D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

17

Most British armoured regiments spread their precious Firefly tanks around, usually allocating one to each troop.

18

21st Army Group headquarters had predicted 9,250 casualties out of the 70,000 soldiers landing on the first day. Some 3,000 of these — sailors, paratroopers landing in flooded areas and crews of DD tanks — were expected to suffer death by drowning. In the event, casualty figures are very hard to define for D-Day itself, since most formations’ figures accounted for a longer period, never less than 6 to 10 June. In the confusion of the time, the high figure of missing had to be constantly recalculated, with some proved killed, some to have joined up with other units, some unaccounted wounded taken back to England, and others later found to have been taken prisoner. In very rough terms, British and Canadian casualties for D-Day itself were around 3,000 killed, missing and wounded. American losses were much higher because of Omaha and the two Airborne Divisions. General Bradley gave a figure of 4,649 US seaborne casualties, but this appears on the high side when compared with divisional returns. The only accurate figures one can give are those from 6 to 20 June inclusive. American First Army losses came to 24,162 (of whom 3,082 were killed, 13,121 wounded and 7,959 missing). British casualties over the same period totalled 13,572 (of whom 1,842 were killed, 8,599 wounded and 3,131 missing). Canadian casualties for the same period amounted to 2,815 (of whom 363 were killed, 1,359 wounded and 1,093 missing).

19

Patton felt that the sacking of commanders was becoming excessive. ‘Collins and Bradley are too prone to cut off heads,’ he wrote. ‘This will make division commanders lose their confidence. A man should not be damned for an initial failure with a new division.’

20

This was probably at Taganrog in southern Russia. At the beginning of 1942, the division also murdered 4,000 Soviet prisoners.

21

The commander of Panzer Lehr’s repair and maintenance company later wrote that the figure of eighty-four half-tracks lost applied to the whole month of June.

22

Churchill evidently could not deal with the twenty-four-hour clock or just hated it, so ‘C’, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, used to cross out each timing and insert the more familiar twelve-hour version with a.m. or p.m.

23

Montgomery’s ‘Forecast of Operations’ had predicted that the British Second Army would be five miles south-east of Caen by 14 June.

24

In fact the four men were Colonel de Chevigne (appointed regional military delegate), Commandant de Courcel (de Gaulle’s personal aide since 1940), Monsieur Francois Coulet, whom de Gaulle had appointed the night before to be the Commissaire de la Republique for the region, and Commandant Laroque, who would be his chief of staff.

25

In stark contrast, part of the American press, incited by the White House, was saying that while American boys were dying for the liberation of France, de Gaulle was playing politics to gain power for himself.

26

For an excellent Ministry of Defence study of the question see David Rowland, The Stress of Battle, London, 2006, pp. 48-56. The best-known work on the subject, Men Under Fire, was written after the war by the American combat historian Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall. Although Marshall’s use of his source material has been challenged, notably by Professor Roger Spiller in the RUSI Journal, (Winter, 1988), his overall picture is undoubtedly accurate.

27

He was, of course, referring to the prominent black and white stripes painted round the fuselage and wings of all Allied aircraft to prevent exactly this from happening.

28

Even after Cherbourg had been captured and made operational, the Americans managed to land much more