As we all know, the British started planning D-Day the week they were forced off the Continent at Dunkirk. On June 6th, 1944, they landed on five beaches (Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword, and Gold). However, German resistance was crushed at Juno, Sword and Gold. The American units at Utah and Omaha were stuck in their beachhead for much longer because the Germans were more concentrated and better trained there. That day, the German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was going through exercises with some German divisions in Britanny, training them how to react to a naval invasion on those five beaches in Normandy. Rommel tried to use the tanks that Hitler had assigned to reserve, and the British and Canadian forces faced the brunt of the few tanks Rommel had to counter-attack with. They forced back the counter-attack, and linked up with the American forces on June 8th. Eisenhower had planned for them to link up on D-Day, with forces including those tanks that Hitler had put in reserve. But Eisenhower's generals were partially incompetent (not meant to insult any British or American people on this forum, but MacArthur and Montgomery were incompetent, using tactics they had learned in North Africa, which had no holding in Normandy as the land is much rougher). Eisenhower had also planned for the one hundred foot cliffs that dwarfed Omaha and Utah, and for the many thousands of pillboxes, machine-gun nests, and concrete emplacements the Germans had built. Prior to landing, the Allied soldiers in the first wave (most of them Canadian) were literally crapping their pants because they were very, very nervous. The Germans cut some of these men down, but the Canadians who landed at Utah and Omaha (however few of them), practically secured these two beaches, only to have the Americans land right behind them and screw everything up! The Americans could not get their act together, thus allowing the Germans the time they needed to organize a stiff resistance and nearly throw the Americans into the sea. I'm not saying Canadians are better than Americans, just at that time Canada had one of the most intelligent (tactically speaking) armed forces, which made up for our lack of manpower.
Well MacArthur must have been exceptionally incompetent to send his forces to the wrong continent...... :smok:
Firstly most peoples idead about D Day are based on movies and not facts, especially as few are available as the allies kept poor records of beach casulties. Everyone thinks that Omaha was the only bloodbath, not true. It's casulty figures taken as a whole were no worse than some of the british beaches. People talk about whole units being wiped out, which was correct, but that was only becuase that particular LCA or LCI got hit or was targeted by MG fire at the point of landing. Other units on the same targets got up the beach with minimal casulties. Have you any evidence for this? What units went in on the first wave on these beaches and why?. I was led to believe that Canadians had their own beach, the brits 2 and the yanks 2. FNG
nope. platoons of Canadian engineers (i'm not sure which) landed on every beach to clear the German anti-tank and anti-personnel obstacles (mines, ditches, pillboxes, etc.). They cleared Utah and Omaha, but the Americans took too long to land and wipe out the little pockets of two or three dozen Germans that they were able to call in reinforcements and stall the Americans on the beach, using the pre-mentioned 100 foot cliffs as ideal sniper spots. The snipers took out hundreds of American soldiers trying to scale the cliffs. Incidentally, it was the Canadian beachhead, Juno, that made the most progress on D-Day and D-Day-plus-one. They made more progress in one day than the Americans did in three and a half. They had the tactical ability, and the lessons that other Canadians learned from Dieppe, to avoid being checked until four days after landing, thus avoiding all the casualties and fatalities that must occur from such a predicament. The Canadians were able to actually reach more than one town (I think they liberated four) by midnight on D-Day. Neither the British nor the Americans were able to. Plus the Canadians opened up several road and rail junctions near the beaches (all five of them, the engineers on the American and British beaches, and the Canadian infantry and armor on Juno).
This post is so full of inaccuracies it's hard to know where to begin. As already pointed out Gen. MacArthur was in the PTO and had no part in the Normandy landings whatsoever. The landing at Utah beach was not held up by stiff resistance as occurred at Omaha. There were no Canadians landed at either Utah or Omaha beach. Rommel was on vacation in Germany on D-day. That's just the inaccuracies that immediately come to mind, doubtless there are more. MKT if you want to learn some more about Canadians and their performance during the Normandy campaign I will oblige you by posting some excerpts from well researched publications on the subject. Wherever you are getting your information now...well... I recommend that you get a full refund
I'm sorry, misterkingtiger, is this post serious? It is so riddled with historical errors that I am half suspecting you are fooling us here. No Canadian soldiers ever set foot on Omaha or Utah Beach. Every beach was an almost strictly national affair: Utah and Omaha were American, Gold and Sword were British, and Juno was Canadian. The first troops to land on Omaha beach, according to Stephen Ambrose's "D-Day", were the 743rd US Tank Bn and the 116th Infantry Regiment/29th Infantry Division, US Army. For Utah I believe the first unit to land was 11th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, US Army. The special units operating behind the lines and/or in front of the main landing units were mostly American and British paratroopers, American Rangers and Royal Marine Commandoes. The exercises you refer to were map wargames, involving only the COs and Staffs of several divisions in Normandy, not the actual units. There is not really any way to support your claim that the German units facing the Americans were better trained; this may only be said of the 352nd Infantry Division defending Omaha, which was still subpar by German standards but slightly better compared to the Static divisions defending the other four beaches. This also explains the losses suffered by Americans landing at Omaha, as well as the fact that this beach was overlooked by high cliffs, whereas Utah Beach was mostly flat and practically undefended. Like PMN1 already noted, MacArthur was never active in the Atlantic and had bog-all to do with the operations there. And don't come around bringing up Patton because he wasn't given a command in Normandy until much later (I'm not sure when). The fact is, none of the troops landing on D-Day achieved their objectives except for 6th British Airborne division and 2nd Ranger Batallion. This had many different and interlinking causes, inexperience being a big one among them. There is no specific nationality you can blame for the failure to reach D-Day objectives since all countries were equally guilty of this; however, expansion in the days that followed D-Day was fastest from Utah and Omaha beach where German resistance was of a lower standard than that facing the British (most notably 21st Panzer Division). So despite being faced with the toughest German coastal defence unit in the entire area, and despite being forced to assault the toughest naturally defensible position of the entire operation, the American divisions on Omaha Beach (29th and 1st Infantry) actually managed to get off the beaches by 12h00 and consequently made good the delay they had suffered on D-Day itself by expanding their beachhead to Utah on June 10th and to Gold on June 8th.
Checked for a moment, the first unit to land on Utah Beach was 2nd Bn, 8th Inf Rgt, 4th Infantry Division. Grieg, it's funny how we posted simultaneously and pointed out almost the same things...
mkt, Lets try breaking these points down and debating them one at a time. Nobody else besides you has heard of Canadians landing on Utah and Omaha beach so while you look for credible sources to back up your point lets carry on to the next one. As far as the first day objectives nobody succeeded. The Canadians objectives were: 10 km of the Bayeaux-Caen road, the railway line from Putote-en Bessin to Carpiquet airport and the airport itself. The Canadians moved farther inland than the other forces on the first day because once they got beyond the beaches (manned by units with a high percentage of Russian and Polish conscripts..716th Division) there was very little resistance to be found. Nonetheless they did not achieve the first day objectives. BTW all my posts on the subject of Normandy will be taken from this single well documented source unless I note otherwise: Steel Inferno by Michael Reynolds... the above excerpts from pp.73-74
My grandpa was a medic with one of the engineer platoons that landed on D-Day. He landed on Utah and saw the Americans screw everything up!
I may be wrong. It was several years ago when he died, and he told me the story a year before then, so I may have mixed up facts with personal pro-Canadian (and somewhat anti-American) beliefs. Anyway, the one thing I think we can all agree upon is that the Canadian Ninth Brigade made the deepest penetration on D-Day. Look at any labelled map of the D-Day landings. It'll show you that the Canadians made the deepest initial penetration. Whatever anyone did later means nothing to me.
mkt, Anecdotes from family members are interesting but they cannot be given credence as fact unless there is corroborating evidence to support them. If Canadians landed on Utah and Omaha beach ahead of the first waves of American troops there would be a considerable amount of evidence available for support. D-day is one of the most widely reported upon and written about events of the war. If you can identify the units that were supposedly involved in these actions it might be helpful.
mkt, The Canadians made the deepest penetration however they had relatively light resistance beyond the beach. Contrast about 340 Canadian dead with about 1465 US dead. Note that I say about because, believe it or not, even today there is no full and recognized as completely accurate accounting of the casualties. I quoted dead. The full casualty figures are about Canadians 946 casulaties (dead, wounded, missing and prisoners) compared with US caualties of about 6,603.
Monty is overrated thinking he can take Caen on the first day is a basless charge, monty wasnt agressive enough to go 5 miles
You say the beaches were reinforced after the engineers landed? With what? The Germans positions were all fixed and there was no transport. The beaches were isolated streight away from all outside help. Little resistance? All the beaches were reasonably lightly defend if you are looking at men vs men numbers only. However as history shows, a few determined men can hold off masses of opponents against the odds when well dug in. did they? I was under the impression that the beaches were still giving casulties for days from mines, obsticles and incomming fire. Can you say what unit he was in? I am very surprised that the US allowed Canadian engineers anywhere near there beaches especailly given that they declined the use of specialised British engineering tanks (funnies) even though they did not have any or enough of their own. The US from what I gather were reluctant to be seen relying on their allies for anything even at the cost of their own infantry. FNG
'Sfar as I know, platoons aren't distinguished by numbers or names, so i can't tell which one he was in. Besides, it was a long time ago he told me this story, so I could have mixed up fact with belief.
Its like I keep saying, I'm only human, so I probably made a mistake. Besides, they wouldn't keep record of the activities of every platoon, otherwise, there would be books over two thousand pages long from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. on D-Day. Plus, on all beaches, entire platoons were swallowed up by machine-gun fire. People could have gotten lost. It would be impossible to keep track of a platoon of twelve men within several brigades numbering more than one hundred each during just the first two hours after landing.
what regiment was he in? Also you would be surprised at how accurate the records are for the allies as to who landed when and where and to do what. They have the original plans for D day and to say they are meticulas would be an understatement. Whilst they say that no plan survives contact with the enemy D Day was unusual in that the launch plan pretty much continued as dictated regardless of how things were failling apart on the beaches. You here stories of canteens being delivered, trucks and beds because they were on the plan and the plan didn't care what you actually needed or that you were landed on the wrong beach by your LCA pilot. I know that family stories are also blurred by time. My mum said my grandad was on the Hood and that he brought back a german bible recovered from the sinking of the Bismarck, which I have yet to locate, but research shows that he wasn't on the Hood. It turns out that he was on a crusier who torped her (can't remember the name) but like his mates, who regretably succeed, was desperate for a transfer to the RN flagship. FNG
I'm not sure. It was years ago that he told me, but the US 8th Regiment is what I think he said. Again, I'm not sure. If I'm wrong, spare me from your ridicule.
