First wave at Omaha Beach, D Day

[Hitch]

10 days past the 70th anniversary of the invasion, reading this story about the first wave of the invasion, takes you back to that day. This is an old account, written in 1960, and is 3 pages so takes a little bit of time.

The history books don't really tell exactly how bad it was landing on that beach, but this does....

UNLIKE what happens to other great battles, the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.

This fluke of history is doubly ironic since no other decisive battle has ever been so thoroughly reported for the official record. While the troops were still fighting in Normandy, what had happened to each unit in the landing had become known through the eyewitness testimony of all survivors. It was this research by the field historians which first determined where each company had hit the beach and by what route it had moved inland. Owing to the fact that every unit save one had been mislanded, it took this work to show the troops where they had fought.

Read more...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/first-wave-at-omaha-beach/303365/

[Dogman]

Many died or were wounded, just dumb luck that the ones that were not hurt that day but many of the original troops that did survive that day later bought it or were wounded during the march to Germany!

Not many units had many of the original members that hit the beach by the end of the war.

One German machine gunner was credited with over 1000 killed or wounded at Omaha beach.

Too many on the other side called him

"The Beast of Omaha"!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Severloh

[SWRichmond]

D Day casualties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings
At least 10,000 casualties; 4,414 confirmed dead[b]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Front_%28World_War_II%29#cite_note-7
Allied combined Western Theater casualties 1944-1945: "the Western Allies incurred 783,860 casualties"


Battle of Smolensk, 10 July 1941 - 10 September 1941: http://www.desertwar.net/battle-of-smolensk-1941.html
In the Smolensk operation lost the Red Army on 10 July to 10 September 1941 760.000 men (including about 486,000 dead, 274,000 wounded and missing and prisoners).

Battle of Kursk: 5 July 1943 – 16 July 1943 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk
German casualties: 198,000 MIA, KIA, WIA
Soviet casualties: 254,470 killed, missing or captured, 608,833 wounded or sick

[Horn]

I was under the impression that American units were only used as cover cannon fodder to the glory of the greater queen's brigade of english canadians in most of the western european theatre.

[Stop Making Cents]

They made the world safe for communism. Hope it was worth it.

[Dogman]

Can think of 41 better ways that was and is better than what was going on, in the world at the time! And still better!

Some do not remember you!

;)

[Ponce]

And now we have "The Beast Of Obama", how many world wide will die because of him?

V