.
No Normandy landings
as scheduled ...
parameters were manifold. It was the full moon for the airdrops. Low tide at dawn so that the waves cover the least possible traps and other obstacles on the approach tracks. Light winds both on land and on sea A cloud cleared, including the bombing ...
On Monday, June 5, 1944 was the date chosen .
That day,
- 5,000 allied navy vessels,
- 1,900 aircraft and 800 gliders,
- nearly 10,000 bombers and hunters
- 173,000 men,
were to participate in the largest operation of war in history.
Even if everything had been planned to deceive the Germans, a leak at least would have been such as to put a flea in his ear.
Indeed, June 3, the Associated Press distinguished himself by the broadcast on a dispatch explicit
- " Eisenhower forces landed in France ."
This gaffe first dimension was certainly belied twenty minutes later, but CBS and Radio Moscow had relayed ...
June 5, see the map, the weather is completely rotten. What disperse boats and landing craft. Make people sick even before their arrival on French soil. Prevent parachute drops and glider. Go to the bloody failure and guaranteed.
However, in the morning and faith forecasters announced on 6 "niche enough" to launch the operation, it was only postponed by one day.
The landing is announced by coded messages resisters called to disrupt, slow down or even impossible to make timely responses to German military. Read page 127 this blog (1) ...
5, the evening will begin with the release of blooms parachutes and gliders slips.
and 17,000 men will precede the landing craft.
the American side, two airborne divisions were scheduled for sacrifice at the rear of the beaches: the 82nd (Holy Mother Church) and 101st (Vierville).
The British and Canadians themselves, send the 6th division of paratroopers to the east of the Orne (2).
In his remarkable D-Day and the Battle of Normandy , Antony Beevor brings together excerpts from speeches to young U.S. paratroopers before their flight to a more uncertain fate.
Colonel J. Johnson, emphatic, his 2,000 troops the 501st regiment :
- " Before a new day dawns, I want to plunge the knife out of his {bunch} paratrooper in the heart of most Nazi pervert, the most bastard and most disgusting of all Europe "(3).
When a cadillac Staff filed with the paratroopers of Eisenhower the 101st, it is not superfluous to add that the commander in chief was accompanied by a retinue of journalists and photographers ...
A soldier named Sherman Oyler was expected to answer questions of those who bore the ultimate responsibility of the landing so close.
Face to face Eisenhower - Oyler:
E. " What's your name, soldier? "
O. (Unable to utter a word, his silence compels men around him to answer for him).
E. "You know , Oyler, the Germans we live a life of hell for five years and it's time they make their own coin ."
(...)
E. "You'd be silly not be afraid. But I'll give you a hint: most importantly, still moving. If you stop, if you put yourself to think you let yourself be distracted. You lose your concentration. You 're done for. The idea, the perfect idea is to keep moving "(4).
General Maxwell Taylor's 101st division
- "I warn you. If you are prisoners, they will hinder your work. You should get rid of the way you deem best "(3).
General Gavin SJ, realistic, the 82nd Airborne:
- " Soldiers, that you will live in the next few days, you will not want to exchange it for a million dollars, but you will not want to relive it quite often. for most of you, this is the first time you go into battle. Remember that you go to kill, or that it is you who will be killed "(5).
Testimony of Sherman Oyler on a cynical
- {Our officer told us:} look at the guy who is on your right and look who is on your left. On three of you, none that remain after the first week in Normandy "(5).
Details of stained glass in Sainte-Mere-Eglise: virgin and para (U.S. Ph. JPO / DR).
In late 1944, the final balance of these losses for American paratroopers sent to the floor of the old continent :
- 82nd
on 11,770 men
5060 killed, wounded, missing, prisoners
- 101st
on 14,201 men
3,836 killed, wounded, missing, prisoners ... (6)
NOTES:
(1) See also page 125 this blog posts about June 1, 1944.
(2) See page 221 this blog about Gonneville-sur-Mer.
(3) Antony Beevor, D-DAY and the Battle of Normandy , Calmann-Lévy, 2009, 638 p., P. 35.
(4) Id, P. 38.
(5) Id, P. 36.
(6) Official Report of December 1944.
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