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NORMANDY, France — At 2:38 a.m. on June 6, 1944, American infantryman John Marr parachuted into an area where floodgates had been opened by German forces and landed in cold water up to his armpits. No one was in sight.
One of the ironies of D-Day is that while the paratroop drop operations were terribly mismanged, achieving only portions of their assigned goals, they nonetheless wound up doing great service as a consequence of the mistakes.
The primary problem was failure to land in the correct drop zones, in collective organizations. A combination of fearful transport pilots who responded to the heavy flak by ordering premature drops, and bad nocturnal navigation, resulted in scattering the troops into tiny groups, miles from their assembly areas and objectives. Many, if not most, spent the night stumbling about trying to find other members of their units.
However, although it was never an intentional part of the Allied plan, the widely dispersed drop did serve to confuse the Germans very badly. They were getting so many reports from so many locations concerning the spotting of paratroopers, they were never able to make sense of the probable objectives of this force. The consequence was that the Germans wasted resources pursuing small pockets of soldiers who had already wandered off elsewhere by the time the Germans were able to gather a force and get it to the desired location. Then another report would come in and they would pile into their trucks and rush off to meet the new threat, which also could not be found.
Had the paratroopers all landed as planned and moved on their objectives immediately, since they were assigned to the flanks of the D-Day operation, it would not have taken long for the Germans to have developed a picture of the scope and geographical extent of the coming invasion, and taken the appropriate counter measures.
Instead, the chaos of the botched airbourne landings generated chaos within the German high command intelligence operations.
The errors made in the execution of the paratroop program, probably produced as great or greater an Allied benefit than would have the perfect execution of the original plan.
The geramns were greatly confused by the same problems that caused the allies to miss so many land zones also. I think we need to remember that it was pretty well know by that time what such drops risked.What is important to remember is the bravery of these troops knowing the heavy casualites they would take for very limited but imporant pruposes in overall success.In fact the whole adventure was a very risky business.
The geramns were greatly confused by the same problems that caused the allies to miss so many land zones also. I think we need to remember that it was pretty well know by that time what such drops risked.What is important to remember is the bravery of these troops knowing the heavy casualites they would take for very limited but imporant pruposes in overall success.In fact the whole adventure was a very risky business.
They were very brave indeed. I watched the ceremony in France yesterday and it was very inspiring to see so many of the D-Day vets still going to the ceremony despite the fact that most of them are getting very old in age now. Sadly, many of them probably won't be with us much longer. Their bravery, dedication, and sacrifice will never be forgotten and I think the term "the greatest generation" certainly applies when referring to these wonderful people.
Was very sad to see that several D-Day vet organizations were treating this anniversary as their last hurrah and would be striking their colors for the final time this year. Apparently there are'nt that many living vets left.
Time has finally caught up to the greatest of "the greatest generation".
Outside of the scenes in Saving Private Ryan shot from the German position does one even begin to have an idea of the physical distances in which troops on Omaha beach had to face. Even in Private Ryan the trip to across the beach seemed to be only a few yards when in fact is was over 400 meters of open beach.
I'm so happy for our freedom that I cried looking at those photos.
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