Posted on 11/12/2018 1:30:47 PM PST by DFG
Battling rough seas with five-foot waves, thrashing wind gusts and heavy enemy fire, U.S. Navy amphibious landing craft attacking Utah Beach on D-Day actually managed to achieve total tactical surprise.
Although amphibious forces eventually took heavy German artillery fire as they got closer, the amphibious landing force was well protected by Allied air superiority and cloudy weather.
“As our forces approached the French coast without a murmur from the enemy or from their own radio, the realization that once again almost complete tactical surprise had been achieved slowly dawned,” said Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, Naval Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Naval Expeditionary Force for the invasion, according to Naval Heritage and History Command’s “Operation Neptune – The Invasion of Normandy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
They achieved tactical surprise because they landed at the wrong place.
I often wonder which Spec Operators are the baddest of the bad.
Army Rangers have more skills then the basic infantry grunt.
Army Special Forces and Delta are even more highly trained with more skills.
Marine Force Recon have similar skills.
Air Force ground controllers go through much of the same training.
CIA combat operatives ... well who knows?
They all have jump wings as far as I know. I could be out of date on that.
However, only SEAL's can wear the Trident that comes with being the first called for high risk missions. Unlike the other SpecOps guys, every SEAL is trained to perform the same duties. It's just a matter of pay grade.
My much older brother was in the Coast Guard, attached to the Navy.
He drove landing craft onto Omaha Beach. IIRC a Virginia Natl Guard regiment.
Took extreme MG fire. When he dropped the ramp the Germans were mowing the soldier down.
He talked freely about the War, but his oldest son, my nephew took him the the movie Saving Private Ryan.
He couldn’t take the opening scenes and left.
Became a Presbyterian minister.
Watched it last night myself.
And once the landings had been made a spy named Garbo kept the Germans from counter attacking with forces from Calais.
I saw an interview of a member of the French Foreign Legion. One thing he mentioned having served with various allied special forces was that they were pretty much all the same.
I have also read that the most highly trained of all American special forces are the Air Force Para-Rescue.
Did you forget Pt Du Hoc? that would be 6
On their mission two weeks ago, they lost their team leader to a suicide bomber. On the flight back, one of the team members began reciting the last part of the Seal Code.
It was quite compelling.
Well, you may know who was at which beach. I don’t recall which were British and which was Canadian.
And what about the paratroopers who skipped the beaches altogether.
Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juneau, and Sword.
Unfortunately for him, as commander of the 28th Division, Ike, Hodges and Bradley decided Cota would take the fall for their disastrous plan for the Hurtgen Forest operation. Even though he told the chain of command about concerns about the plan before the operation.
The father of a family friend was a Lt. who landed in the first wave on Omaha Beach. The only reason that his LC reached the shore was that he pulled his .45 out and put it to the head of the British rating who was piloting it. In the first wave at Omaha, most of the Brit pilots went chicken and drowned their GIs by stopping well short of the beach and dropping them into water over their heads.
because bombers were used as bait starting in January 1944. The idea was to lure the Luftwaffe fighters up so American fighters could destroy them. It worked quite well. Before January 1944 fighters were tied to the bombers. After that, they went on ahead on search and destroy missions. One of the benefits of this new strategy was bomber losses fell significantly. Thank Jimmy Doolittle for this.absence of German Luftwaffe planes able to conduct reconnaissance missions
It was amazing to read about the “strategy” of keeping the fighters where the bomber crews could be reassured by the sight of them. It’s so obviously impossible to engage enemy fighters on favorable terms that way.Hard to see how anyone ever sold that tactic when the Dolittle approach was so obviously the way to do it. It put our fighters on the attack, which is the only way you could possibly want to operate a platform which carries strictly forward-firing armament.
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Did we HELP Europe..?
Just LOOK at Europe today.
It’s a good place..?
No, it’s not.
And our ally was JOSEF STALIN.
Quote agree. Add to the list of those with a hand in saving the day the captains of the destroyers who, against previous orders, moved in to hazard their vessels and knock out resistance on the right flank of Omaha.
Never heard this but it sounds brit.
Have never cared for them.
Without scrolling through any more of the thread... Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha, Utah.
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