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D-Day - the Normandy landings



Buzzer

Languidly Clinical
Oct 1, 2006
26,121
70 years ago tomorrow. Some of the statistics for the invasion are staggering:


  • 156,000 troops crossed over on 6th June 1944
  • Troops from United Kingdom, Canada, US, Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.
  • 11,590 aircraft were available to support the landings. On D-Day, 14,674 sorties flew and 127 were lost.
  • 5 days later 326,547 troops, 54,186 vehicles and 104,428 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches.
  • 12,000 men and over 2,000 aircraft were lost in the two months prior to June 1944 in the struggle to get things ready for D-Day.
  • 24 allied warships sunk
  • 425,000 German and Allied troops killed or MIA
  • Between 15 and 20,000 French civilians killed

Incredible that this happened within living memory.
 




Braggfan

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded
May 12, 2014
1,815
Incredible to think about, and hard for any of us who weren't there to comprehend. I'm in absolute awe of what those individuals went through and achieved.
 


edna krabappel

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 7, 2003
47,228
70 years ago tomorrow. Some of the statistics for the invasion are staggering:


  • 156,000 troops crossed over on 6th June 1944
  • Troops from United Kingdom, Canada, US, Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.
  • 11,590 aircraft were available to support the landings. On D-Day, 14,674 sorties flew and 127 were lost.
  • 5 days later 326,547 troops, 54,186 vehicles and 104,428 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches.
  • 12,000 men and over 2,000 aircraft were lost in the two months prior to June 1944 in the struggle to get things ready for D-Day.
  • 24 allied warships sunk
  • 425,000 German and Allied troops killed or MIA
  • Between 15 and 20,000 French civilians killed

Incredible that this happened within living memory.

And that, in the planning & preparation, the estimate was that they would suffer 50% casualties. Imagine any British forces going into a situation now where the predicted (and presumably accepted) outcome was 50% casualties. Different times, but still incomprehensible.

I watched the programmes with Dan Snow the other night that featured a number of D-Day veterans, British, American and Canadian. Some utterly compelling (and heartbreaking) stories.
 


Brian Fantana

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2006
7,197
In the field
Whenever I think of D-Day, and the incredible sacrifice and bravery of so many, all I can think of are the words of John Maxwell Edmonds:

When you go home, tell them of us and say: for their tomorrow, we gave our today.
 




Giraffe

VERY part time moderator
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patreon
Aug 8, 2005
26,451
And that, in the planning & preparation, the estimate was that they would suffer 50% casualties. Imagine any British forces going into a situation now where the predicted (and presumably accepted) outcome was 50% casualties. Different times, but still incomprehensible.

I watched the programmes with Dan Snow the other night that featured a number of D-Day veterans, British, American and Canadian. Some utterly compelling (and heartbreaking) stories.

What channel was that on? I will try to catch it on Iplayer or whatever.
 


My Grand Father was in the assault wave at Sword.

I simply CANNOT imagine what it must have been like to be running up a beach with people firing machine guns at you.

Staggering bravery.
 
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BBassic

I changed this.
Jul 28, 2011
12,220
I've been reading this recently: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0743449746

Some of the stuff in there is incredible. For instance, during the planning stages, Allied command had a national drive asking people to send in postcards of the beaches from vacations etc. and they used those to build up an image of how the beaches might look with German defences etc. Utterly incredible.
 




Seagull over Canaryland

Well-known member
Feb 8, 2011
3,549
Norfolk
Quite rightly it is time to reflect and pay respects for those who took part in the D-Day landings and especially those that made the supreme sacrifice.

Those stats for the D-Day landings are deeply impressive.

I'm mindful that in June 1944 we were also fighting on land, air and sea in around the Mediterranean, in the Far East and in most Oceans. Plus the UK was a huge airbase conducting an air war against the Axis across the rest of Europe. The scale of the military effort was amazing but also the logistical support to enable it to happen was mind boggling.

No wonder the Country was virtually burnt out and on its knees by 1945, both physically and financially.
 




edna krabappel

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 7, 2003
47,228
What channel was that on? I will try to catch it on Iplayer or whatever.

BBC1, think it was Monday night, spread over two shows.

Quick google suggests it was called D-Day: The Last Heroes. Seems to have been first shown last year. I really enjoyed it though. You can still see it on iPlayer by the looks of it.
 




Brian Fantana

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2006
7,197
In the field
I've been reading this recently: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0743449746

Some of the stuff in there is incredible. For instance, during the planning stages, Allied command had a national drive asking people to send in postcards of the beaches from vacations etc. and they used those to build up an image of how the beaches might look with German defences etc. Utterly incredible.

My Grandfather was heavily-involved in the planning of D-Day, and this was one of the ideas that they were most proud of.
 




Ex-Staffs Gull

New member
Jul 5, 2003
1,687
Adelaide, SA
What always gets me is that these days with all the technology we have we cant organise a piss up in a brewery yet they organised this in secret with all those different nationalities etc.
 






I am particularly fascinated by what we would now call the "Geek" element of D-Day and the thought that the war was also "fought" far from the "sharp end" by what would then have been "boffins" or "backroom boys". Bletchley Park is probably the best known example, have yet to visit there but would love to. Always conjures up a mental picture of guys in brown workshop coats sucking Woodbines and drinking endless cups of tea whilst devising the sytems that would eventually allow Axis messages to be read by the Allies befor their intended recipient did.

This operation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude combines all the elements, including Garbo (who ran a very succesful network of UK based spies for the Nazis, unfortunately for them exisiting only in the vivid imagination of him and his British Intellilgence colleagues), Collosus and suchlike and agents in the field many of whom paid the ultimate price.

This important component (or the site at least) of the intelligence side of things is not far from me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspidistra_(transmitter)
 


piersa

Well-known member
Apr 17, 2011
3,155
London
View attachment 54712

These are my grandad's D-Day orders. He told me that they used to get dummy orders every day, similar to these. When he opened these ones and read them to his men, to a man, they were all sick over the side of the boat.

He led the allied forces out of Portsmouth harbour on D-Day in the two boats he was commanding. They carried on to the -D-Day beaches and his boats went left to the beaches where they were performing dummy exercises to fool the Germans into thinking they were landing there.
 
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Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
49,985
Goldstone
209,000 Allied casualties. The figures are taken from the D-Day museum website. http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy-your-questions-answered#troops
Thanks, interesting stuff.

"The Allied casualties figures for D-Day ... a total of 4,413 dead" (accounted for, so there will be more)
"Over 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the Battle of Normandy. This figure includes over 209,000 Allied casualties, with nearly 37,000 dead amongst the ground forces and a further 16,714 deaths amongst the Allied air forces."
"Today, twenty-seven war cemeteries hold the remains of over 110,000 dead from both sides: 77,866 German, 9,386 American, 17,769 British, 5,002 Canadian and 650 Poles"
 




Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,323
Uffern
I am particularly fascinated by what we would now call the "Geek" element of D-Day and the thought that the war was also "fought" far from the "sharp end" by what would then have been "boffins" or "backroom boys".

I'm off to see a play tonight about the arguments between the meteorological teams as to the optimum time for the landings. It makes you realise how much planning had to go into it
 





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