Fifty Facts About D-Day-- Part 3: Casualties and the Germans Almost Guessed It Right

21,  A memorial cemetery sits on U.S. soil in France.   Most of the 9,287 American buried in the Normandy  American Cemetery were killed on D-Day or early battles fought afterwards.

22.  Families fought--and died-- together.  33 sets of brothers were buried side-by-side, along with one father and son.

23.  Around 14,000 corpses were returned home.

24.  The Allies lost more than 11% of their numbers.  (226,386 casualties.  72,911 killed or missing and 153,475 wounded)

25.  German casualties exceeded  240,000.  The Allies also captured 200,000 German prisoners.

26.  The action was far from consistent.  In some places there were almost no casualties while in others almost 96%.

27.  The tide was a double-edged sword.  Landing at low tide avoided the German obstacles but meant troops were exposed to fire for longer to cross the beaches.  Also, as the tide came in, wounded drowned.

28.  The beach was a minefield.  It is estimated that the Germans had planted  around four million mines on the beaches.

29.  D-Day was the result of trial and error.

30.  The Germans almost guessed it right.

Again, if you want more information, go to the site.

--GreGen

Cremated Remains of British Soldier Included 6 Ounces of Shrapnel

From the October 19, 2012, New York Daily News "Cremated remains of WWII British Army veteran included 6 oz. of shrapnel from land mine" by Victoria Cavaliere.

Ronald Brown, 94, died last week in England and was cremated.  When his ashes were returned, along with them came six ounces of shrapnel.

He had been plagued by knee problems for seventy years after he stepped on a land mine in France in 1944 and had thought it was just a bullet.

Brown joined the Army at age 21 and stepped on the mine two months after D-Day as Allied forces fought their way to Berlin.

His old wound would set off airport scanners when he would fly to the United States or Australia.

I Told You It Hurt.  --GreGen

Bits of War: Marines-- Mines and Bombs

1.  MARINES--  There was a good article by Beth Crumley in the Huffington Post on December 22, 2011, "I'll Be Home for Christmas--Marines in WWII."  It was about the Marines at Wake Island who weer attacked on December 8, 1941 and held out for 15 days against incredible odds.


2.  MINES AND BOMBS--  December 22, 2011, UPI "World War II mines still a threat in Germany."

Land mines set out during the war are decaying, becoming unstable and exploding as happened with two that went off spontaneously in the eastern German state of Brandenburg.

Plus, there is the problems with bombs that failed to explode back then.  One that exploded December 14th made a hole 33 feet deep.  Earlier in the month, 45,000 were evacuated in Kolbenz while experts disarmed a 1.8 ton British bomb found in the Rhine River.

Germans will be dealing with these for years to come.

Watch Where You Walk.  --GreGen