D-Day in Numbers by Jacob F. Field

Author:Jacob F. Field [Field, Jacob F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782432395
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
Published: 2015-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

An LCVP

8 Goliaths

THE STRONGEST GERMAN position at Utah was a blockhouse at La Madeleine, which had three cannons, a howitzer, five grenade-launching mortars, two flamethrowers, three heavy machine guns, and eight Goliath tanks. Its commander was the twenty-three-year-old Leutnant Arthur Jahnke, who had been wounded in the East and won the Iron Cross. Rommel had visited La Madeleine on 11 May, and criticized him for not putting enough obstacles, mines, and barbed wire around the blockhouse. Rommel relented when Jahnke told him he had put up all the barbed wire he had been sent. He took off his suede officer’s gloves to show him the deep scars on his hands from personally laying down the barbed wire. Before the landings took place, a wave of B-26 Marauders launched a devastating raid on La Madeleine, knocking out their communications and leaving them with just two machine guns and two grenade launchers.

56 years old

THE LANDINGS AT UTAH were scheduled to begin at 06:30 with a wave of thirty-two swimming tanks; over the next twenty-two minutes three waves of infantry and combat engineers would follow. Little went to plan. Few craft arrived on schedule and many came ashore in the wrong position, with some landing over a mile off course. In the first boats to hit the shore was Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt III (the eldest son of former President Teddy Roosevelt), the assistant commander of the Fourth Infantry Division. Roosevelt, despite having arthritis (requiring him to use a cane) and a heart condition, was determined to go ashore. He believed the presence of a general on the beach would reassure the men. It took repeated verbal requests and a written petition to his commanding officer (Major General Barton) for him to win permission. Roosevelt was the oldest man to go ashore on D-Day. His youngest son, Captain Quentin Roosevelt II, was in the first wave at Omaha. Roosevelt’s presence at Utah proved to be crucial. Realizing that many units were in the wrong position, he simply stated, ‘We’ll start the war from here!’ Wearing a wool-knit cap (he did not like helmets), he calmly re-coordinated the landing forces, giving them new objectives and modifying the plan of attack. Roosevelt’s leadership turned a potentially disastrous situation into a resounding success, and pushed inland four miles. Sadly on 12 July Roosevelt died of a heart attack in Normandy. For his actions he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States’ highest military decoration.

110 guns

ON UTAH THE GERMANS had 110 artillery pieces, ranging in calibre from seventy-five to 170 millimetres. Further inland there were eighteen batteries – the largest one had four 210-millimetre guns.

7 days

ALFRED JODL THOUGHT it would take the Allies one week to put three divisions into France. In the wider vicinity of Utah alone (if airborne troops are included), the Americans were able to deploy three divisions in just one day. At Utah the Americans put ashore 20,000 soldiers and 1,700 motorized vehicles. Their casualties were not heavy – 187 killed or wounded.

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