Seventy-five years ago today, tens of thousands of U.S. military troops were among an Allied force of nearly 175,000 men who were huddled off the coast of Normandy, France, prepared for the largest land invasion before or since as a way to squash Nazi Germany and reclaim the Free World.

There were 850,000 German soldiers hidden among those beaches, scattered eastward 60 miles from Utah to Sword, with the deadliest to become Omaha.

We suppose that many of those 57,500 American didn’t expect to survive June 6, 1944, and recall an exchange in that wonderful 10-part, 705-minute miniseries, “Band of Brothers,” during which two U.S. soldiers speak of a decision to get tattoos in advance of the invasion. Their reasoning: “We knew we were going to die.”

About 2,500 Americans did die that day, and many more suffered horrific injuries, but the push through France and into Nazi Germany would not be denied. D-Day marked the beginning of the end for Adolph Hitler, who would kill himself in a bunker on April 30, 1945, days before Germany’s surrender on May 8 of that year.

We would not know how to properly calculate the number of tales of heroism from June 6, 1944, among American and Allied forces, or those that followed during the tough slog into Germany, but it surely is a multiple of the number of soldiers who participated in the invasion. Doing so alone was an act of heroism.

Today, as we sit in the comfort of our air-conditioned home, watching our big-screen color TVs, it will be easy to find documentaries recalling the heroism and courage of that day, and we encourage you to sit down, watch and try to appreciate the sacrifice of these brave men and women from what truly is this nation’s Greatest Generation.

There is no way to imagine how the world would be different today had Nazi Germany prevailed, and continued its quest for a blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan world which had no room for Jews, people of color, homosexuals, and those deemed less than. This world now knows too well the atrocities of Nazi Germany, and that is because of what the Allied soldiers came upon during their deadly 10-month push into Berlin.

From June 6 until Aug. 30, when Operation Overlord’s mission of pushing the Germans over the Seine River in France was accomplished, a total of 425,000 soldiers were killed, German and Allied — 125,847 of them Americans.

The numbers from World War II are numbing.

Estimates are as many as 85 million people died, about 3 percent of the world’s population. Of those, as many as 55 million were civilians. Those numbers, of course, do not include the injured and maimed.

The U.S. dead totaled 419,000 — about a third the number who have died in all of America’s conflicts.

We share these numbers for a single purpose, and that is to make bold and plain the historical significance of D-Day, which is clearly the most important event in world history, at least for those who embrace liberty.

Sadly, we aren’t sure any generation before and certainly since could have bequeathed to mankind a greater gift than that provided by those Allied and American soldiers.

There are few survivors of this day still with us. Most, of course, are gone.

We believe the best way to honor their sacrifice is to tell their story. We worry that the passing of time has dulled too many memories, and that the young among us don’t understand the threat Nazi Germany posed and what was required to snuff it out.

To honor those who delivered us from such tyranny, remember their deeds and save your freedom.

Both are easy enough, unlike what faced those Allies soldiers 75 years ago today.