D-day and World War II Context [written June 6, 2008]

June 6, 1944, H-Hour was 6:30 am. It was D-day

The assault was conducted in two phases: an air assault landing of American and British airborne divisions shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armoured divisions on the coast of France commencing at 06:30 British Double Summer Time.

The operation was the largest single-day invasion of all time, with over 130,000 troops landed on June 6, 1944. 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel were involved. The landings took place along a stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sections: Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword and Utah.

D-Day/normandy Invasion Casualties
United States: 1,465 dead, 5,138 wounded, missing or captured;
United Kingdom: 2,700 dead, wounded or captured;
Canada: 500 dead; 621 wounded or captured;
Total:10,264

The combined deaths of this one battle are more than the fatal losses of America and its allies after five years of the Iraq war.

Nazi Germany: Between 4,000 and 9,000 dead, wounded or captured

By D-Day 157 German divisions were stationed in the Soviet Union, 6 in Finland, 12 in Norway, 6 in Denmark, 9 in Germany, 21 in the Balkans, 26 in Italy and 59 in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. However, these statistics are somewhat misleading since a significant number of the divisions in the east were depleted; German records indicate that the average personnel complement was at about 50% in the spring of 1944.

the Importance of the Soviet Union in winning World War 2
Not to diminish the great effort of the USA in WW2 and the great sacrifice of D-day, but it is important to know the historical contribution of the Soviet Union in WW2.
A great deal of importance for the success of D-day has been placed on tricking Hitler into placing more of his troops at Calais. It was also important that the 12th Panzer division did not move quickly into the conflict. Without the eastern front drain and commitment of divisions there would have been more armor and divisions all over France and everywhere else.

At the beginning of June 1944 the 12th Panzer division was declared ready for combat operations. The Division’s tank strength at this time was 81 Panther ausf A / G and 104 Panzer IV ausf H / J tanks. The division was also equipped with Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyers, three prototype Wirbelwind flakpanzer vehicles, along with a number of 20 mm, 37 mm and 88 mm flak guns, Hummel, Wespe and sIG 33 self-propelled guns and regular towed artillery pieces.

Tanks on the east front peaked at 5,202 in November 1944.

So a huge credit for a successful invasion is that Soviets had regrouped from losses in 1941 and turned things around in 1942.

The Soviets lost 26 million people in the war. About 11 million of those were military losses. The Red Army lost 3 million men in the summer of 1941 (killed or missing). They lost about 4.5 million in the last 6 months of 1941.

Stalins Keys to Victory by William Dunn details the amazing recruitment effort to rebuild and replace the Red Army three times over 18 months.

The United States lost 418,500 people over the course of World War 2.

The Eastern front was the largest theater of war in history and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life. More people fought and died on the Eastern Front than in all other theaters of World War II combined. With over 30 million dead, many of them civilians, the Eastern Front has been called a war of extermination.

Over the course of WW2, the US mobilized an army of 100 divisions.

The Germans had mobilized 400 divisions.
The Soviets had mobilized 700 divisions.

The Soviet losses in 1941-1943 would not have been so severe if Stalin had not purged his experienced military officers in 1938.
The Soviets might not have been able to motivate and recruit so successfully for the defence of Mother Russia if not for the brutality and harsh treatment of the nazis against the one third of Russia that they conquered in 1941.
The Soviet wars preceding WW2 left a larger reserve of military veterans to rebuild the Red Army after the devastating initial losses.
The Americans helped supply gear with the lend lease program for trucks etc.. but the Soviets made their own guns and tanks. Factories the American engineers helped build in the 1930s. The soviets had learned the lessons of mass production to only build as good as you need. Tanks only lasted about 6 months before being destroyed. So it did not matter if engine was poorly made and would breakdown in 2-5 years. The Tank would not last that long.

The recruitment and production effort to get the people and weapons put together while fighting the most fierce battles in history is an interesting and informative study.

The USA probably could still have won WW2 if the Soviets had been defeated and not been able to regroup after 1941 or lost Moscow and Stalingrad, but it would have been far more costly and the USA would have to have an army 4-6 times larger than the one they did. Or the US would have had to wait until 1945 when they developed the nuclear bomb.

FURTHER READING
Operation Barbarossa, the initial German invasion of the Soviet Union. Germany had 4.5 million men.

In 1941, the Soviet armed forces in the western districts were outnumbered by their German counterparts, 4.3 million Axis soldiers vs. 2.6 million Soviet soldiers. The overall size of the Soviet armed forces in early July 1941, though, amounted to a little more than 5 million men, 2.6 million in the west, 1.8 million in the far east, with the rest being deployed or training elsewhere

Soviets: At least 802,191 killed, unknown wounded, and some 3,300,000 captured.

Battle of Stalingrad

Germans: 750,000 killed or wounded, 250,000 captured
Soviets: 700,000 killed, wounded or captured, 40,000+ civilian dead

The Battle of Moscow

Germans: 248,000–400,000 casualties
Soviets: 650,000–1,280,000 casualties

Battle of Kursk

Germans: 50,000 dead, wounded, or captured
Soviets: 500,000 dead, wounded, or captured

Autumn and winter 1943 on the eastern front

Battle of Crimea 8 April 1944 – 12 May 1944

Soviet: 85,000 all causes
German/Romanian: 97,000 all causes

The Germans were already getting pushed back quite a ways by D-Day. On the US side, by June 4th 1944 all of Italy had been captured (campaign started with invasion of Sicily July 1943) and before that North Africa.

Belorussian Offensive. June 22, 1944 Two weeks after D-day.

Germans: 300,000-400,000 killed, wounded and taken prisoner.
Soviets: 60,000 KIA/MIA, 110,000 WIA/sick