1 Attachment(s)
D Day 74 years ago today.......
Found this on another site. Interesting reading.
Attachment 93884
AZB
Reading The Headline.. June 6 1944
Powerful Assailants of Europe Get Firm Grip on Beachheads
Thousands of Airborne Troops Flank West Wall-4000 Naval Ships in Armada-LeHarve is Objective
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, Allied Expeditionary Force (AP)-Allied forces landed in the Normandy area of Northwest France today and have thrust several miles inland against unexpectedly slight German opposition and with losses much smaller than had been anticipated.
The grand assault-scheduled for yesterday but postponed until today because of bad weather-found the highly vaunted German defenses much less formidable in every department than had been feared.
After reading this, my thoughts lead me to wonder:
Just How Many Casualties Had Been Expected ?
I found these numbers with a quick search that used The D-Day Museum as their source.
Very hard to imagine........ Worse was Expected.
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.
Thx AZB for posting that