There were 160,000 troops landing on 6 June 1944, 73,000 American troops, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadian. 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved.
Although it is difficult to count the number of casualties (dead and wounded) is estimated to be at about 10,000. There have been verified 2499 American D-Day fatalities and 1915 from the other Allied nations, a total of 4414 dead. That is more than voted in Plainfield on 6/5/2012. The dead represented about 3% of the Allied forces involved.
The number of veterans from the invasion still living is rapidly diminishing; the youngest now could be over 85 years old.
If that invasion had not been successful Germany would have won the war in Europe and I would doubt that many in Plainfield who voted yesterday would have been able to vote in 2012. The world may well have been have been dominated by restrictive dictatorships.
How easy it is to forget. Today feels more like Sept. 1, 1939.
ReplyDeleteSept. 1, 1939 is the date of Germany's invasion of Poland; the start of WWII. Also the title of a poem by W.H. Auden inspired by that event and published in October 39. Paste www.poemdujour.com/Sept1.1939.html
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