You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

[Lee Stewart]

Allied troops on D-Day had radically different experiences depending on where they landed. In some places along the 50-mile front, there were almost no casualties at all. In other places, casualty rates were as high as 96%.

[Pictured: American soldiers help the wounded come to shore during the Allied invasion on June 6, 1944.]

[Lee Stewart]

Fleets of now-iconic Higgins boats ferried most men ashore on D-Day. Technically called LCVP for “landing craft vehicles and personnel,” the vessels were designed and built by an ambitious and eccentric Irish-American industrialist named Andrew Higgins. Made from wood and steel, Higgins boats were simple, practical, reliable, and easy to mass-produce—in 1964, Eisenhower famously credited Higgins and his efforts with winning the war.

[Pictured: American troops board their Landing Craft Vehicle-Personnel at Torquay Hards, England, on June 3, 1944.]

[Lee Stewart]

Yankees catcher Yogi Berra took part in the D-Day invasion, as did author J.D. Salinger and slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who supported the invasion as part of a segregated unit. Golf great Bobby Jones was 40 when he successfully petitioned his Army Reserve commander to allow him to join the fray and Oscar-winning British actor David Niven was among the first officers to land; he won a U.S. Legion of Merit Medal. Before he played Scotty on “Star Trek,” James Doohan sustained six bullet wounds and lost his middle finger on Juno Beach. Actor Charles Durning—thrown into the first-wave at Omaha Beach—won a Silver Star and a Purple Heart and was among the only survivors from his landing group.

[Pictured: An Allied soldier looks out over the Normandy operations underway on June 6, 1944.]

[Lee Stewart]

To prepare for the landings, the Americans shipped 7 million tons of supplies from the U.S. to a staging area in England. Among the haul was 450,000 tons of ammunition.

[Pictured: An ambulance is loaded at Portland Harbor in Dorset, England, on June 5, 1944.]

[Lee Stewart]

Allied commanders planned meticulously for years, photographing the area from the air and painstakingly cataloging every detail of the landscape. In the end, war planners created 17 million maps to support D-Day operations.

[Pictured: U.S. Army generals review a map in Corsica in August 1944.]

[Lee Stewart]

By establishing a beachhead, the Allies were able to open a supply chain that allowed desperately needed resources to flow into France. By June 11 (D+5), 104,428 tons of supplies, 54,186 vehicles, and 326,547 troops had followed in the footsteps of the first infantrymen to hit the shores.

[Pictured: Operations underway as landing ships put cargo ashore on Omaha Beach in June 1944.]

[Lee Stewart]

In order to accommodate the massive influx of people and things, the Allies constructed two enormous artificial pre-fabricated harbors called the Mulbury Harbours. To get the job done, 55,000 workers spent six months and poured 1 million tons of concrete.

[Pictured: Allies unload supplies on a Mulberry Harbour at Colleville, France.]

[Lee Stewart]

As part of their Atlantic defenses, the Germans placed artillery pieces atop Pointe du Hoc, 100-foot cliffs overlooking Omaha and Utah beaches and the English Channel. Those artillery units could have annihilated Allied forces landing on the beaches below, but U.S. Army Rangers scaled the cliffs, seized the guns, and held the terrain against significant German counterattacks. The Rangers’ efforts to secure Omaha Beach’s left flank came at a tremendous loss of life.

[Pictured: A command post is established on the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc at during the invasion at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.]

[Lee Stewart]

The Medal of Honor is the highest award that the U.S. Armed Forces can bestow. Of the thousands who fought and died, 12 men received Medals of Honor for their heroics on D-Day. Nine of them were given posthumously.

[Pictured: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen (R) greets Medal of Honor recipient U.S. Army Staff Sgt. (retired) Walter Ehlers (C) during a ceremony in Arlington, Virginia, in 2011.]

[Lee Stewart]

The Army was segregated during World War II and African American units were largely relegated to supporting roles and manual labor. On D-Day, however, a single segregated black unit participated in the landings: the 330th Barrage Balloon Battalion.

[Pictured: A platoon of African American troops prepare to eliminate a German sniper on June 10, 1944.]