King Charles travels to mark D-Day anniversary while Prince William takes greater role

CNN - Britain’s King Charles III has embarked on his first overseas trip since being diagnosed with cancer, traveling across the English Channel for commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day Landings in Normandy.

Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed on five stretches of the German-occupied Normandy coastline on June 6, 1944. Operation Overlord – as D-Day was codenamed – remains, to this day, the largest amphibious invasion in history, and was a crucial turning point in defeating the Nazis in World War II.

Omaha Beach was the deadliest of the landing sites as German forces were entrenched in fortified cliff positions above allowing them to fire on the first waves of US soldiers as they reached the shore.