D-Day

Oddly, US Marines were not used in the amphibious landings in the Mediterranean, Sicily, Italy, Normandy nor Southern France. And for most of the Pacific amphibious landings, the Marines were used most of the time and not the US Army. Kinda odd.

This question is more difficult to answer than may appear at first. The assault on Nazi-occupied France represented the largest military armada in history. More than 5,000 ships and landing craft participated in the operation. In all, some 160,000 men participated in the first wave (three paratroop and six infantry divisions, tank and commando units) commencing on June 6, 1944. With such a massive force on the Allied side, combined with an unknown number of German troops, an exact death toll is not now known and may never be since bodies are even yet being unearthed on the beaches. Part of the difficulty is the number of attack fronts (beaches) and push beyond the beaches and into the French interior following the initial wave. In short, estimates of allied deaths range from 2,500 to 5,000 on D-Day. Numbers of German dead range from 4,000 to 9,000. "It's very difficult to get accurate figures. People get buried. Bodies disintegrate. Evidence of the deaths disappeared. People drowned," said John Keegan, author of "Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris." Carol Tuckwiller of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation reports, "We feel like we're probably going to end up with a total of about 4,500 fatalities for both the Americans and Allied countries. Right now, we have about 4,200 names confirmed." Her organization has spent four years combing through government, military and cemetery records for names of Allied dead on D-Day. Adding to the difficulty identifying a valid number of deaths associated with D-Day operations is the deaths involved in the preparations for the assault. The D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England claims more than 19,000 civilians in Normandy also died in Allied bombing before and after D-Day to soften up German defenses. And Allied air forces lost nearly 12,000 men in April and May 1944 in operations ahead of the invasion. These deaths, including civilians and military personelle who lost their lives before and after D-Day are clearly associated with the battle, and a part of the terrible cost of freedom, but may be overlooked in may accountings of D-Day death tolls. Additionally, D-Day marked only the start of the battle of Normandy, which claimed many more lives as troops fought in the region's hedgerows over the next three months. More than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing, the D-Day Museum says. The American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach holds the remains of 9,383 servicemen and four women, perhaps one of the only sure quantifiable sources to the terrible conflict's death toll (the German cemetery itself contains 80,000 graves for German soldiers killed in the area during the battles).

Germany

10,000 allied casualties, 2712 killed Estimates vary on German casualties: from 4,000-9,000

American ?

"Casualties" refers to all losses suffered by the armed forces: killed, wounded, missing in action (meaning that their bodies were not found) and prisoners of war. There is no "official" casualty figure for D-Day. Under the circumstances, accurate record keeping was very difficult. For example, some troops who were listed as missing may actually have landed in the wrong place, and have rejoined their parent unit only later. In April and May 1944, the Allied air forces lost nearly 12,000 men and over 2,000 aircraft in operations which paved the way for D-Day. The Allied casualties figures for D-Day have generally been estimated at 10,000, including 2500 dead. Broken down by nationality, the usual D-Day casualty figures are approximately 2700 British, 946 Canadians, and 6603 Americans. However recent painstaking research by the US National D-Day Memorial Foundation has achieved a more accurate - and much higher - figure for the Allied personnel who were killed on D-Day. They have recorded the names of individual Allied personnel killed on 6 June 1944 in Operation Overlord, and so far they have verified 2499 American D-Day fatalities and 1915 from the other Allied nations, a total of 4414 dead (much higher than the traditional figure of 2500 dead). Further research may mean that these numbers will increase slightly in future. The details of this research will in due course be available on the Foundation's website at www.dday.org. This new research means that the casualty figures given for individual units in the next few paragraphs are no doubt inaccurate, and hopefully more accurate figures will one day be calculated. Casualties on the British beaches were roughly 1000 on Gold Beach and the same number on Sword Beach. The remainder of the British losses were amongst the airborne troops: some 600 were killed or wounded, and 600 more were missing; 100 glider pilots also became casualties. The losses of 3rd Canadian Division at Juno Beach have been given as 340 killed, 574 wounded and 47 taken prisoner. The breakdown of US casualties was 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured. Of the total US figure, 2499 casualties were from the US airborne troops (238 of them being deaths). The casualties at Utah Beach were relatively light: 197, including 60 missing. However, the US 1st and 29th Divisions together suffered around 2000 casualties at Omaha Beach. The total German casualties on D-Day are not known, but are estimated as being between 4000 and 9000 men. Naval losses for June 1944 included 24 warships and 35 merchantmen or auxiliaries sunk, and a further 120 vessels damaged. 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. Of the Allied casualties, 83,045 were from 21st Army Group (British, Canadian and Polish ground forces), 125,847 from the US ground forces. The losses of the German forces during the Battle of Normandy can only be estimated. Roughly 200,000 German troops were killed or wounded. The Allies also captured 200,000 prisoners of war (not included in the 425,000 total, above). During the fighting around the Falaise Pocket (August 1944) alone, the Germans suffered losses of around 90,000, including prisoners. Today, twenty-seven war cemeteries hold the remains of over 110,000 dead from both sides: 77,866 German, 9386 American, 17,769 British, 5002 Canadian and 650 Poles. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed, mainly as a result of Allied bombing. Thousands more fled their homes to escape the fighting.

D-day was June 6, 1944, and is the day when 150,000 allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France to fight the Nazi Germans. This was the beginning of the American campaign against the Germans in WWII.

Anno Domini (year of the Christian era)

Yes, the "D" in "colonial days" should be capitalized only if it is at the beginning of a sentence or part of a proper noun (e.g., Colonial Days Festival).

bridge

it was the beginning of the Allied attact on the mainland Europe. i hope ths answeres your question.

The D-Day landings took place on the Normandy beaches with immediate objectives of several small towns just off the beach. Then there were several larger towns further in-land and some larger cities that had to be captured within the first 2 weeks. So there were many. St. Mere Eglise Collieville Sur Mere Aeromanche Caraten Caen Cherebourg

It was cloudy and with light showers It was cloudy and with light showers

Deception? Answer The air force did bomb the beaches. However, their accuracy was off and most of the bombs did not strike the beach defenses. The infantry that arrived at the beach not only faced the defenders, but the obstacles, too. And the bomb craters would have provided cover for them to move off the beach.

The number of fortifications.

the battle of Omaha started at exactly 11:54:9

US General and Supreme Commander of Allied forces on the Western front, Dwight David EISENHOWER.

The beaches were code named Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword and Utah

Rough Channel seas and a tide that rises and falls twenty ft meant that equipment put down on the flat Normandy beaches would be swamped by the tide before it could all be moved onto dry land. And the idea of starting off the invasion by capturing one of the heavily defended French ports was out of the question, it would take too long. The story goes that one of the officers involved in the planning, remarked casually to one of his colleagues, not intending to be taken seriously, "Well, I suppose we'll have to take our harbours with us." This remark started the experts on a train of thought that ended at the point where the ramps of the prefabricated ports touched the Normandy shore. On D-Day a huge fleet of several nationalities, besides British and American, began to tow the ports across the English Channel to pre-arranged sites on the French shore, escorted by the British Navy. On arrival, American Seabees, British Sailors and British Army Engineers assembled them.

20,000 British workers were assigned to building the parts at various points in England. (865,000 tons of reinforced concrete had to be cast in six months)

In the first 109 days of the invasion the Allies put ashore 2,500,000 troops, more than half a million vehicles, and 17,000,000 ship tons of munitions, weapons and supplies - a task that could not possibly have been achieved without the portable harbours.

The countries that fought in D-Day were Allied Forces eg US, Britain,France and

their enemy Germany.

6.30 AM on Tuesday 6th June, 1944

The Canadians were the first allied forces to take a beach on dday and had moved further inland then any other force and Juno Beach was one of the most heavily defended beaches as well.

Returned from Zon cemetery in Holland (KIA 9/22/44), at request of family. Buried in Arlington Cemetery.

Absolutely.

If the Allies failed to suceed at Normandy, they would have not only lost an enourmous amount of men and resources, but would have been open to a large scale attack from the Nazis. If D-Day was not sucessful, it could have doomed the Allies' chances of winning World War 2.