During the break, I decided that I would now focus my Passion blog posts on historical events from World War II, because I found it too hard to find historical events that happened to coincide with the day and that had an abundant amount of info online to support writing on it. Thus, for my continuation from my first passion blog post which was on the Battle of the Bulge, I decided to discuss D Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history. I will also discuss the airborne operation that was also behind D Day’s successful landings.
“Into the Jaws of Death” by photographer Robert F. Sargent. Arguably the most famous photo from the D Day landings.
After being postponed several times, the D Day landings finally took place on 6 June 1944. The landings were the largest in history and it was the invasion that broke through Hitler’s Fortress Europa. The invasion began with airborne and glider troops landing behind the beaches and sabotaging any efforts that might have been used to hamper the landings. The airborne troops were landed to cut off any reinforcement efforts that the Germans made to counterattack the beach landings. About 15,000 paratroops and glider troops were landed behind enemy lines to hamper the German defense effort.
A C-47, the standard workhorse which was used to deploy airborne troops into battle
As much resistance as the airborne units put up, the Germans were still able to bring some reinforcements up to the beaches. Before any of the landings occurred, the Allies launched the largest naval bombardment campaign that has been seen in history. Destroyers and other naval ships of war pounded the beach defenses with their guns. However, as the infantry that land would soon find out, some beach defenses were more sabotaged by the naval fire than others. The Allies also launched a massive bombing campaign against the beach defenses, using mainly fighter bombers to attack the targets.
Once the naval and air bombardment ceased on the beaches, the infantry finally made their landings. There were 5 beaches: Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The Allies split up and covered each of the different beaches. The United States forces were responsible for Omaha and Utah, the United Kingdom’s forces were responsible for Sword and Gold, and finally Canadian forces were responsible for the landings at Juno. The landings at Utah had the lightest casualties, meanwhile Omaha had the heaviest casualties. Out of the British-Canadian forces, Juno, the Canadian landings took the second heaviest casualties out any beach.
Although the Allies would lose 10,000 casualties (dead and wounded) in the single historic day which was and is D Day, the Allies would prove victorious for the day in their valor and force of will in capturing each of the beachheads. These landings would prove the beginning of the end for Hitler’s Nazi Third Reich. From these landings, the Allies would continue to push forward throughout France, into the Low Countries, and eventually even into Germany where the Allied forces would force the unconditional surrender of Germany