How did D Day succeed?

Question

How did the D Day landings succeed? With so many Allies dead, many shot before they even stepped foot on the beach, how in the world did enough Allies get past the machine guns and Nazis and win the decisive victory of WWII? Was it the airborne landings, the Maquis? Pillboxes,75 mm guns, there was so much stacked against them. Did they know how bloody it was going to be, and how many of them were going to die? Obviously, it's war, and sacrifices had to be made, but it was just murder as soon as they stepped on the beach. How many actually survived to capture St.Lo, Carentan, Caean, and Bayeaux?

hmmm... sounds interesting. Do you have a link about the decoy corpse?

um, der bomber... don't get me wrong, the Brits helped us out a lot and continue to help us today, but 29,000 dead US soldiers, and 106,000 wounded and MIA is more than 11,000 dead Uk and 54,000 dead or wounded. oh and i know brits and UK are different but you know what i mean. And for the record...RANGERS LEAD THE WAY (not SAS) ;)

Answer 1

1. Naval artillery and naval Bombardments.

2. Allied Air Supremecy.

3. Overwhelming numbers. German defenders were heavily outnumbers at the pooint of the attack.

4. Hilters people were so terrified of him that they would not wake him up. The German counter attack was thus delayed because key generals were not allow to re-inforce the shore defense or counter attack without Hitlers permission..

5. German high command took a LONG time to believe this was the real thing. Many earlier landings as raids, plus a successful misi9nformation campaign that today's media would destroy helped as well.

6. Erwin Rommel was NOT with his armored divisions. HItler delayed using his armor to drive the allies off the beaches by several days. This was key to the allied sucess.

7. The fact that the Russians were bleeding the Germans dry. Germany was fighting a two front war and did NOT ahve enough troops or material to sustain both fights.

8. The fact that Hitler cut back on militatry productiuon at a key point in the war. He did this to try and convince his people they were winning. Had he NOT cut back on military production, the the war on both the Eastern and Western fronts owuld have been MUCH more expensive for the allies.

9. The largest and most powerful Naval armada in teh history of mankind. The allies had COMPLETE dominace of the seas.

10. Very ingeneous inventions by allied engineeres to build mobile port facilites that were moved into place either on day 1 or 2. With out those facilities that allies would have been hard pressed to hold their positions much less push inland beyiond the protective cover of naval artilery.

How are those for reasons the allies succeeded? The allies stacked the deck in thier favor. That along with a few lucky breaks helped quite alot.

Answer 2

Your figures for the D-Day American casualties are grossly overstated.
While Omaha beach saw the worst casualties among the invading force, the other american beach , Utah was almost a walkover.
The three eastern beaches of Sword, Juno and Gold were heavily defended but the crucial thing about the whole invasion was the element of surprise and , apart from Omaha the defenders were off the beaches before the defenders could react in large numbers.
Air and naval superiority were other decisive factors.
The first troops the land on D-Day were in a glider force of British commandos who captured a vital bridge and destroyed the Merville battery.
The bridge is still preserved alongside a D-Day museum. Go there and see it . It's an education.

Answer 3

D Day The Longest Day On the Normandy Invasion, There were many factors that negated the effect of having one of the greatest generals in history leading the defense of the French coast. Rommel was confounded by a delusioned high command. They would not send him the supplies he needed to build up the defenses on the coast. The 352nd was the only unit that applied what Rommel wanted done with any vigor. Imagine the carnage if the entire command followed Rommel as well as the 352nd did. Next, the Panzer divisions were under a separate command so even following Hitler's doctrine of let them land then drive them back into the sea falters in the fact that there is no cohesion in the command chain. When the Panzer's are finally sent forth, they are cut up by the allied air forces. Finally, the deception of a crossing led by Patton at Calais ties up the 15th Army for the entire Normandy campaign. By the time the German army realized that Normandy was the route of attack and not the diversion, it was too late. Monty and Bradley had all of their units deployed and were pressing through to St. Lo and to Caen. With the final arrival of Patton's 3rd army into the Cotentin Peninsula, It was all but over for Von Kluge and Rommel. All they could do was watch as their tattered divisions were driven out of the bulk of France. Kudos especially to the soldiers of the 82d and 101st airborne divisions. They lead the charge the whole way.

Answer 4

Well the allies have been setting 'fake' spots to land their crafts on another part of France so that helped a lot. Also there were just so many men that the Nazis could not repel them. Heres a quick fact, when the allies broke into France they could not go as fast as they would have liked to because their tanks ran out of fuel. There were just so many men and so much force, like B-17 bombers and masses of paratroopers but i think that this was the time to break the lines of the Nazi Reich, so all Allied efforts went into it.

Answer 5

Jeff M is right.

One of the other key facts was that the Germans thought that the main attack into Europe would come from the south from General Patton.

To contradict what der bomber said

On D-Day, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy. The American forces landed numbered 73,000: 23,250 on Utah Beach, 34,250 on Omaha Beach, and 15,500 airborne troops. In the British and Canadian sector, 83,115 troops were landed (61,715 of them British): 24,970 on Gold Beach, 21,400 on Juno Beach, 28,845 on Sword Beach, and 7900 airborne troops.

Total Allied casualties on D-Day are estimated at 10,000, including 2500 dead. British casualties on D-Day have been estimated at approximately 2700. The Canadians lost 946 casualties. The US forces lost 6603 men. Note that the casualty figures for smaller units do not always add up to equal these overall figures exactly, however (this simply reflects the problems of obtaining accurate casualty statistics).

I would say it was a joint operation.

Answer 6

Partly by deceit. An elaborate plot, involving a corpse, was hatched to convince the Germans that the landing would be elsewhere. Other factors include the bad weather immediately preceding, and the great strength of the Allied thrust.

Answer 7

Was D Day A Success

Answer 8

A major factor for its success was that we had a successful decoy operation. We knocked out most German radar towers and we used the that remained (by our choice) to "detect" our phony invasion force.
Note: rhsauders is right about the deceit and the corpse we left with phony instructions.

Answer 9

Jeff M is correct however all the thgings that stated still depends on one factor:
SHEER LUCK
we can put lots of 'IF' questions and still it requires LUCK and GOD's WILL
many people think that it was the US army win the war on D-Day and they suffer the heaviest casualties.this is dead WRONG.the largest contingent during D-Day were the British army and they suffer the heaviest casualties

Answer 10

blood, guts and determination,not to mention Hitlers ignorance/arrogance. there was also troops dropped behind the Germans. others here have gave good reasons too.