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D-Day, June 6, 1944

Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
D-Day By the Numbers, By the Men
BY STEPHEN GREEN JUNE 5, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/d-day-by-the-numbers-by-the-men/

I want you to imagine picking up every resident of a medium-sized city, everything they'll need to eat and drink and rest for a few days, any vehicles they might need, gasoline, of course, plus lots of guns and ammo -- did I mention this was a hunting trip? -- and then moving them all in a few short hours a distance of anywhere from 30 to 125 miles or so.

Now imagine you have to move all those people and all that stuff partly by air, but mostly across heavy seas in foul weather.

Under enemy fire.

I should also mention that if you messed up any of the big details, a lot of your people are going to die, and then you're going to have to figure out how to move them all back without getting too many more of them killed.

And all that is just the beginning. Because once you've done all that, those men on that "hunting trip" are going to have to take and widen a beachhead big enough and secure enough that you can rebuild (or build from scratch!) the ports and roads necessary to bring another million men over... plus all the additional stuff all those additional men will need.

That, in a logistical nutshell, was what the Allies had to accomplish 75 years ago on D-Day.

Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight Eisenhower said that "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." The planning which went into Operation Overlord boggles the mind.

The units involved included six American combat divisions under First Army, landing at German-held French beaches code-named Omaha and Utah. There were four infantry divisions tasked with storming the fortified beaches, plus two airborne divisions for landing by parachute and glider behind German lines. British Second Army brought four more divisions to the fight, including 6th Airborne and the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. And the British 79th Armored Division provided troops and specialized landing vehicles to the British sector.

The preparatory air bombardment was delivered by more than 2,000 Allied bombers. The invasion fleet included 1,200 warships, 4,125 landing craft, and another 1,600 support vessels of various kinds, all courtesy of eight different Allied nations. That's about 7,000 ships, their crews, their supplies, and the tons and tons of fuel required to run them. The official count was nearly 200,000 naval personnel.

Keep in mind though that before any of that could happen, the skies first had to be swept clear of Axis aircraft, and the Channel cleared of enemy mines. Just another note jotted down in Ike's 87-million-page Trapper Keeper.

Three divisions worth of American and British paratroopers led the attack inland hours before the first leg infantry hit the shore. I'm not able to find solid figures on how many C-47s cargo planes and gliders were required, but a safe guess would be "a whole lot."

The American airborne units got spread all over Hell and gone, and in the resulting chaos only about 2,500 paratroopers were under their divisions' command after a full day of fighting. The other 10,000+ men had to accomplish their missions, as best they could, through initiative, improvisation, and... well, hope that their supplies didn't run out, or the Germans surround and kill or capture them, before they were able to hook up with the Allied soldiers moving in from the beaches.

Some of those beaches were lightly defended by third-rate troops. Others not so much, particularly Omaha, which was a slaughterhouse. Confusion prevented USAAF bombers from smashing the beach defenses, and fickle Channel currents put entire units in the wrong areas. Opposition was stiffer than expected, too -- there were three times as many German troops as Allied intelligence projected. Of the 32 tanks the troops counted on to support them, only five made it ashore. The rest floundered at sea, taking their crews with them. Of all the Allied losses on D-Day, nearly half were suffered by the men taking Omaha Beach.

Nevertheless, they persisted. Securing the initial objectives took longer than expected, but in the end, the Germans didn't stand a chance against the Allies' logistical wherewithal, or the determination of individual soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

To prepare for all this, the U.S. delivered 1.9 million tons of supplies to Britain just in May of '44. That's 3,800,000,000 pounds of stuff in one month, with, I might remind you, more than a few German submarines hunting the merchant ships. To keep the fight going after the beaches were taken, another million troops were shipped to France in the four weeks after D-Day, along with more than 565,000 tons of supplies and a staggering 172,000 vehicles, from jeeps to tanks and every size and shape in between. To keep the vehicles moving the Allies laid an undersea oil pipeline (called PLUTO) across the Channel. And to keep the troops fed and armed, they even hauled across transportable piers (called Mulberries), because the Normandy ports were too few and too small to bear the massive logistical strain.

If these huge numbers seem too abstract, remember that it was living, breathing men who made them happen. It was officers and their staffs who made the plans. It was human beings who devised PLUTO and the Mulberries. It was factory and shipyard workers who made the rifles, pistols, ammo, fighters, bombers, jeeps, trucks, tanks, and ships. Men and women in oilfields and refineries provided the gas and diesel which kept the war machines humming. "Men of the West" manned the ships, flew the planes, hit the beaches, airdropped in. It was fragile human bodies enduring the shelling, the bullets, and the rigors of what Eisenhower deemed the "Great Crusade," the most logistically ambitious undertaking in human history... and a moral cause almost without parallel.

Those men saved western Europe from the Nazis, but also from "liberation" by the just-as-brutal Soviets. The final battle lines they drew just 11 months later became the eastern boundary of the Cold War, where the West stood firm yet again against totalitarianism. In other words, they saved the world.

There are damned few of those people left, their numbers shrinking daily. Don't forget them.




Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
 

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Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Re: D-Day

D-Day, June 6, 1944 . . .
 

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Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
June 6, 2019
The Lessons and Legacy of D-Day
By Perry Gershon

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/the_lessons_and_legacy_of_dday.html

This week, we will celebrate the daring, courage and sacrifice of 73,000 young Americans who hit the beaches of Normandy, Omaha and Utah -- on June 6, 1944, 75 years ago. Those who lived to come home are now in their 90s. While we have this extraordinary generation till among us, this is the year, month, and day to reach out and thank them. It is also a moment to think about what the day means for us.

The assault, named “Operation Overlord,” was epic – enormous in size, significance, and tragic cost. On the beaches of Normandy France, in a moment of profound resolve, faith, military commitment, and patriotism, which boils down to love of country, town, family, and freedom – these boys from across America risked all for us.

Had they not done so, the freedoms and prosperity we take as a birthright daily would not be ours; if by some stretch America had survived and endured at all, we would be an island in an ocean of unthinkable darkness.

These boys knew that the fight was all or nothing, win or freedom perishes, prevail against the evil that had taken Europe, or allow something to stand that could not. So they gave it their all.

That invasion – which the Nazis thought they could halt on the beach – is what made freeing Europe possible. But it did not come without enormous human cost – both in those lost on that day and in the memories and horrors experienced, which lasted a lifetime for those who were there.

On Omaha, after that one epic day, nearly 1,500 American boys lay dead, in excess of 3,000 were seriously wounded, another 2,000 forever missing and 26 captured. The mayhem was horrific, but it changed everything. From that moment forward, the Germans were in retreat.

The Nazi war machine would try again, in a final death throe known as Battle of the Bulge, but the Normandy invasion turned the page, put the power of a moral alliance that would not quit in the heart of France, and evil in retreat -- until the Allied armies crushed it. All that arguably began 75 years ago this week.

Trying to understand the impact of this event, photographs help. One that I catches me off guard each time is not from the war zone, but from New York City itself. It is the highly human reactions, tension on faces, worry in hearts you can almost hear beating hard, knowing what is happening as they look up at a ribbon of news above them in Times Square.

By the time New Yorkers awoke to read the news, tens of thousands of boys were confronting evil head on, bravely running into a hail of mortars, artillery, and machine-gun fire at Normandy, climbing 200-foot sheer cliffs, and driving back those who were sworn to stop them.

On that day, the Daily News announced “Invasion Begins,” and the New York Times delivered words from Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight Eisenhower: “Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.”

From three-quarters of a century on, it is hard to imagine, but there was nothing inevitable about the D-Day victory, or eventual success in Europe or the Pacific. Only heart, soul, undying courage and unthinkable resolve to prevail – made it happen.

And that is what we must remember on this 75-year anniversary of that epic day. We must look back with the sort of appreciation that brings a good heart to silence, in sheer awe of what those boys did for us.

We must look forward with the resolve in our hearts to preserve, protect, and deliver forward the freedom they have given us. We owe that to them, and more than that.
 

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Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
D-Day in Photos: ‘The Free Men of the World Are Marching Together to Victory’
BY REBECCA MANSOUR6 Jun 2019

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...f-the-world-are-marching-together-to-victory/

On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, over 160,000 brave men crossed the choppy waters of the English Channel to land in enemy-occupied France for the long-awaited Allied liberation of “Fortress Europe.”

Codenamed “Operation Overlord,” the Battle of Normandy was the largest amphibious invasion in human history. The mission: to liberate a continent suffering for four years under the murderous dictatorship of a racist totalitarian regime bent on world domination.

On the eve of the battle, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower told the Allied troops in a broadcast message: “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”

“The tide has turned,” he told them. “The free men of the world are marching together to victory. Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

An armada of 5,000 ships and 15,000 aircraft supported the battle, as troops stormed five beaches along a 50-mile wide stretch of coast. Airborne divisions dropped behind enemy lines the night before to secure the eastern and western flanks. U.S. Army Rangers boldly scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc under relentless enemy fire to take out the Nazi guns.

By that afternoon, General Eisenhower broadcast a message to the occupied countries telling them that “the liberation of Europe” had begun.

“Although the initial assault may not have been made in your own country,” he told them, “the hour of your liberation is approaching.”

By the time the battle ended, there were over 10,000 Allied casualties.

Within 11 months, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally. The men of D-Day had saved the world.

The following photo essay is offered in their honor and in honor of the men and women of our Greatest Generation.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...f-the-world-are-marching-together-to-victory/
(Photos and descriptions at link)
 

Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
D-Day June 6th 1944
 

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Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Buzz from NCT posted this one on FB. :thumb: :wow: :clap: :clap: :clap:
 

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