History of Sussex airfields around Sussex. During the lead-up to the D-Day landings, the people of Sussex were witness to the build-up of military personnel and materials, including the assembly of landing crafts and construction of Mulberry harbours off the county's coast. Five new airfields were built to provide additional support for the D-Day landings, four near Chichester and one near Billingshurst. A legacy of the D-Day landings are the sections of Mulberry harbour that lay broken and abandoned on the sea floor off the coast, of Selsey Bill, having missed the invasion. Sussex was an industrial county, from the stone age, with
The Longest Day (film) Normandy beaches, the U.S. Ranger Assault Group's assault on the Pointe du Hoc, the attack on Ouistreham by Free French Forces, and the strafing of the beaches by two lone "Luftwaffe" pilots. The film concludes with a montage showing various Allied units consolidating their beachheads before they advance inland to reach Germany by crossing France. French producer Raoul Lévy signed a deal with Simon & Schuster to purchase the filming rights to Cornelius Ryan's book "The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 D-Day" on March 23, 1960. After finishing "The Truth", Lévy set up a deal with the Associated British Picture