With the 75th Anniversary of the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France upon us (D-Day) I thought it would be appropriate to highlight one of the more important contributions to the D-Day effort. That being the armor tasked with supporting the assaulting infantry at Omaha beach. During the abortive Dieppe raid of August 1942 it had become obvious that significant armored support was essential if any Allied invasion force had hopes of getting past the German beach defenses. There, only 29 Churchill tanks landed.
On June 6, 1944 the Anglo-American led alliance invaded Nazi occupied France. Known today as D-Day it would be the greatest invasion in history. And though the Red Army was by June of 1944 well into the process of bleeding the Wehrmacht white, inflicting approximately 80% of Germany's Second World War military casualties, this should not take away from the considerable achievement that is since remembered today and forever since as D-Day.
It was actually on June 5, 1944 that D-Day could really be said to have begun.
Today is the anniversary of the largest amphibious assault in history; codenamed Operation Overlord by the Allies, but universally known since as "D-Day". Exactly 69 years ago approximately 160,000 Allied soldiers landed on the coast of Nazi occupied Normandy, France thus beginning the Second World War's final act. Though thousands of Allied soldiers, mostly U.S. and British, would be killed or wounded on June 6th the day's greatest carnage was centered on one location - the invasion beach code-named Omaha.
