By 5 June 1944, there were close to 3 million Allied soldiers cramming the nooks and crannies of southern England. 2,876,000 Allied troops were gathered in Devon, Dorset, Sussex and Kent. Brits, Canadians, and the ubiquitous American GI - "over-sexed, over-paid, and over here," as the locals noted somewhat wryly.
While they were awaiting their embarkment orders, they continued their training for the invasion by conducting live fire exercises on hastily arranged ranges scattered across the countryside, which rather upset the natural rhythm of things. But everyone knew the were smack dab in the middle of history. As is usual with history-making, there was going to be blood and tears to go with sweat and toil.
The largest armada in history, made up of more than 4,000 American, British, and Canadian ships, were crowding the ports or patrolling the Channel. Over 1,200 C-47s were at airbases around which were scattered elements of the 82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, and British 1st Airborne divisions, ready to open the party the evening of 5 June.
The burden of this rested on the relatively narrow shoulders of General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander. He'd already called a one day rain delay - after consulting with his staff meteorologists and others, he'd decided to go ahead and issued the order that the invasion of Germany's "Festung Europa" proceed.
With a little push of paper across his desk, Eisenhower started a ball rolling that essentially wouldn't stop until VE day, 11 months and hundreds of thousands of deaths hence.
That done, it was time to do what Generals of have done on the eve of battle since time immemorial - visit the troops.
Read the complete post at http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2014/06/dday_the_decisi_1.html
Posted
Jun 05 2014, 07:01 PM
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Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah's Military Guys..