D-Day

On this day:
1644
The Qing Dynasty Manchu forces led by the Shunzhi Emperor capture Beijing during the collapse of the Ming Dynasty. The Manchus would rule China until 1912 when the Republic of China is established.
1822
Alexis St. Martin accidentally shot in the stomach, which leads way to William Beaumont’s studies on digestion
1832
The June Rebellion of Paris is put down by the National Guard.
2002
Eastern Mediterranean Event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 meters diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

***

Australian Dream is an arthritis pain medication advertising on TV. Every single frame in the ad has an American flag in it.

***

Tokyo-based ispace moon lander Resilience likely made a hard landing again It carried a Luxembourg-made rover and a Taiwan payload.
Japanese firms may start seeking foreign options for lunar research

***

A Transportation Security Administration agent is accused of stealing cash from a traveler’s wallet Wednesday at Pittsburgh International Airport, according to police.

***

This is Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. arguing, in a letter written about 80 years ago, at age 57, and with unstable angina, that he should be on the first wave at Utah Beach on D-Day.

"The force and skill with which the first elements hit the beach and proceed may determine the ultimate success of the operation.... With troops engaged for the first time, the behavior pattern of all is apt to be set by those first engagements. [It is] considered that accurate information of the existing situation should be available for each succeeding element as it lands. You should have when you get to shore an overall picture in which you can place confidence. I believe I can contribute materially on all of the above by going in with the assault companies. Furthermore I personally know both officers and men of these advance units and believe that it will steady them to know that I am with them."
He died of a heart attack shortly after D-Day, and is buried at the Normandy Cemetery ( Colleville ) above Omaha Beach.
I believe Patton said that he was the bravest man he ever knew

***


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.

A European beachhead, a new military front, a perception of vulnerability. Normandy changed the War.

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 July 1 to November 18. The estimate of British deaths on the first day of the battle, THE FIRST DAY, was 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 4 1/2 months, over 1,000,000 men threw themselves into the gears of Europe's Perpetual War Machine.

The Machine's supervisors are back in Ukraine.

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