In time, the American dead from D-Day and the Normandy campaign would be buried at the larger cemetery located in Colleville-sur-Mer, but in late July of 1944, these honored dead were interred at Cardonville, France.
Burying The American Dead (Newsweek Magazine, 1944) Read More »
Luftwaffe Diva Hanna Reitsch (1912 – 1979) sitting under the bright lights of her interrogators cursed the name of Hermann Goring who rejected her plan to fly bomb-laden aircraft into the hulls of the Allied
ships sitting off the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944.
The Kamikazes That Weren’t (Newsweek Magazine, 1945) Read More »
A day by day account by Private George Groh, a member of the 101st Airborne, who joined the 1944 Normandy Invasion as a glider-infantryman.
Glider Infantry on D-Day (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
In the July 22,1944 issue of YANK the editors saw fit to release the numbers of American casualties that were racked-up during the first eleven days of the allied Normandy Invasion. In the fullness of time, the numbers were adjusted to be considerably lower than the 1944 accounting; Pentagon records now indicate 1,465 were killed, 3,184 were wounded, 1,928 were registered as missing, 26 were taken prisoner.
It is interesting to note that YANK did not sugar coat the report.
Of the total US figure, 2499 casualties were from the US airborne troops (238 of them being deaths). The casualties at Utah Beach were relatively light: 197, including 60 missing. However, the US 1st and 29th Divisions together suffered around 2,000 casualties at Omaha Beach.
FDR’s D-Day prayer can be read here
Additional facts and figures about the U.S. Army casualties in June of ’44 can be read in this article.
American Losses at Normandy (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
D-Day for the lads of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ Eighth Air Force was a time of great excitement and anticipation. Despite the exhaustion that comes with a fifteen hour day, all concerned recognized well that they were participating in an historic event that would be discussed long after they had left this world, but of greater importance was their understanding that the tides of war were shifting in the Allies’ favor.
In his book Wartime, Paul Fussel noted that the Allies had placed as many as 11,000 planes in the skies above France that day.
Click here to read about the 8th Air Force and their bombing efforts in the skies above Germany.
D-Day with the Eighth Air Force (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
YANK correspondent Dewitt Gilpin visited the Omaha and Utah beaches exactly one year after the 1944 Normandy Invasion. The journalist interviewed some American D-Day veterans as well as members of the local French population who recalled that bloody day -while others simply tried to forget.
Landing to the left of the Rangers on Omaha was the 116th Infantry of the 29th Division. Their 1st Battalion came in over a beach that had more dead men on it than live ones.
Read what the army psychologists had to say about fear in combat.
June 6, 1945: the First Anniversary (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
YANK correspondent Dewitt Gilpin visited the Omaha and Utah beaches exactly one year after the 1944 Normandy Invasion. The journalist interviewed some American D-Day veterans as well as members of the local French population who recalled that bloody day -while others simply tried to forget.
Landing to the left of the Rangers on Omaha was the 116th Infantry of the 29th Division. Their 1st Battalion came in over a beach that had more dead men on it than live ones.
Read what the army psychologists had to say about fear in combat.
June 6, 1945: the First Anniversary (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
Written by Andy Rooney, this three column article concerned the seldom remembered efforts of a French airborne battalion that jumped into Brittany on D-Day in order to disrupt German communications.
Click here to read more about W.W. II parachute infantry…
Click here to read about the first American Paratrooper.
French Paratroopers on D-Day (The Stars and Stripes, 1944) Read More »
This one page article from YANK MAGAZINE by Irwin Swerdlow will give you a sense of the Herculean task that was involved in the transporting of so many men and supplies across the English Channel to breach Rommel’s Atlantic Wall:
The biggest job of coordination that the world has ever known was under way. Thousands of things had to happen at a certain time, things which, if they did not happen, would delay the entire movement.
Click here to read about unloading supplies on Iwo Jima.
Port of Embarcation (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
In the first 48 hours the Canadians had captured a dozen towns, taken more than 600 prisoners, stopped a small enemy tank force outside Caen and then joined the British in repeated attacks on Caen.
The Canadians on D-Day (Newsweek Magazine, 1944) Read More »
