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D-Day By The Numbers

It is almost impossible to convey the sheer gargantuan scale of the Allied Invasion of Europe.  The photographs above show some of the scope of the operation but even they are limited to showing just one snapshot of a massive operation.  The first photograph shows Omaha Beach, just one of the five beaches that were landed on.  The photograph frames a beach packed with hundreds of ships and vehicles while the sky is filled with barrage balloons.  The bottom image shows just a portion of one of the Allied invasion fleets destined for Normandy. 

Operation Overlord was the single largest combined air-sea-land amphibious invasion ever attempted in military history.  One of the best ways to demonstrate the scale of the operation is to examine the numbers.

The Figures:

  • Over 2 million Allied troops had been gathered in Britain for the invasion.

  • 156,000 Allied troops landed on D-Day, made up of:
    73,000 Americans
    61,715 British 
    21,400 Canadians
    3,000+ Other Allied troops

  • 380,000 German troops were deployed in the region
    - ~50,000 troops in Normandy
    - 2,200 tanks Northern France
    - 570 Luftwaffe planes stationed in France & Holland

  • The German Atlantic Wall:
    - 1,670 miles long
    - Comprised 17 million cubic metres of concrete and 1.2 million tonnes of steel
    - Cost 3.7 billion Deutschmarks to build

  • 6,939 vessels made up the Invasion Armada
    - 1,213 combat vessels
    - 4,126 landing ships & craft
    - 846 merchant vessels
    - 736 ancillary craft

  • 11,590 Allied aircraft at the Invasion’s disposal
    - 9,500 combat aircraft (fighters/bombers)
    - 14,674 sorties flown
    - 2,395 aircraft and 867 gliders landing 23,400 British and American paratroops
    - 127 Allied Aircraft lost

  • Men & Equipment landed by D-Day+5 (11th June):
    - 326,547 troops
    - 54,186 vehicles
    - 104,428 tons of supplies 

Casualties suffered during Operation Neptune (the landings):

  • Allied:  ~12,000 casualties with 4,413 confirmed dead during landings
    - American: 6,603 killed & wounded
    - British: 2,700 killed & wounded
    - Canadian: 946 killed & wounded

  • French Civilian Casualties: Estimates vary between 25,000 - 39,000  (killed in the preliminary bombing and during the subsequent invasion and Battle of Normandy)

  • German:
    - Estimated between 4,000 - 9,000 killed and wounded
    - Estimated 200,00 killed and wounded during entire Operation Overlord

Sources:

Image One Source - Omaha Beach

Image Two Source - Glider Landing Zone

Image Three Source - View out to see from Omaha Beach

Image Four Source - Paratroops drop into Normandy

Image Five Source - A blurry Aerial Photograph Showing a Small Part of the Invasion Fleet

Statistical Sources:

‘Facts and figures of D-Day’ (Source)

’D-Day figures’ (Source)

’D-Day and the Battle of Normandy’ (Source)

10 years ago    Reblogged from Historical Firearms    463 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #D-Day #DDAY70 #D-Day 70th Anniversary #WWII #Normandy Landings #Operation Overlord #The Longest Day #Operation Neptune #D-Day facts #D-Day casualties #D Day #D-Day Casualties #World War Two
“ Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted yesterday ” So all told it topped out at around 30 articles posted yesterday, lots of quotes, videos, photos little bits of D-Day trivia and a look at the numbers involved in the...
“ Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted yesterday ” So all told it topped out at around 30 articles posted yesterday, lots of quotes, videos, photos little bits of D-Day trivia and a look at the numbers involved in the...
“ Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted yesterday ” So all told it topped out at around 30 articles posted yesterday, lots of quotes, videos, photos little bits of D-Day trivia and a look at the numbers involved in the...

Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted yesterday

So all told it topped out at around 30 articles posted yesterday, lots of quotes, videos, photos little bits of D-Day trivia and a look at the numbers involved in the operation.  Hope it did the anniversary justice.

10 years ago    Reblogged from Historical Firearms    72 notes
Tagged: #DDAY70 #D-day #history #D-Day 70th Anniversary #Normandy landings #military history #WWII
Eisenhower’s Handwritten Speech Announcing The Failure of D-Day Landings The speech was written by General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, himself in the event that the invasion failed. It read: “ ‘Our landings in the Cherbourg and Le Havre...
Eisenhower’s Handwritten Speech Announcing The Failure of D-Day Landings The speech was written by General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, himself in the event that the invasion failed. It read: “ ‘Our landings in the Cherbourg and Le Havre...
Eisenhower’s Handwritten Speech Announcing The Failure of D-Day Landings The speech was written by General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, himself in the event that the invasion failed. It read: “ ‘Our landings in the Cherbourg and Le Havre...

Eisenhower’s Handwritten Speech Announcing The Failure of D-Day Landings

The speech was written by General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, himself in the event that the invasion failed.  

It read:

‘Our landings in the Cherbourg and Le Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops.

My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best info available. The troops, air and navy did all that bravery and dedication to duty could do.

If any blame or fault attributes to the attempt it is mine alone.’

The apparent scale of Germany’s European coastal defences, despite years of Allied preparation, were enough for Eisenhower to contemplate the possibility that the invasion may fail.  Hitler’s seemingly formidable Atlantic Wall spanned some 1,700 miles and was defended by hundreds of thousands of German troops with millions of tonnes of steel and concrete reinforced bunkers peppering France’s northern coast.

However, the Atlantic Wall proved to be weaker than it first seemed, with German forces spread thinly the Allied invasion was a success and Eisenhower’s failure speech was thankfully never needed.

Image Source

10 years ago       15 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #DDAY70 #D-Day #Normandy Landings #Dwight D. Eisenhower #Eisenhower #WWII #speech #D-Day failure #D-Day Failure Speech #what if #Operation Overlord #D-Day 70th Anniversary #Atlantic Wall

D-Day By The Numbers

It is almost impossible to convey the sheer gargantuan scale of the Allied Invasion of Europe.  The photographs above show some of the scope of the operation but even they are limited to showing just one snapshot of a massive operation.  The first photograph shows Omaha Beach, just one of the five beaches that were landed on.  The photograph frames a beach packed with hundreds of ships and vehicles while the sky is filled with barrage balloons.  The bottom image shows just a portion of one of the Allied invasion fleets destined for Normandy. 

Operation Overlord was the single largest combined air-sea-land amphibious invasion ever attempted in military history.  One of the best ways to demonstrate the scale of the operation is to examine the numbers.

The Figures:

  • Over 2 million Allied troops had been gathered in Britain for the invasion.

  • 156,000 Allied troops landed on D-Day, made up of:
    73,000 Americans
    61,715 British 
    21,400 Canadians
    3,000+ Other Allied troops

  • 380,000 German troops were deployed in the region
    - ~50,000 troops in Normandy
    - 2,200 tanks Northern France
    - 570 Luftwaffe planes stationed in France & Holland

  • The German Atlantic Wall:
    - 1,670 miles long
    - Comprised 17 million cubic metres of concrete and 1.2 million tonnes of steel
    - Cost 3.7 billion Deutschmarks to build

  • 6,939 vessels made up the Invasion Armada
    - 1,213 combat vessels
    - 4,126 landing ships & craft
    - 846 merchant vessels
    - 736 ancillary craft

  • 11,590 Allied aircraft at the Invasion’s disposal
    - 9,500 combat aircraft (fighters/bombers)
    - 14,674 sorties flown
    - 2,395 aircraft and 867 gliders landing 23,400 British and American paratroops
    - 127 Allied Aircraft lost

  • Men & Equipment landed by D-Day+5 (11th June):
    - 326,547 troops
    - 54,186 vehicles
    - 104,428 tons of supplies 

Casualties suffered during Operation Neptune (the landings):

  • Allied:  ~12,000 casualties with 4,413 confirmed dead during landings
    - American: 6,603 killed & wounded
    - British: 2,700 killed & wounded
    - Canadian: 946 killed & wounded

  • French Civilian Casualties: Estimates vary between 25,000 - 39,000  (killed in the preliminary bombing and during the subsequent invasion and Battle of Normandy)

  • German:
    - Estimated between 4,000 - 9,000 killed and wounded
    - Estimated 200,00 killed and wounded during entire Operation Overlord

Sources:

Image One Source - Omaha Beach

Image Two Source - Glider Landing Zone

Image Three Source - View out to see from Omaha Beach

Image Four Source - Paratroops drop into Normandy

Image Five Source - A blurry Aerial Photograph Showing a Small Part of the Invasion Fleet

Statistical Sources:

‘Facts and figures of D-Day’ (Source)

’D-Day figures’ (Source)

’D-Day and the Battle of Normandy’ (Source)

10 years ago       463 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #D-Day #DDAY70 #D-Day 70th Anniversary #WWII #Normandy Landings #Operation Overlord #The Longest Day #Operation Neptune #D-Day facts #D-Day casualties #D Day #D-Day Casualties #World War Two

Ordnance of the Week: Landing Craft Tank (Rocket)

The Landing Craft Tank (Rocket) or LCT® was an invention of Colonel Langley of Combined Operations Headquarters.  He had the idea of mounting hundreds of rockets onto a standard LCT providing additional firepower for the landings. 

The original LCT was originally designed by naval architect Sir Roland Baker.  It displaced 640 tones and was 192 feet long and 30 feet wide. Powered by two 460hp diesel engines they could travel at up to 9 knots. The large size of the LCT meant they were able to hold racks capable of firing up to 1,060 60lb RP-3 Rockets (see image #4).  These rockets were fired electrically with rank of up to 40 rockets or the entire salvo could be fired at once - this gave the LCT® an immense broadside of 63,600 lbs of high explosive. The rockets were aimed by positioning the ship using line of sight and range-finding radar.  

The LCT® were part of a larger fleet of five battleships, two monitors, twenty cruisers and 70 destroyers bombarding the shore.  Franz Gockel a German infantryman defending a Resistance Post overlooking Omaha Beach described the bombardment as a “…rolling wall of fire”  The firing of the rocket ship’s salvo made for an awesome and terrifying sight.

An RP-3 Rocket mounted on a Sherman, the same rockets were mounted on aircraft, ships and mobile launchers (source)

Major RGH Brocklehurst of the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry witnessed a LTC® bombard stubborn German positions:

“…it did not head into the shore as a large landing craft, which it resembled, but swung to lie parallel to the land. It hove to and immediately disappeared in a huge cloud of fire and smoke. We thought it had been hit and exploded - not so.
Out of the smoke sailed a huge line of rockets, followed by a roar as the sound of their launching reached us. A few seconds later, the German positions disappeared in a similar but far larger cataclysm - to our considerable satisfaction. As the original cloud of smoke cleared, we realised that the rocketeers had been busy re-loading because the performance was repeated twice, then the rocket ship quietly moved away and disappeared beyond the line of our Mulberry harbour.”

It was originally claimed that just one LCT® could fire the equivalent of 80 light cruisers.  The main shortcoming of the rocket ships were that were were laborious to reload with the task having to be done manually and taking hours.  They were first deployed during the landings on Sicily in 1943, but were present at all of the beaches on D-Day and saw service in the Mediterranean and in the Far East.  The US followed a similar concept with their Landing Ship Medium (Rocket) used extensively in the Pacific. 

More on the D-Day Landing Craft Here

Sources:

Image One Source

Image Two Source

Image Three Source

Image Four Source

‘British Landing Craft of World War II’, A. Payne, (1971) (source)

’Landing Craft Tank - Rocket (LCT-R)’ (source)

D-Day Memoirs: Ox and Bucks Light Infantry, RGH Brocklehurst (2004) (source)
10 years ago       53 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #Ordnance of the Week #DDAY70 #D-Day #WWII #Normandy Landings #LCT(R) #Landing Craft Tank (Rocket) #Landing Craft #D-Day 70th Anniversary #RP-3 Rocket #Rocket ship #Rocket #D-Day bombardment #Combined Operations Headquarters #World War Two #Operation Neptune #Operation Overlord #Ordnance
If we don’t manage to throw them back at once, the invasion will succeed in spite of the Atlantic Wall. Toward the end in Tripoli and Tunis the bombs were dropped in such concentrations that even our best troops were demoralized. If you cannot check the bombing, all the other methods will be ineffective, even the barriers.
-

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, allegedly when trying to persuade Hitler about the need to act decisively when the invasion came.

On the day of the invasion, Hitler was not woken immediately with the news of the landings, and as a result precious hours were lost before essential armoured and reserve units were released to counter attack. 

Source

10 years ago       4 notes
Tagged: #Quote of the Day #History #Military History #Quote #History Quote #DDAY70 #D-Day #Normandy Landings #Erwin Rommel #Hitler #WWII #quotes #D-Day 70th anniversary #Operation Overlord #D Day

Battlefield Footage: D-Day to D-Day+3

A comprehensive film compiled by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force’s Public Relations Division and now held by the US National Archives documenting the events of D-Day, 6th June through to D-Day +3, 9th June. It includes film taken from almost every aspect of the invasion; land, sea and air. It includes some of the most recognisable moving images of the invasion but the vast majority is footage not often seen in documentaries. The film is accompanied by a sparse commentary explaining the key events, and lacks much of the bombast found in contemporary News Reels documenting the invasion.

Footage of paratroops boarding C47s transport planes and gliders, men boarding the naval transports with shots of the escorting destroyers, battleships, rocket-bombardment ships, torpedo boats and minesweepers.  In the air the film shows footage of the extensive bombing raids launched on the coastal defences of the Atlantic Wall while the C47s and gliders head inland.  Footage from the gun cameras of fighter-bombers as they bomb, strafe and rocket ground targets on the coast and on the roads in land. 

It shows the men in some of the hundreds of landing craft as they move ashore,   The landing craft doors open and the film shows troops as they disembark and begin to wade ashore.  It also shows the landing of DD amphibious tanks sailing ashore with their collapsable flotation screens up.  The footage also show some of the problems encountered with men being held up by German positions and amphibious tanks and landing craft floundering in rough seas.

The film goes on to show how once the beaches were secured the first heavy equipment and supplies were brought ashore by heavy landing craft, along with hundreds of bicycles for the rapid push ashore supported by the DD Tanks now with their flotation screens dropped. The last quarter of the film shows Allied forces pushing inland and securing the beachheads.  It shows some of the battle ravaged German defences including bunkers that have been shattered by bombardment, with one scene seemingly showing a German soldier trapped in wreckage of a bunker.  Graphically the film shows the bodies of some of the Atlantic Wall’s defenders but it also shows Allied troops meeting newly liberated civilians and collecting surrendered German soldiers and herding them back to the invasion beaches to be transported to camps in Britain.

The final scenes of the film show Allied and German wounded being loaded on to ships heading back to Britain to be treated.  This is followed by images of the first dead to be repatriated back across the channel with the simple narration noting they are “a symbol of the price we have paid to enter Europe.”

Video Source

10 years ago       22 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #D-Day #DDay #d day invasion #WWII #Film #video #Normandy Landings #Operation Neptune #Operation Overlord #World War Two #d-day 70th anniversary #DDay70 #battlefield footage #war correspondent

On D-Day we were shocked, and I, as well as the others, we were defending ourselves, we wanted to survive. They were not our enemy … we did not know them, and we had no chance to say yes or no to what was happening.

The opponent wanted to ‘defeat’ us, as it was called in those days, and we did our best in order to repel this opponent, and we did not think about the individual human being. When the landing troops arrived, we said that on every single boat there were more soldiers then in our entire bay of six kilometres.

Each ship had a few hundred, and we had about three to four hundred. Each resistance post had 20 to 25, and each boat was spitting out 30, 50, 100. In the beginning our artillery, which was already trained at the beach, was showing us the aim. And the artillery did manage to bring the attack to a stop in the first two to three hours.

I hoped I would manage to get back, I went on small paths, not on the main road. I heard that later comrades had fallen who had tried to rescue themselves by taking the main road. We did not think of withdrawal, we were only thinking about holding our position, defending and hoping to survive.

But we were trained beforehand to fight to the last. You have to hold the position. Also before, when there were discussions, nobody ever mentioned withdrawal, only ever fighting in order to hold back the invasion.

The ship artillery was the worst, before the first landing boats came out, there was like a wall of fire coming towards us. It was very - what can I say - well I started praying loudly. And have tried through the praying not to think about what is coming towards us. I just made these quick prayers.

-

The recollections of Franz Gockel, an 18 year old German soldier who was part of a German platoon manning Resistance Post 62, near Coleville-Sur-Mer, overlooking Omaha Beach.

Source

10 years ago       27 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #DDAY70 #D-Day #Eye witness #Quote of the Day #D Day #Normandy Landings #Franz Gockel #Omaha Beach #Operation Neptune #Operation Overlord #Resistance Post #D-Day 70th Anniversary #History quotes #quote
“ Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted so far ”
“ Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted so far ”
“ Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted so far ”

Click here to see all of the posts commemorating #DDAY70 posted so far

10 years ago    Reblogged from Historical Firearms    72 notes
Tagged: #DDAY70 #D-day #history #D-Day 70th Anniversary #Normandy landings #military history #WWII

Invasion Stripes

In the run up to Operation Overlord hundreds of Allied aircraft were painted with discerning black and white ‘invasion’ stripes.  This was intended to make friendly aircraft recognition easier for troops on the ground.   

All manner of aircraft were painted with the instantly recognisable pattern of three white stripes and two black stripes.  All aircraft that might fly over Allied invasion ships and units were ordered painted on the 3rd June (see images #2 & #3).  The plan had only been approved by Air Chief Marshal Leigh-Mallory in late May after fears that Allied aircraft would be shot down by friendly forces.

Fighters, light and medium bombers, gliders and support aircraft were all painted with Spitfires, Hurricanes, P-51 Mustangs, Typhoons, C-47, P-38 Lightning and B-26 Marauders all adopting the colour scheme.  
The stripes were to be 18 inches wide on single-seat aircraft while transports, gliders and bombers would have stripes 24 inches wide.

Following the invasion the stripes were slowly removed from the upper surfaces of the planes.  Orders were issued to remove the stripes in December 1944.

Sources:

Image One Source

Image Two Source

Image Three Source

Image Five Source

Image Five Source

'Invasion Stripes’ (Source)

10 years ago       147 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #D-Day #DDAY70 #D-Day 70th Anniversary #WWII #WWII Aircraft #Normandy Landings #Operation Overlord #aircraft recognition #aircraft camouflage #Spitfire #Hurricane #P-51 Mustang #Typhoon #C-47 #P-38 Lightning #B-26 Marauder #Aviation History

King George VI’s D-Day Speech

On 6th June 1944 King George VI delivered a speech, broadcast to to the people’s of the free world; throughout the British Empire, Canada, Africa, Australia and the United States by the BBC World Service.

Now famous for his speech impediment the King delivers the address in a slow and determined manner.   Pausing at several points to overcome his stammer, he felt it his duty to address his people at a pivotal moment in his nation’s history.

The speech begins:

“Four years ago our Nation and Empire stood alone against an overwhelming enemy with our backs to the wall. Tested as never before in our history, in God’s Providence we survived that test.

The spirit of the people, resolute, dedicated, burnt like a bright flame lit surely from those unseen fires which nothing can quench…

After nearly five years of toil and suffering we must renew that crusading impulse on which we entered the war and met its darkest hour.”

The speech lasts just seven minutes but in it he calls on the nation’s “men and women of all ages and many races and occupations” to pray for the success of the invasion.

Source

10 years ago       248 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #DDAY70 #D-Day #Normandy Landings #WWII #King George VI #King's Speech #King George VI's D-Day Speech #Speech #Radio address #BBC World Service #d-day 70th anniversary
Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force Above is an official photograph of the staff of the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force. At the head of the table sits Supreme Commander of the Expeditionary Force General Dwight D....
Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force Above is an official photograph of the staff of the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force. At the head of the table sits Supreme Commander of the Expeditionary Force General Dwight D....
Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force Above is an official photograph of the staff of the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force. At the head of the table sits Supreme Commander of the Expeditionary Force General Dwight D....

Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force

Above is an official photograph of the staff of the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force.

At the head of the table sits Supreme Commander of the Expeditionary Force General Dwight D. Eisenhower.  

To his left sit Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W Tedder, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander.  Admiral Sir Bertram H Ramsay, Allied Naval Commander in Chief and Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Commander in Chief of the 12th US Army Group.

To his right sits General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Commander in Chief 21st Army Group.   Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Allied Air Commander and Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff to General Eisenhower.

These are the men who planned, oversaw and commanded the most ambitious combined air-sea-land invasion operation in military history.

Image Source

10 years ago       66 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #D-Day #DDAY70 #Normandy Landings #D-Day 70th Anniversary #Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force #General Dwight D. Eisenhower #Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W Tedder #Admiral Sir Bertram H Ramsay #Lieutenant General Omar Bradley #General Sir Bernard Montgomery #Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory #Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith #commanders of d-day #Operation Overlord #SHAEF #Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

D-Day Recollections

Trooper Fred Walker, formerly of No. 3 Commando (British Army), talks about his experience of the Normandy landings.  He explains how he was wounded along with Lord Lovat by shrapnel and was invalided back to Britain in time to witness the first V-1 Rocket bombings.

Source

10 years ago       16 notes
Tagged: #History #Military History #Oral History #D-Day #DDAY70 #Normandy Landings #3 Commando #Lord Lovat #V-1 Bomb #D-Day 70th anniversary #WWII #Video #eye witness #National Army Museum