Question: Which were the first successful landings across the English Channel?
About the article "Invasion of Normandy", section "Assessment of the battle".

Candidate passages:
This is a list of notable successful swims across the English Channel. 
 June 5 - Group Captain James Stagg correctly forecasts a brief improvement in weather conditions over the English Channel which permits the following day's Normandy landings to take place.  
The Normandy landings were the first successful opposed landings across the English Channel in over eight centuries.
They were costly in terms of men, but the defeat inflicted on the Germans was one of the largest of the war.
Strategically, the campaign led to the loss of the German position in most of France and the secure establishment of a new major front.
In larger context the Normandy landings helped the Soviets on the Eastern front, who were facing the bulk of the German forces and, to a certain extent, contributed to the shortening of the conflict there.
Although there was a shortage of artillery ammunition, at no time were the Allies critically short of any necessity.
This was a remarkable achievement considering they did not hold a port until Cherbourg fell.
By the time of the breakout the Allies also enjoyed a considerable superiority in numbers of troops (approximately 7:2) and armoured vehicles (approximately 4:1) which helped overcome the natural advantages the terrain gave to the German defenders.
Allied intelligence and counterintelligence efforts were successful beyond expectations.
The Operation Fortitude deception before the invasion kept German attention focused on the Pas de Calais, and indeed high-quality German forces were kept in this area, away from Normandy, until July.
Prior to the invasion, few German reconnaissance flights took place over Britain, and those that did saw only the dummy staging areas.
Ultra decrypts of German communications had been helpful as well, exposing German dispositions and revealing their plans such as the Mortain counterattack.
Allied air operations also contributed significantly to the invasion, via close tactical support, interdiction of German lines of communication (preventing timely movement of supplies and reinforcements—particularly the critical Panzer units), and rendering the Luftwaffe ineffective in Normandy.
Although the impact upon armoured vehicles was less than expected, air activity intimidated these units and cut their supplies.
Despite initial heavy losses in the assault phase, Allied morale remained high.
Casualty rates among all the armies were tremendous, and the Commonwealth forces had to use a recently created category—Double Intense—to be able to describe them.
Bainsford School in Falkirk were first to be rewarded with Lapsley's footballing talents and the highlight of this stage of his early football days was the trial with the Scottish schoolboys side.
He went on to play with Bonnyrigg Rose at a juvenile level before, in 1940, taking the junior route to Bathgate Thistle.
World War II prevented any further advance in Lapsley's career as he was called up for service with the Royal Navy, stationed initially at Birkenhead then Hayling Island.
During the war he was involved in the D-Day landings, stationed on a converted Thames barge to ferry ammunition across the English Channel. 
The Germans' first line of defence was the English Channel, a crossing that had confounded the Spanish Armada, Napoleon Bonaparte's Navy and themselves, four years earlier.
Multiplying the invasion obstacles was the extensive Atlantic Wall, which Adolf Hitler ordered to be constructed in his Directive 51.
The "wall" stretched from Norway to Spain in varying degrees, but was most elaborate in the sectors facing the English channel.
Believing that any forthcoming landings would be timed for high tide, Rommel had the entire wall fortified with pill boxes, artillery, machine gun positions and extensive barbed wire as well as laying hundreds of thousands of mines to deter landing craft.
The Allies chose not to attack at Calais but at the more distant beaches of Normandy, which was also the sector boundary between the 7th and 15th German armies, on the extreme eastern flank of the former, to maximize the possible confusion of command responsibility during the German reaction.
The landings sector that was attacked was occupied by four German divisions.
The attacks were timed for low tide because it minimized the effectiveness of landing obstacles that were likely to have resulted in drowned troops; many landing craft would have been holed and sunk during the final approach.
However, this stratagem exposed the infantry to defensive fire over a greater distance of beach.