 More on the way on this Friday morning, and to get you going right now, your Transportation Minute. This is your Transportation Channel Minute, presented by New Spark Media. It happened on the 6th of June, 1944. Widely remembered as D-Day all these decades later, the Normandy landing operations proved to be a critical turning point in World War II. A key means of transport for getting Allied troops onto Normandy beaches on that fateful day was a boat designed by industrialist Andrew Higgins.