Seventy years ago this week, Allied forces launched the invasion of Europe known to history as D-Day. This monumental World War II undertaking has become famous in American popular culture, thanks to the Stephen Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan. The ordeal of Captain Miller and his men as they brave withering fire on Omaha beach and hunt for Ryan in Nazi-occupied Normandy vividly illustrates the course and costs of that operation. But Private Ryan fans seem less sure of D-days origins, its role in the evolution of World War II and its legacy 70 years on. A closer look at some of the films scenes and characters can help place this extraordinary event in broader context.

In a sense, D-Day became an imperative when World War II began in September l939. To defeat Germany, one had to force it to fight on two fronts, east and west, as the British, French, Russians and Americans had done in World War I. But that prospect seemed remote once Adolf Hitlers armies had conquered France and negotiated a non-aggression pact with Russias successor, the USSR. Great Britain alone opposed Hitlers juggernaut for many months, its cities a constant target of Nazi bombing raids. When Hitler double-crossed Stalin and invaded the USSR in June l941, Winston Churchill immediately reached out to the beleaguered Soviet leader. Six months later, when Hitler inexplicably declared war on the U.S. following Pearl Harbor, the old formula for defeating Germany re-emerged. If they survived, the Soviets would drive the Nazis from eastern Europe, with the British and Americans coming at them from the west. The Allied forces would link up in central Europe to encircle and crush what remained of the Nazi armies. By mid-l942, Captain Miller and company would have been training for this effort.

How to execute this strategy became the subject of intense debate among Allied leaders. In mortal combat with four Nazi armies, Joseph Stalin demanded an immediate, full-on invasion, to take some pressure off his country. FDR and Chief of Staff George Marshall who ordered the search for Private Ryan in the film also supported that idea. But British officials refused, citing formidable Nazi fortification of the French coast and grim memories of Gallipoli, their botched 1915 invasion of Turkey. Besides, the American army lacked combat experience, the Nazis ruled the skies and neither the U.S. or Great Britain had sufficient landing craft.

Thus British and Americans compromised in the invasion of North Africa, where an untested American army struggled initially but joined British forces in handing the Nazis an important defeat in the l942-43 Tunisian campaign. Next came an invasion of Nazi-allied Italy, since intelligence suggested this might cause war-weary Italians to overthrow their leader and quit the fight, as they did. Recall that after coming ashore in Normandy, Captain Millers sergeant scooped up some French soil and packed it away beside jars marked Africa and Italy. Spielberg gives us some clever shorthand here on the operations that prepared the way for D-Day.

Finally, in November l943, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on a large-scale invasion, to begin in western France. Nazi Germany was significantly weaker now, and the invading force could assemble with experienced personnel, abundant landing craft and air superiority. The operation, code-named Overlord, would originate in southern England, so the UK witnessed a steady influx of American troops in early l944. While the GIs were causing consternation in British society for being overpaid, oversexed and over here, General Dwight Eisenhower and his staff plotted the particulars of the invasion. They ordered daily bombing raids over France from the airfields hastily set up for D-Day, targeting the railroads that transported Nazi supplies and reinforcements. They debated where the invasion force should land, some arguing for Calais, so close to England, others angling for surprise on the Normandy coast. A special unit began planting misinformation about the landings among Nazi reconnaissance personnel. Everyone worked hard to simulate an amphibious landing under fire. In late April, disaster struck: Nazi e-boat crews attacked a training exercise in the English Channel, killing hundreds of U.S. soldiers and sailors. Captain Miller and his comrades would certainly have known of this tragedy.

After several false starts, Overlord launched on June 6, l944. Though the landings were bloody and plagued with setbacks Private Ryan went missing in an airborne misdrop American, British and Canadian forces secured a beachhead and began moving east. Meanwhile, their Soviet allies had already driven the Nazis from the USSR and crossed into central Europe, heading for Germany. As the Nazis retreated, Soviet troops discovered Hitlers horrific handiwork, liberating Sobibor, Majdanek, Treblinka and Auschwitz by January l945. The British and Americans reached Paris in August and withstood Hitlers last offensive at the Battle of the Bulge in late l944. They pushed on to rendezvous with Soviet forces in Germany and liberated Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald en route. On May 8, 1945, the Allies achieved their objective: the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.

Today, most Americans and Europeans remember D-Day as a great triumph against steep odds. Spielberg infuses Captain Millers death with heroism. But not everyone shares this assessment. Russians have always believed that their allies did too little, too late, so that the USSR had to do most of the heavy lifting against the Nazis. If D-Day had launched even a year earlier, perhaps millions of Russian casualties could have been avoided. Some people here also complain about the timing, alleging that by delaying D-Day until mid- l944, the Americans and British gave the USSR the chance to install Communist governments throughout eastern Europe. Maybe it is best on this anniversary simply to remember D-Day as a promise kept. When France fell in June l940, Churchill broadcast over the BBC to Nazi-occupied Europe, Sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly it will shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. With D-Day came that long-awaited morning.

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Brigit Farley is a Russian history professor at Washington State University and lives in Pendleton.