Tuesday, May 4, 2021

How many troops landed on D-Day?

 (Asked on Quora - my answer).

Ken Ford and Steven Zaloga in their book Overlord: The D-Day Landings (2009) provide a figure of 156,115. This relies heavily on the number determined by Ellis, Allen and Warhurst (2004).

This breaks down into 57,500 American troops (Omaha and Utah) and 75,215 British and Canadian soldiers (Gold, Sword and Juno). A further 15,500 Americans and 7,900 British troops were dropped from the air.

The casualties for the June 6th landing likely topped 10,000+ with 4,414 confirmed dead.

Sources:

Ford, Ken; Zaloga, Steven J. (2009). Overlord: The D-Day Landings. Oxford; New York: Osprey.

Ellis, L.F.; Allen, G.R.G.; Warhurst, A.E. (2004) [1962]. Butler J.R.M (ed.). Victory in the West, Volume I: The Battle of Normandy. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series. London: Naval & Military Press.

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