D-Day

[Bellend Sebastian]

Anyone who's interested enough to read a detailed book on the subject should give this a go:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Overlord-Battle-Normandy-Military-Classics/dp/0330513621/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307534556&sr=8-1

As always with Max Hastings, it's ridiculously thorough and the level of detail may put some off, but I find the minutiae fascinating.

I don't intend to demean the efforts of our fighting men, but accounts like this tend to present a more balanced view of proceedings, and the thing I took from it was that we only really won the battle for Normandy and those that followed because of the Allies' vast superiority in terms of numbers of men and materiel. When facing the germans on anything like equal terms we'd usually come off second best, which when you were raised on a diet of Victor and Warlord annuals like what I was, is a bit tricky to digest. In the context of D-Day, maybe it's not that surprising that motivation was a bit lacking on the part of our boys - when the powers that be are telling you that Jerry is on the run and we'll all be in Berlin by Christmas, you're not going to be rushing to put yourself in harm's way when the end of the fighting is in sight. Well, I wouldn't be anyway

[acooling08]

Anyone who's interested enough to read a detailed book on the subject should give this a go:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Overlord-Battle-Normandy-Military-Classics/dp/0330513621/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307534556&sr=8-1

As always with Max Hastings, it's ridiculously thorough and the level of detail may put some off, but I find the minutiae fascinating.

I don't intend to demean the efforts of our fighting men, but accounts like this tend to present a more balanced view of proceedings, and the thing I took from it was that we only really won the battle for Normandy and those that followed because of the Allies' vast superiority in terms of numbers of men and materiel. When facing the germans on anything like equal terms we'd usually come off second best, which when you were raised on a diet of Victor and Warlord annuals like what I was, is a bit tricky to digest. In the context of D-Day, maybe it's not that surprising that motivation was a bit lacking on the part of our boys - when the powers that be are telling you that Jerry is on the run and we'll all be in Berlin by Christmas, you're not going to be rushing to put yourself in harm's way when the end of the fighting is in sight. Well, I wouldn't be anyway

I think the side charging heavy fortifications is always going to lose a lot more men than the side heavily dug into a defensive position

[BlueSi13]

Far braver men than we could possibly contemplate. God bless them all. Could you possibly imagine what must have been going through the minds of the brave American, British and Canadian soldiers as they boarded their ships or were airdropped into France. Hopefully the world will never need to find out again.

[Bellend Sebastian]

I think the side charging heavy fortifications is always going to lose a lot more men than the side heavily dug into a defensive position

You seem like a leader of men, you'll go far.

On D-Day itself the overall casualties on both sides weren't that different, but if you look at the casualties for the Battle for Normandy as a whole, German losses were far greater than the Allied ones.

We've all seen Saving Private Ryan, but let's not forget that while all that was going on, the British and US Navies are pounding the crap out of miles of Normandy coastline and a fair way in land, as well as the air forces, who had pretty much total air superiority by then, shooting up nearly everything that moved. It's amazing the Germans could resist at all, but the simple fact is there was a far greater proportion of their land forces that had battle experience than the Allies, which evened things up a lot.

I've been a war bore for about thirty years now, so apologies for that

[The Year Of The Fox]

But the naval and air bombings did little to no damage on the fortifications

[blueoveru]

extremely glad I was only 7 at the time, heard enough horror stories from Uncles involved, two in europe, and one who was in Burma.

Had my fill in Cyprus........ guaranteed to put anyone off violence for life

[Bellend Sebastian]

But the naval and air bombings did little to no damage on the fortifications

Well that's true, but Normandy is a big old area that was full of Germans at the time, and they weren't all at the beach - relatively few of them were, in fact.

I'm probably not helping this as I'm expanding the conversation beyond those first few hours which are what people, quite rightly, tend to focus on as they were particularly harrowing for those concerned. D-Day is only the start of a massive battle that went on for many weeks that took place in varied terrain, and indeed on D-Day itself Allied forces managed to get a few miles inland in some places.

Anyway, read that book it's really good. I haven't read Antony Beevor's book on D-Day, but apparently it's not that great

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

Don't remember much about my Dad,, but I was told he was a stretcher bearer there, and got hit in the right side of his chest. He survived that particular mishap.

[Narborough_fox]

My mums best freinds dad was involved in this and lost 4 toes becauese of how long they sttod in the water for waiting to get onto the boats to cross to France, also got shot in the hand. Really upsetting to know the amount of lives lost but every single one of them is a hero dead or alive, they proteced our country and are true heroes.

RIP to all those who gave there life for us. Lest we forget.