One of those days where its just nice to stop and give your thanks to the brave souls who embarked on the Invasion of Normandy 73 years ago. Going through my Grandpa's stuff from my moms place and found out he retired at the rank of Lt.Col in the Canadian Paratroopers. He was injured and pulled off duty from the Dept of Defense on the 9th of August 1945
Quote:
Justin Trudeau@JustinTrudeau
June 6, 1944. We will always remember and honour the bravery and sacrifice of the Canadians who fought to liberate Europe. #DDay
Probably will load up Band Of Brothers tonight and rewatch the series.
Last edited by Otto-matic; 06-06-2018 at 07:47 AM.
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Years ago, I did a historical war tour through Normandy, rest of France, Belgium and into Berlin - following the Allied attack path. The tour visited some of the sites of the Band of Brothers series including "first battle" at Brecourt Manor.
Was really sobering and neat to see all those sites and cemeteries in person. Spent a lot of time just standing on Juno and Omaha beach.
People and buildings still fly the Canadian flag in Normandy. People were super friendly and even more so when they found out you were Canadian.
EDIT: Huh, the original historical war tour company that I went with a decade ago has apparently merged with "Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours". Looks like they do a Band of Brothers Tour now as well:
Years ago, I did a historical war tour through Normandy, rest of France, Belgium and into Berlin - following the Allied attack path. The tour visited some of the sites of the Band of Brothers series including "first battle" at Brecourt Manor.
Was really sobering and neat to see all those sites and cemeteries in person. Spent a lot of time just standing on Juno and Omaha beach.
People and buildings still fly the Canadian flag in Normandy. People were super friendly and even more so when they found out you were Canadian.
EDIT: Huh, the original historical war tour company that I went with a decade ago has apparently merged with "Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours". Looks like they do a Band of Brothers Tour now as well:
That tour looks awesome. Two years ago we toured Normandy with a personal guide but I'd love to take this one following the Band of Brothers route, adventures (word isn't intended to diminish what they endured) and battles.
Getty Images
General Dwight D. Eisenhower sounded confident before the Normandy Invasion. “This operation is planned as a victory, and that’s the way it’s going to be. We’re going down there, and we’re throwing everything we have into it, and we’re going to make it a success,” he said.
Operation Overlord was a massive campaign—an invasion of 4,000 ships, 11,000 planes, and nearly three million men—that was launched on June 6, 1944. Despite a year of strategizing and a boatload of confidence, Eisenhower had a quiet plan in case his mission failed. If the armada couldn’t cross the English Channel, he’d order a full retreat. One day before the invasion, he prepared a brief statement just in case: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
Logically everything says that this invasion should have failed. Storming beaches, especially in this scale required nearly everything to go right, even with the success of diversionary tactics such as the inflatable army (operation Fortitude), there were still a lot of things that went incredibly wrong such as targeting and air support.
As well the Germans were incredibly well dug in, their fortifications and firing positions should have allowed the German's to hold the beaches long enough for re-enforcement.
However the question of what saved the day could be summed up with the simple statement of Hitler's sleeping habits.
Hitler liked to stay up late and watch movies and then sleep in later. Because of this and the amount of fear for waking up the Fuhrer with bad news.
When we watch old war movies, we always see this incredibly competent German War machine with spies everywhere. But the truth of the matter is that German Intelligence and especially Abwehr were fairly incompetent and compromised by the fear of giving Hitler bad news, so they were completely fooled and because of that the high command believed that the Normandy Invansion was a distraction from the real invasion at Pas De Calais. So even though Rommel was screaming for permission to move his re-enforcements of
three Panzer divisions, with another 6 that could be bought in over time. But because nobody believed that this was the real invasion, and nobody wanted to wake Hitler up with the bad news that they were wrong about the real axis of attack, those formations weren't moved until it was too late.
the Allies were able to wear down the German beach positions at murderous cost and a foothold was establish.
the question remains, what would have happened if Rommel had been allowed to enforce Normandy with 9 Panzer divsion? The allies might have gotten off of the beach, but they would have run into an absolutely fierce counter attack before the could establish a full army in the field with logistical backing.
However there was another problem that worried Rommel. the Luftwaffe and German Navy were pretty much non entities at the time. The Navy wasn't really a factor in the Second World war with the exception of the Submarine force. The Luftwaffe had been withdrawn from the Normandy area had basically been withdrawn to protect Berlin. "For want of a nail".
Two major mistakes compounded by a bunch of little mistakes lead to the German defeat on D-Day.
Interesting look at how close D-Day came to failure
Just as an add on a Heavy Panzer division usually at full strength had on average 300 tanks, they were usually made up of at least 1 heavy tank Regiment, two Panzer Grenadier regiments, a artillary regiment and anti-aircraft regiment. A headquarters group, at least one scout group of armored cars and light tanks. and several other mixed units.
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It certainly was a humbling experience to stand on Juno Beach and imagine that day. That house that still stands today, incredible! I loved seeing those areas of Europe that were so integral to the war and the Canadian Army.
Without Rommel the invasion probably would have been a lot easier. Since Hitler and most of the German high command were convinced the attack was going to happen in the Pas-de-Calais he's the real reason why the Germans were as dug in as they were. The German army was essentially on vacation until he got there and forced them to build defenses. I recall that his order to put tank traps and obstacles in both high and low tide positions actually caused the Allies to change the time of their attack.
I've spent a lot of time studying the Second World War but actually seeing the beach with my own eyes was a sobering experience. It's pretty crazy to think about what these men were up against when they landed on those beaches. Years ago a friend and I walked from Sword beach all the way to the end of Juno and it was really amazing seeing all the Canadian flags and inukshuks.
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The Canadians in a way were more fortunate then the Brits and the Americans, the defenses around Juno weren't quite as formidable, and if not for Hitler's movie fetish and desire to sleep in late it would have been a much more devastating invasion as Rommel would have gotten his re-enforcement.
A lot of people tend to forget that this was a all hands on deck invasion by Canada, besides the 14,000 Canadian Soldiers that hit the beach, they were supported by 110 warships crewed by 10,000 Canadians, we also supplied a squadron of fighters, and a squadron of fighter bombers,
The German Forces were fairly formidable, but the Canadians also had to get past the German 21st Panzer Division which had been part of Rommel's Afrika corps and were battle hardened and diehards.
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Article has a map of Canada and shows where our D-day dead came from.
Pretty cool
That is a cool map. What immediately stands out to me is the relatively large number of casualties from the Maritimes and from Saskatchewan/Manitoba. Relatively few from Alberta and BC comparatively. I suppose that is a function of which units were involved in the invasion and where they drew their numbers from.
June 6 1944
