1-It would seem that June 6 was referred as ‘D-Day’ – ‘The invasion of western Europe by Allied forces was actually known as ‘Operation Overlord’. Plus, the landings at Normandy which commenced the invasion were called ‘Operation Neptune’.
2-The ‘D’ in ‘D-Day’ doesn’t actually stand for anything meaningful however, it is military speaking for the day an operation is scheduled to begin something!
3-During this war the Allied forces who landed on the beaches of France on D-Day totaled up to more than 156,ooo men. Americans made up about half of the total numbers of troops, fighting alongside forces from Britain, Canada and many other nations.
4-When WW2 Began Some say the war started when Japan invaded Manchuria on September 18, 1931. This fact is very interesting; It seems on the morning of the invasion; Hitler was sound asleep and had left specific instructions that no one should wake him. Because his generals could not call up forces without Hitler’s authorization, this meant there was a delay in the German response. Apparently, this proved to be critical for the eventual success of the invasion at Normandy and Hitler’s undoing in the war ….Hitler believed that invasion was a ruse; to distract his German forces from the real invasion HIS! As he would put it! Hitler, refused to release his nearby armies - Germany officially declared war on just one nation in World War II: The United States of America.
5-The Normandy American Cemetery in France overlooks Omaha Beach and the English Channel. It was created on June 8, 1944, as the first U.S. cemetery in Europe during World War2. More than 9,300+ U.S. Servicemen are buried there.
6-The Man who invented all the flat boats, landing crafts that were used by the U.S. Army were the brains of a businessman from Louisiana. His name ‘Andrew Higgins’. General Eisenhower felt that his inventions for the war were so success in us winning the operation with his 20,ooo of the boats used in the D-Day invasion that he called Higgins ‘The man who won the war for US.’
7-The D-Day invasion was the largest seaborne invasion in war history and the first time since 1688 that an invading army successfully crossed the English Channel too!
8- “The Momentum Shift’ for many reasons permanently shifted the Normandy invasion momentum of World War2. From that point on, the Allies would only advance toward Berlin and the Germans would only retreat.
9-Ghost Armies. Now, I have heard about these myself. Actually, I heard about these from my dad. He told me lots about what has happened in the war and this was a common thing in U.S army being he was in the U.S Army for 2years. What the U.S. Army would do is create several false army camps and fake military equipment to keep the Germans guessing as to where the invasion would actually happen. This fake equipment included camps, trucks, tanks, inflatable men, and even fake airplanes too.
1o-The Germans were expecting an invasion in their country for quite some time. Apparently, Hitler knew a man with buildings, that the Germans called the ‘Atlantic Wall’. These buildings were about 2,400 miles long of military fortifications, including beach & water obstacles, bunkers & machine gun nests, mine fields and much more. The man’s name was Erwin Rommel and this was the tasked Hitler had for Erwin Rommel
11-There were 12-15,000 paratroopers that landed in the French Village of Sainte-Mere-Eglise on the night of June 6. It seems that on that day one American paratrooper got hung up on a church spire and dangled there in his parachute for several hours before being taken prisoner by the Germans. Ever since, the people of the town Sainte-Mere-Eglise have hung a dummy paratrooper from that same church spire.
12.General Eisenhower, the head of the Allied invasion force, caused all men to wait until June 6 to date for invasion…
13-Normandy of World War2 was an incredible amphibious invasion. However, it also included an unprecedented cover and force from the air too! More than 11,000 aircraft flew nearly 15,000 sorties that day to provide cover and protection for the 5,000 ships that landed on the beaches of France. Planes dropped more than 7 million pounds bombs during invasion.
14-The code names for the five beaches where Allied troops landed were Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and Omaha.
15-It would seem that the Allies had continued moving their troops and fighting for a full week. And by the time the invasion was completed, 326,000 troops and 50,000 vehicles had made landfall into Normandy.
16-Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.; son of the President Theodore Roosevelt was the oldest known man and only general to be part of the initial wave of soldiers to land at Normandy…General Roosevelt was 56yrs old at the time and because he carried with him wounds from fighting in World WarI, he stormed the beaches at Normandy with a cane in one hand and a pistol in the other…General Roosevelt survived and led his men to victory, however he would die of a heart attack just one month later sadly after the war. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor; and the General Omar Bradley. Roosevelt had displayed the single most heroic action he’d ever witnessed in combat.
17.The Battle of Normandy had ended at the End of August 1944. And by that time, the Allies had driven the German forces out of the Northwestern France and were advancing into Germany.
18-As far as Planning for D-Day it began nearly a full two years before the invasion itself. It seems that there were a couple of attempts or failed invasions of the French and a few others. The first invasion was the failed one by the French Port of Dieppe on August 1942, Allies leaders began discussing a massive invasion that would give them all a foothold on the European Continent. So at least three major conferences were held in the U.S. and Europe to strategic, interspersed by countless other meetings and planning sessions before the invasion in June 1944.
19-Of course the location of the invasion was perhaps the most carefully guarded secret on the planet. It is said that most of all the soldiers, even the officers that were involved in the invasions were in the dark about the location. And most if not all the soldiers that were aboard the ships; started off without even knowing where they were going…The plan ‘Absolute Secrecy’.
20-The Ultimate Sacrifice According to the U.S. National D-Day Memorial Foundation, It, was a total of 4,413 Allied troops that died during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. Now of these brave soldiers-2,499 were Americans & 1,944 were from the other Allied nations. Omaha Beach witnessed the most casualties, followed by the four beaches-Sword,Juno,Gold and Utah. As for the Germans deaths, no one’s exactly knows, but there is estimates that range anywhere from 4,000 to 9,000 troops lost that day.
21-Did you ever hear of “The Roosevelt’s Prayer?” Well, the day after the invasion, President Roosevelt held the entire nation, on a radio broadcast which led the country in Prayer…These are the words: “Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor…to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true. They will need thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard…but we shall return again and again. We know..our sons will triumph.’ His prayer included these word; "Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor...to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true. They will need thy blessing. Their road will be long and hard...but we shall return again and again. We know...our sons will triumph.'
22-World War2 was the most devastating conflict in the history of mankind. It spread across multiple continents and cost millions of lives.
23-First American That was killed in the War - American serviceman Captain Robert M Losey. He was serving as a Military attache and was killed in Norway on April 21, 1940 when German aircraft bombed the Dombas railway station where he and others were awaiting transportation.
24-First German soldier killed in World War2 was Lieutenant von Schmeling, who was a military advisor to the Nationalist Chinese. He was killed while leading a Chinese infantry Battalion of the 88th Division of Shanghai in 1937.
25-Japan employed multiple types of suicide attacks during the war, including suicide submarines called Kaiten-'The turn toward Heaven'. Approximately 100 of these were used, the most famous of which used in the sinking of the USS Underhill-Flight Accidents.
26-Finnish snipers were some of the deadliest in the World. During the Winter War (November 1939-March 1940), the Soviet Union invaded Finland hoping to gain Finnish territory and create a buffer zone for Leningrad. Because of the inexperience of the Soviet Troops and the incredible effectiveness of Finnish snipers, the USSR lost more than 40 men to every Finn that was killed by a Soviet.
27-In 2005, dive researcher from the University of Hawaii discovered the remains of a massive Japanese submarine-I-401. This behemoth was basically an underwater aircraft carrier and was built to bomb the Panama Canal-it carried three folded up bombers inside its watertight hangar. These huge submarine could sail up to 37,000 miles or one and a half times around the World. Three of these subs were captured at the end of the war. They measured 400 feet long and 39 feet high and could carry a crew of 144 men.
28-According to the AAF Statistical Digest, the U.S. Army Air Forces lost 14,903 pilots and crew...in the United States. These men died as a result of more than 50,000 accidents during the course of the war. Another 1,000 planes disappeared in route from the U.S. to foreign countries.
29-Air losses were so staggering during 1942-43 that it was statistically impossible for bomber crews to complete a 25-mission tour in Europe.
30-American POW's, there were more than 41,000 American servicemen that were captured during the war. Of the 5,400 captured by the Japanese, half of them died. About 10% of those captured by the Germans died.
31-The youngest U.S. serviceman was just 12 years old. His name; Calvin Graham who lied about his age to get into the service & was later wounded at the Battle of Guadaicanal. He was given a Dishonorable discharge for lying about his age, though is benefits were later restored by the act of Congress.
32-793 German U-boats were lost in World War2. Of the nearly 40,000 men onboard those subs, 75% died at sea.
33-More men died in the U.S. Air Corps than the U.S. Marine Corps. It is estimated that while completing your required 30 air missions, your odds of being killed were 71%. Plus 30% of the American troops was even more sobering.
34-It was hindsight that the power grid in Germany was more vulnerable than the Allies realized during the war. Some experts speculated that if the Allied bombers had dropped just 1% of their bombs on the power plants instead of the industrial factories and targets, the whole of Germany's infrastructure would have likely have collapsed.
35-Russian pilots destroyed hundreds of German aircraft by ramming them in midair. A few famous Russian pilots were able to eject after ramming enemy planes and survived to flight in future battles. Germany also began using aerial ramming near the end of the war.
36-Because of its massive number of troop transports, the U.S. Army actually had more ships than the U.S. Navy.
37-When the U.S. Army landed in North Africa, they brought along more than troops and equipment along with them; They also set up three complete Coca-Cola bottling plants to keep troops well supplied.
38-Some of the Germans captured during the invasion of Normandy weren't German at all, they were Korean. These soldiers had been forced to fight for the Japanese army until they were captured by the Russians, who forced them to fight for the Russian army. They were later captured by the Germans and forced to fight as German Troops.
39-The Dachau Concentration Camp first opened in 1933 Six years before the War2 even started. The Dachau Camp system grew to included nearly 100 sub-camps. One wonders originally how big the Dachau Concentration camp truly became if it started 6yrs before the war2. To me it's a frightful thought. Makes me wonder if the amount of Jewish people that were murder was higher than 12million...
40-Poland during World War2 had the highest percentage of death of any nation.
41-An Polish Catholic Midwife 'Stanistawa Leszcaynska delivered 3,000 babies at the Auschwitz Concentration CAmp during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. I wonder when finding this bit of history what happened to this wonderful angle, Stanistawa Leszcaynska who helped all those women in need in the concentration camps, pregnant and scared. I am scared really what happened to all those babies and new moms...
42-In the Soviet Union the Casualties were only 20% however, they were of all males born under the age of 18 years. So if you think about it during the War2 in 1923 they lost most of their youth in the war that was under the age of 18year all their children...to rebuild their nation afterwards.
43-Hiroo Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who officer who fought in World War2, held his postion in the Philippines and refused to surrender until 1974. His former commander traveled from Japan to personally issued orders relieving him from duty.
44-U.S. Troops More than 16,000,000 American troops served in World War2. Of these 405,000 were killed during the War...
45-They were 50 Million+ Dead Total Casualties for World War2 as an estimate between 50 and 70 million. It is said that 80% of the deaths came from just four countries; Russia, China, Germany and Poland.
46-An amazing thing about the war is that people come up with amazing things to use for emergency aid. Like Coconut Juice was used as a substitute for plasma...
47-American soldiers were know as the 'Ghost Army' What they would do is use fake tank and pre-recorded sounds to deceive the Nazis into thinking their army was much larger that it was. The Ghost Army...
48-Adrian Carton de Wiart served in the Boer War - World War1 & the Second World War2. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear; yet he survived two plane crashes; tunneled out of a prisoner of war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them...What a survivor!
49-Holocaust Memorial in Berlin of 12million Jewish people where murder by Hitler. It was a nice thing to do for the millions of Jewish people however there is a silver coating that makes it kinda sad in many way I think...You see the coating that was put on the Memorial to protect it from graffiti is the same chemical that was used in the concentration camps in World war2 that killed 12million of their relatives. I wonder what the relatives of the millions that were murder in the memorial, truly think about the way it was done? I understand why they wanted a type of coating with a anti-graffit in it. but why on earth would they use the same company the used this chemical in the concentration gas chamber during WW2. It just doen't make since?
50-Penicillin was recycled and extracted from the urine of soldiers that already on the antibiotics Penicillin so that they could spread the penicillin as far as they could during the war.
51-Pooli, the Cat was a WW2 Veteran. Pooli earned 3 service Ribbons and 4 Battle Stars Too!
52-Did you know that Nutella was invented during WW2?
53-The U.S. Aid is estimated to have fed 6 million Soviet citizens continually during the war.
54-Britain began the war without rationing only modesty introduced it in January 1940. In contrast, Germany began rationing at the war's onset and struggled to feed its armed forces and the wider population from start to finish. The county's demand for food from occupied territories led to a lot of hunger for a lot of people. British people rarely had to go hungry and although a number of foods were rationed there were many that were not.
55-More than 300,000 Russian soldiers died during the German siege in the city of Leningrad. What that meant for just one city, is a lost of 75% of the number of troops lost for the U.S. during the entire War2
56-The Soviet Stalin dictator had Purged killed more of his own people than Hitler during purges of what he would call the all of the 'Undesirables'. It is estimated that Stalin killed an estimated of 25million people to Hitler's 12 million However it really doesn't make it a contest. It just shows how evil a person can be & how one person can have no soul or no care for human life.
57-U.S. Nurses When the US declared war on Japan in 1941, there were a total of 1,000 nurses in the Army Corps. By the end of the War2 there were more than 60,000 nurse.
Well, Happy Veterans Day my dears, I hope if you have a special Veteran in your live that you do something special for him/her today. I always do a post for my Dad and my Uncle - God rest his soul...and since I don't live near my Dad I have always write my father a special letter too. When I do get to see him in the summer I bake him his favorite Cheese cake the family recipe. Which I did for him last summer and I will do again this coming summer once again. We must Honor all our Veterans for they are the ones that make it so we can live with freedom in this beautiful Nation the U.S. that we all live in...And that goes for all nations around the World. For there are Veterans in every country too. So give a hug to all Veterans all over the World...
