Moving 156,000 men from one country to another in 24 hours is an impressive feat by any military standards.
It's also an historically and militarily significant figure, for this was the number of Allied soldiers who had managed to get ashore in Normandy by the end of 6 June, 1944: D-Day.
What's more, it dwarfed the 78,000 Germans defending the region – (For a comprehensive look at the D-Day mission that kicked off the Battle of Normandy, click here).
On the other hand, this was barely a 2-to-1 advantage, and even less so when the 10,000 Allied casualties sustained on 6 June were taken into account.
The textbook ratio for an attack force was 3:1, and while the Germans had certainly been overwhelmed for the time being, there were potentially huge numbers of reinforcements on the way.
