyon, will be your guides, with the help

of 12 of our veterans' memories from that eventful day.

Many thanks to Dr. Ben Thompson for voicing our archival documents. By reading wireless messages intercepted at sites around the UK and abroad and producing

mountains of detailed intelligence about German forces in France.

Fletchley Parker played a key role in the planning for D-Day.

With the invasion now underway, its role turned to providing real-time intelligence.

It was recognised as the operation progressed. Up-to-date intelligence will be vital.

We tend to view D-Day as a land battle, but it was also an immensely complex and risky naval operation.

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