D-day History
I am super bored at the moment, and have nothing to do except write about this book I have finished called <i>D-Day</i> by Steohen Ambrose, the same dude who wrote Band of Brothers. I have to say, this was a shocker. I never knew what <i>really</i> happend there. I watched the History channel special, but it never gave so much detail like this.
The entire time Ambrose talks about a few points..one of them many of the Generals of WW2 on both sides agree
on.
<i>D-Day was a complete and utter military disaster for both sides, filled with so many mistakes it took up 5 pages of the book to mention. </i>
American Mistakes
#1. Pilots of the Higgans crafts, and other landing crafts made a horrible miscalculation on the landings. There was a giant left pull current close to the sandbar on the American landing beaches, which put 99% of the boats off course, and left the soldiers utterly confused to where they were. NONE of it looked like the diagrams of where they landed. Some boats landed 4-5 miles off thier landing spots!
#2. American and British bombers failed to do the job they were assighned the night before. They got lost in the clouds, just decided to screw it, and unloaded all bombs. Not one single bomb hit the beaches, nor the sea walls, nor 5 miles behinde the german defences, they missed completly. One soldier said this when he got to the top and saw german machine gun nests in the bushes. "I thought all of this was supposed to be whiped out, I didnt see one dam bomb crater anywhere, not one!"
#3. American and British naval bombardment. Missed. Completly. The entire top of the beaches at Utah and Omaha were blanked out by smoke. (they make up for this later)
#4 This wasnt more of a mistake, but a horrible accident. A-Company, the command company to be exact, was completly whiped out. The first boat to hit the beaches was carrying most of the command structure. It was hit dead on from an 88. Soldiers who landed were leaderless and had to come up with this very used saying during the time. "If im going to die, its not going to be down here, its going to be at that shingle, so I better run."
German mistakes
#1. Not real german soldiers. Most of the front line-in the bunker- soldiers were not even German!! Most of them were Volksdeutsche (racial germans, or Poles that had to "volunter", Freiwilligen (volunteers) Most of these were western anti-soviets who wanted to fight Stalin. Hilfswilligen(auziliaries) made up most of the fighting force on D-day. These were conscripted captured Red-Army Russians, Italians, Poles, Finlanders, Latvias, Croatians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Romanians, and even Asian soldiers, and even Indians! These forces were called the Ost (east) battalions. Real Germans had the habit for fighting for every inch of ground. Most of the conscripted soldiers gave up when American forces got close, or turned on the German officer who had a pistol held on thier backs, and shot him and gave up.
#2. Hitlers orders
Seems funny eh? Two orders from Hitler could have turned the entire D-Day invasion back into the sea, but he made the wrong ones. His first was to deny Rommel's request for backup. The second was to decide to commence V-1 bombing of Britan. If he had acctually been smart, he would have turned them on the beaches on July 16th when the allies were unloading supply's and reinforcments onto the beachhead docks. Mistake. The Generals for the allies didnt give one order.
Good stuff that happend for the Allies
Later on, some cruser commander was trying to get a good lock on a target on the hilltop of Omaha. He couldnt get a good look, it was blocked by to much smoke. He then looked down on the beach where he saw a medic shot by a sniper. "Dam it to hell!!" He said. He went so close to the sandbar, he almost beached his cruser. He then looked at the soldiers at the beach. When a soldier fired his weapon at a bunker, he knew it had enemy's in it, and the 5' cannons roared away. A brittish battle ship did the same thing. A sherman on the ground fired at a bunker. The battleship fired at the same one, and blew the entire thing off the hillside. The sherman gunner popped the hatch, waved to the battleship, went back down and commenced fire. This is how the allies communicated to naval gunnery. (All of the radios were gone, sunk or blown to bits, the germans made a point of shooting at every radio man exstensivly, more than 40 rounds were found in one radioman)
The Rangers
The US Ranger 5th battalion was the only battalion that completed its entire mission that day. Thats because its commanders were not whiped out. The rangers blew the shingle, climbed the hill, and stopped some bunkers from firing by throwing grenades in.
Movies do this day no justice. In SPR, you see soldiers automatically running up the beach, getting to the shingle, and blowing it. They were rangers yes, but the other battalions just walked up the beach, exausted, many without a weapon, and laid down on the shingle, tired and shell-shocked. If the germans had acctually been trying that day, we would have lost.
I honor the men who sacrificed thier lives on D-Day, they had unmeasurable courage to stand and fight. In one medics word "Every man who set foot on that beach, no...every man who participated in it, seaman, army, or airforce, deserve a medal. Every man who set foot on that beach deserves a purple heart, no matter if they dont even have an injury, the mental stress is horrid. They were all heros"
The entire time Ambrose talks about a few points..one of them many of the Generals of WW2 on both sides agree
on.
<i>D-Day was a complete and utter military disaster for both sides, filled with so many mistakes it took up 5 pages of the book to mention. </i>
American Mistakes
#1. Pilots of the Higgans crafts, and other landing crafts made a horrible miscalculation on the landings. There was a giant left pull current close to the sandbar on the American landing beaches, which put 99% of the boats off course, and left the soldiers utterly confused to where they were. NONE of it looked like the diagrams of where they landed. Some boats landed 4-5 miles off thier landing spots!
#2. American and British bombers failed to do the job they were assighned the night before. They got lost in the clouds, just decided to screw it, and unloaded all bombs. Not one single bomb hit the beaches, nor the sea walls, nor 5 miles behinde the german defences, they missed completly. One soldier said this when he got to the top and saw german machine gun nests in the bushes. "I thought all of this was supposed to be whiped out, I didnt see one dam bomb crater anywhere, not one!"
#3. American and British naval bombardment. Missed. Completly. The entire top of the beaches at Utah and Omaha were blanked out by smoke. (they make up for this later)
#4 This wasnt more of a mistake, but a horrible accident. A-Company, the command company to be exact, was completly whiped out. The first boat to hit the beaches was carrying most of the command structure. It was hit dead on from an 88. Soldiers who landed were leaderless and had to come up with this very used saying during the time. "If im going to die, its not going to be down here, its going to be at that shingle, so I better run."
German mistakes
#1. Not real german soldiers. Most of the front line-in the bunker- soldiers were not even German!! Most of them were Volksdeutsche (racial germans, or Poles that had to "volunter", Freiwilligen (volunteers) Most of these were western anti-soviets who wanted to fight Stalin. Hilfswilligen(auziliaries) made up most of the fighting force on D-day. These were conscripted captured Red-Army Russians, Italians, Poles, Finlanders, Latvias, Croatians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Romanians, and even Asian soldiers, and even Indians! These forces were called the Ost (east) battalions. Real Germans had the habit for fighting for every inch of ground. Most of the conscripted soldiers gave up when American forces got close, or turned on the German officer who had a pistol held on thier backs, and shot him and gave up.
#2. Hitlers orders
Seems funny eh? Two orders from Hitler could have turned the entire D-Day invasion back into the sea, but he made the wrong ones. His first was to deny Rommel's request for backup. The second was to decide to commence V-1 bombing of Britan. If he had acctually been smart, he would have turned them on the beaches on July 16th when the allies were unloading supply's and reinforcments onto the beachhead docks. Mistake. The Generals for the allies didnt give one order.
Good stuff that happend for the Allies
Later on, some cruser commander was trying to get a good lock on a target on the hilltop of Omaha. He couldnt get a good look, it was blocked by to much smoke. He then looked down on the beach where he saw a medic shot by a sniper. "Dam it to hell!!" He said. He went so close to the sandbar, he almost beached his cruser. He then looked at the soldiers at the beach. When a soldier fired his weapon at a bunker, he knew it had enemy's in it, and the 5' cannons roared away. A brittish battle ship did the same thing. A sherman on the ground fired at a bunker. The battleship fired at the same one, and blew the entire thing off the hillside. The sherman gunner popped the hatch, waved to the battleship, went back down and commenced fire. This is how the allies communicated to naval gunnery. (All of the radios were gone, sunk or blown to bits, the germans made a point of shooting at every radio man exstensivly, more than 40 rounds were found in one radioman)
The Rangers
The US Ranger 5th battalion was the only battalion that completed its entire mission that day. Thats because its commanders were not whiped out. The rangers blew the shingle, climbed the hill, and stopped some bunkers from firing by throwing grenades in.
Movies do this day no justice. In SPR, you see soldiers automatically running up the beach, getting to the shingle, and blowing it. They were rangers yes, but the other battalions just walked up the beach, exausted, many without a weapon, and laid down on the shingle, tired and shell-shocked. If the germans had acctually been trying that day, we would have lost.
I honor the men who sacrificed thier lives on D-Day, they had unmeasurable courage to stand and fight. In one medics word "Every man who set foot on that beach, no...every man who participated in it, seaman, army, or airforce, deserve a medal. Every man who set foot on that beach deserves a purple heart, no matter if they dont even have an injury, the mental stress is horrid. They were all heros"
Comments
I'll have to keep that one in mind the next time I stop by the bookstore to unload a lot of my hard-earned money for a huge stack of books (<i>something I tend to do once every 3 months or so</i>).
That's Hollywood for you.
OMG i love that movie!!
and so much better then SPR, and that is saying a lot!
plus john wayne is cool <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Very Very strange but true WW2 story.
When the Japanese invaded parts of china and Korea, 6 Korean soldiers were captured and consripted into the japanese Army.
Later these 6 were sent to fight against the Russians. They surrendered and ended up getting conscripted into the Soviet army.
Later when the Germans invaded Russia and Stalin needed people over to that front real fast the unit with the koreans were sent over to fight against the Germans.
Once again they were captured and then conscripted into the German army and sent over into Europe for the easy non important duty of guarding the "impregnable" Atlantic Wall.
Soon there after D-Day comes and the 6 Asian soldiers who had "fought" with the Korean, Japanese, Soviet, and German armies were finaly for the last time captured by US soldiers on June 6th. The Americans had no Korean translators and non ofthe koreans knew english,german, russian japanese either.
It must have been a site.
john wayne <i>is</i> cool. <i>the longest day</i> is <i>the greatest movie.</i>
but yeah, thanks for posting that.. anything interesting like that i can just gobble up. it's tasty.
facts bout ww2, that is.
trying to remember the weirdest one.. i know this one...
Remember the Battle over Britian and the German Air raids over London? All those British anti aircraft flak pieces and bullets.
Well what goes up must come down. And all those falling bullets and pieces of steel killed a HUGE amount of British civilians, maybe more then German Planes. It goes into all sorts of stuff like that.
How the Japanese were going to be the first army to use helocopters and gyro planes for anti sub warfare, but the special carrier was sunk off the coast of Australia on its way to the open Pacific to take out the US subs. The Germans had given many of their plans on jet plane and wire guided missile technology to their allies the Japanese. The Japs had a secret research base on a mountain top filled with prototypes. bla bla bla, a very good set of books.