One telling measure: As of mid-May, just three of the war’s 472 Medal of Honor winners were still alive. For those who saw the fiercest combat, the numbers are even more sobering.
Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that fewer than 3 percent of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are still living. Four weeks of fighting cost the Allies about 25,000 casualties the German army lost about 150,000 men, mostly prisoners.As world leaders and assorted dignitaries join the throngs of grateful citizens and remembrance tourists in Normandy this year to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, one group in particular will command a special reverence: veterans of the actual battle.
In mid-September Allied units advanced from Southern France met with victorious units attacking from Normandy, forming the Western Front. Meanwhile French units liberated Marseille and Toulon, thus capturing two large harbours, which were to play a significant part in supplying the Western front. Still, the Germans forces were able to conduct a fighting retreat in the Rhone valley, delaying the American advance. The Allies landed in the morning of 15th August, and quickly overran German defences, aided by the French Resistance. Also the defences were nowhere near as strong as the Atlantic Wall in Northern France. They were to face the German 19th Army, composed mostly of third-rate units, as most of the crack units had been withdrawn to stem the growing Allied pressure on Normandy front. They were supported by some airborne units, numerous aircraft and a large naval armada.
VI Army Corps and the French ‘Army B’, later the 1st Army, commanded by general Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. The troops selected for the operation were the U.S. Longer-than-anticipated fighting in Normandy and the growing realization that ports in Northern France would not suffice for unloading all the necessary supplies led the Allied planners to revive the Provence plan. Therefore operation Dragoon had been postponed. However, even the massive Allied war machine could not sufficiently support two large-scale amphibious operations in Europe at the same time. Initially the Allies had planned to land in the Provence simultaneously with the landing in Normandy.
0 kommentar(er)
