The First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II

by Alex Kershaw

Of the three American seaborne divisions to hit the beaches on D-Day, the Big Red One was the only unit to have seen previous combat.

More than two thousand planes had failed to return, and some twelve thousand men had been lost, to ensure that the Luftwaffe would not pose a serious threat on D-Day. Fewer than four hundred German planes would be deployed against more than thirteen thousand Allied transport aircraft, fighters, and bombers.[28]

Just two of the twenty-nine tanks put to sea off Omaha would make it to the beach to support the 1st Division’s first wave,

In all, the United States had landed some 55,000 men on D-Day. By far the greatest losses had been suffered on Omaha, where more than nine hundred were killed.[78]

More than 160,000 Allied troops had crossed the Channel on D-Day, of whom more than four thousand had been killed.

More than two thousand French civilians lay dead, killed mostly by Allied bombing, in the skeletons of churches and collapsed cottages and beachside villas.

Of the 225 Rangers who had landed on D-Day, fewer than seventy-five were still able to fight on.[20] In

a casualty rate of some 67 percent.[21]

There were a million Allied soldiers in Normandy by late June, but still the front barely moved.

There had clearly been a monumental oversight in planning—not one of the legions of intelligence officers who had pored over reconnaissance photos had spotted the high, ancient banks of hedgerows known as the bocage. It made swift movement impossible and provided the perfect defensive landscape for the Germans.[4] An

On July 25, all of Caen was finally liberated, although not much of it was left standing.[14]

Of 20,000 American fatalities, 9,385 would eventually lie in just one graveyard, near the village of Colleville-sur-Mer, overlooking Omaha Beach.[39]