Wednesday, June 4, 2014

D-Day June 6th, 1944

It’s impossible to say how many died on D-Day, estimates say between 2,500 to more than 5,000 allied dead and 6,036 American casualties including wounded and missing. The Heritage Foundation in Washington estimates 4,900 dead. It’s hard to wrap your mind around that many dying and even to this day they still find the occasional body but consider the whole picture.

19,000 civilians died in Normandy before and after D-Day to soften up German defenses, Allied air forces lost nearly 12,000 men in April and May 1944 in operations ahead of the invasion. 160,000 men invaded Nazi occupied France in the first wave, the invasion fleet had more than 5,000 ships and landing craft. Winston Churchill said to his wife he was afraid more than 20,000 would be dead by the time they woke up.

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 has the remains of 9,383 servicemen and four women.

War has a terrible cost, the cost of not fighting one can be far worse.

Check out the US Army’s webpage for D-Day http://www.army.mil/d-day/ 

US Army slideshow - http://www.army.mil/d-day/slideshow.html 

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American reinforcements, arrive on the beaches of Normandy from a Coast Guard landing barge into the surf on the French coast on June 23, 1944. They will reinforce fighting units that secured the Norman beachhead and spread north toward Cherbourg.

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2 comments:

Life with Lynnie said...

Erik, Thank you for posting about D-Day! This is important to me, as well. My dad was in the Canadian Army, and during the Normandy Invasion was in France, landing at Courseulles-sur-Mer where Juno Beach is located, just up the road from where the Americans landed. He and others made their way up into Belgium. Without his efforts and the efforts of all who fought for freedome, we would not have the freedome we enjoy, today. Blessings... Lynn (your fellow blogger)

Erik's RV Blog said...

Lynnie,

Juno beach wasn't far from Omaha beach. The Canadians and all of the allies fought bravely and sacrificed so much.

They were the greatest generation, sadly so many of them are gone. They were loved so much and will be missed.