D Day

 

D Day

156,000 Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy by the end of the day, June 6, 1944. Despite their success, some 4,000 Allied troops were killed by German soldiers defending the beaches. At the time, the D-Day invasion was the largest naval, air and land operation in history, and within a few days about 326,000 troops, more than 50,000 vehicles and some 100,000 tons of equipment had landed.

Some perspective. July 1, 1916 was the first day of the Battle of the Somme, fought on the river Somme in France, early in the first world war, from July1 to November 18. The estimate of British deaths the first day of the battle, THE FIRST DAY, were 60,000. Sixty thousand men.

The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme, made at the Chantilly Conference on 15 November 1916, was that the Germans suffered 630,000 casualties, exceeding the 485,000 suffered by the British and French. In 41/2 months.

British, French and German casualties
July–November 1916

Month	British	French	Sub- total	German	(% of Allied total)
July	158,786	49,859	208,645	103,000	49.4
August	58,085	18,806	76,891	68,000	88.4
September	101,313	76,147	177,460	140,000	78.9
October	57,722	37,626	95,348	78,500	82.3
November	39,784	20,129	59,913	45,000	75.0
Total	415,690	202,567	618,257	434,500	70.3