The following article on D-Day statistics is an excerpt from Barrett Tillman’ D-Day Encyclopedia. It is available for order now from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Normandy Invasion consisted of 5,333 Allied ships and landing craft embarking nearly 175,000 men. The British and Canadians put 75,215 troops ashore, and the Americans 57,500, for a total of 132,715, of whom about 3,400 were killed or missing, in contrast to some estimates of ten thousand.
The foregoing figures exclude approximately 20,000 Allied airborne troopers. Extensive planning was required to move all these troops.
The U.S. VII Corps sustained 22,119 casualties from 6 June to 1 July, including 2,811 killed, 13,564 wounded, 5,665 missing, and seventy-nine captured.
American personnel in Britain included 1,931,885 land, 659,554 air, and 285,000 naval—a total of 2,876,439 officers and men. While in Britain they were housed in 1,108 bases and camps.
The Allied forces for Operation Overlord comprised twenty-three infantry divisions (thirteen U.S., eight British, two Canadian); twelve armored (five U.S., four British, one each Canadian, French, and Polish); and four airborne (two each U.S. and British)—for a total of twenty American divisions, fourteen British, three Canadian, and one each French and Polish. However, the assault forces on 6 June involved two U.S., two British, and one Canadian division.
Air assets included 3,958 heavy bombers (3,455 operational), 1,234 medium and light bombers (989 operational), and 4,709 fighters (3,824 operational), for 9,901 total and 8,268 operational. Allowing for aircrews, 7,774 U.S. and British Commonwealth planes were available for operations on 6 June, but these figures do not include transports and gliders.
Of the 850,000 German troops awaiting the invasion, many were Eastern European conscripts; there were even some Koreans. There were sixty infantry divisions in France and ten panzer divisions, possessing 1,552 tanks, but not all were combat ready. In Normandy itself the Germans had deployed eighty thousand troops, but only one panzer division.
Approximately fifteen thousand French civilians died in the Normandy campaign, partly from Allied bombing and partly from combat actions of Allied and German ground forces.
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"D-Day Statistics: Normandy Invasion By the Numbers" History on the Net© 2000-2024, Salem Media.
April 17, 2024 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/d-day-statistics>
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