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Was D-day really deemed a success? Yes we succeeded in establishing a beachhead but wasn't the human cost much higher than anticipated? I'm honestly curious an

Was D-day really deemed a success? Yes we succeeded in establishing a beachhead but wasn't the human cost much higher than anticipated? I'm honestly curious and don't know, would love to read more on that topic if anyone has more info.

SolarNet 5y ago
I think it was seen as a success since it was the event that turned the war around and led to the eventual victory of the Allies. Sort of a vacuously true type of success, the operation might have failed to meet most of it's objectives (I don't actually know) but that doesn't really matter since it led to "winning" the war. However, of course, the truism that there are no winners in war remains. No military operation is going to have a low cost of human life, even a successful one.
dogma1138 5y ago
4400 dead on D-Day, total casualties, much fewer than in outright failures such market garden. Whilst without D-Day the allies would still have likely won but it quite likely would’ve involved nuking Berlin and far more massive air raids an German occupied Europe.
jcranmer 5y ago
D-Day failed to achieve most of its operational objectives on day 1. However, this is mostly a case of "running behind schedule" rather than outright failure; three months later, the Falaise Pocket is closed and the Germans no longer had the ability to even contain the Allies to Normandy. Concomitant with the closure of the Falaise Pocket, the Allies landed on the Gold Coast of France (Operation Dragoon), and this forced the Germans out of the rest of the France. However, for an amphibious assault, especially one against a prepared and well-fortified enemy, "not being pushed back into the sea" is by far the most important operational objective to succeed, and D-Day succeeded very much at that.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I'm a little surprised the Germans didn't direct all their V1 and V2 production at the D-Day staging areas along the British coast. I doubt it could have stopped the invasion, but would have made it much more costly.
  - baud147258 5y ago
    I'm not sure V1 and V2 had the required precision to strike such targets
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      The first time Germany launched a rocket to try to strike a tactical target was I believe the Ludendorff Bridge after the bridge failed to detonate. Hitler was so unnerved by the prospect of the Allies holding an intact crossing of the Rhine that he ordered every available resource be used to destroy it, which included some V2 rockets. The V2 rockets I believe did more damage to the cities in German hands than to Allied positions (including the bridge itself, which was unharmed by the attack).
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Given the size of the staging areas, and the density of men & materiel there, perhaps not much precision was required.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  That's correct. You can think of the Normandy invasions as succeeding in slow-motion. Planners were hoping for results on D-Day, but it took 10x to 100x longer than expected to achieve each objective. Caen (port area up to 9 miles from the beach) was a D-Day objective, but depending on the area took 1 month to 3 months to capture. The Allies were slow, and the Germans knew it was a strategic location. Regardless, it just meant that the German army was destroyed around Caen, instead of elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Caen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Caen Of the 5 landing sites, Omaha Beach was the bloodiest, with Americans wading ashore into machine gun fire, killing around 2,000 Americans. (In Italy and Holland, Americans were also mowed down as the Germans retreated.) The most famous disastrous amphibian landings were Galipoli in WW1, where the British failed to break out of their beach heads, and also lost numerous ships to mines and shore batteries. This tarnished Winston Churchill's reputation for decades. The victory by Turkey led to its rise as a modern state. And the US struggled with 3 landings (Anzio, etc.) in Italy in WW2 due to General Clark and his staff trying to consolidate beach heads before breaking out, allowing Germans to occupy high ground, after the landings! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio#Breakout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio#Breakout Literally, the Americans would loiter on the sand instead of sending a dozen troops to secure roads and hills before the Germans arrived with artillery. The US had phenomenal leaders in the Pacific War, but Italy was a total failure in multiple dimensions. Historians today just laugh at our role in Italy - it was that bad. (The British had the weird problem that upon reaching the beach, soldiers would sit down and start making tea, even under fire.)
chris_j 5y ago
It was a success in the sense that it got the Western allies ashore, leading to the liberation of France a few months later and the end of the war in Europe the following spring. More importantly than that, it meant that Nazi Germany's eventual defeat, which was probably inevitable at that point anyway, did not come solely at the hands of the Red Army. I imagine the scenario that really kept Roosevelt and Churchill up at night was one where the Soviets defeated Germany and then kept going until they reached the Atlantic, with France and the Low Countries falling under Soviet domination the way that the countries of Eastern Europe ultimately did. The success of the D-Day landings meant that the iron curtain ran down the middle of Europe and not down its Western shore.

SolarNet 5y ago

I think it was seen as a success since it was the event that turned the war around and led to the eventual victory of the Allies. Sort of a vacuously true type of success, the operation might have failed to meet most of it's objectives (I don't actually know) but that doesn't really matter since it led to "winning" the war. However, of course, the truism that there are no winners in war remains. No military operation is going to have a low cost of human life, even a successful one.

dogma1138 5y ago

4400 dead on D-Day, total casualties, much fewer than in outright failures such market garden. Whilst without D-Day the allies would still have likely won but it quite likely would’ve involved nuking Berlin and far more massive air raids an German occupied Europe.

jcranmer 5y ago

D-Day failed to achieve most of its operational objectives on day 1. However, this is mostly a case of "running behind schedule" rather than outright failure; three months later, the Falaise Pocket is closed and the Germans no longer had the ability to even contain the Allies to Normandy. Concomitant with the closure of the Falaise Pocket, the Allies landed on the Gold Coast of France (Operation Dragoon), and this forced the Germans out of the rest of the France. However, for an amphibious assault, especially one against a prepared and well-fortified enemy, "not being pushed back into the sea" is by far the most important operational objective to succeed, and D-Day succeeded very much at that.

WalterBright 5y ago
I'm a little surprised the Germans didn't direct all their V1 and V2 production at the D-Day staging areas along the British coast. I doubt it could have stopped the invasion, but would have made it much more costly.
- baud147258 5y ago
  I'm not sure V1 and V2 had the required precision to strike such targets
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    The first time Germany launched a rocket to try to strike a tactical target was I believe the Ludendorff Bridge after the bridge failed to detonate. Hitler was so unnerved by the prospect of the Allies holding an intact crossing of the Rhine that he ordered every available resource be used to destroy it, which included some V2 rockets. The V2 rockets I believe did more damage to the cities in German hands than to Allied positions (including the bridge itself, which was unharmed by the attack).
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Given the size of the staging areas, and the density of men & materiel there, perhaps not much precision was required.
redis_mlc 5y ago
That's correct. You can think of the Normandy invasions as succeeding in slow-motion. Planners were hoping for results on D-Day, but it took 10x to 100x longer than expected to achieve each objective. Caen (port area up to 9 miles from the beach) was a D-Day objective, but depending on the area took 1 month to 3 months to capture. The Allies were slow, and the Germans knew it was a strategic location. Regardless, it just meant that the German army was destroyed around Caen, instead of elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Caen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Caen Of the 5 landing sites, Omaha Beach was the bloodiest, with Americans wading ashore into machine gun fire, killing around 2,000 Americans. (In Italy and Holland, Americans were also mowed down as the Germans retreated.) The most famous disastrous amphibian landings were Galipoli in WW1, where the British failed to break out of their beach heads, and also lost numerous ships to mines and shore batteries. This tarnished Winston Churchill's reputation for decades. The victory by Turkey led to its rise as a modern state. And the US struggled with 3 landings (Anzio, etc.) in Italy in WW2 due to General Clark and his staff trying to consolidate beach heads before breaking out, allowing Germans to occupy high ground, after the landings! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio#Breakout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio#Breakout Literally, the Americans would loiter on the sand instead of sending a dozen troops to secure roads and hills before the Germans arrived with artillery. The US had phenomenal leaders in the Pacific War, but Italy was a total failure in multiple dimensions. Historians today just laugh at our role in Italy - it was that bad. (The British had the weird problem that upon reaching the beach, soldiers would sit down and start making tea, even under fire.)

chris_j 5y ago

It was a success in the sense that it got the Western allies ashore, leading to the liberation of France a few months later and the end of the war in Europe the following spring. More importantly than that, it meant that Nazi Germany's eventual defeat, which was probably inevitable at that point anyway, did not come solely at the hands of the Red Army. I imagine the scenario that really kept Roosevelt and Churchill up at night was one where the Soviets defeated Germany and then kept going until they reached the Atlantic, with France and the Low Countries falling under Soviet domination the way that the countries of Eastern Europe ultimately did. The success of the D-Day landings meant that the iron curtain ran down the middle of Europe and not down its Western shore.