On June 6th 1944 a band of US Army Rangers undertook one of the second world war’s most daring missions. Ahead of the main D Day landings, under ferocious fire, they had to land on an exposed beach, scale a 100ft cliff before attacking a well armed and heavily defended German force.

Against overwhelming numbers their mission was to silence the huge artillery guns that would target the invading Allied Armies that were about to land on D Day. But we can now reveal a secret about this famous operation that was classified for over 60 years

This is the true story of 7 of the Rangers who took part in the mission to protect the hundreds of thousands of other troops landing on the Normandy beaches – sadly not all of them would make it through.