Destination Normandy: Three American Regiments on D-DayBennett collects oral histories from men of three United States regiments that participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. The 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment was the most widely scattered of the American parachute infantry regiments to be dropped on D-Day. However, the efforts of 180 men to stop the advance of an SS Panzer Grenadier division largely have been ignored outside of France. The 116th Infantry Regiment received the highest number of casualties on Omaha Beach of any Allied unit on D-Day. Stationed in England through most of the war, it had been the butt of jokes while other regiments did the fighting and dying in North Africa and the Mediterranean; that changed on June 6, 1944. And the 22nd Infantry Regiment, a unit that had fought in almost every campaign waged by the U.S. Army since 1812, came ashore on Utah Beach quite easily before getting embroiled in a series of savage fights to cross the marshland behind the beach and to capture the German heavy batteries to the north. |
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... captured and brought into operation . Before the landings , paratroops would be landed to cover the flanks of the ... capturing key strategic points that would facilitate a speedy advance beyond the beachhead . The paratroopers would ...
... captured by Italian troops as he struggled free from his parachute . During his interrogation , Scambelluri began to speak to his captors in Italian . His family had left Italy for a new life in the United States when Scambel- luri was ...
... captured along with several other men from the head of the column . Together the men of Smith's column crossed the Merderet under heavy fire . Before they reached American lines near La Fiere , many of the prisoners had become ...
Contents
Operation Bolero and the Clash of Cultures | 1 |
Three Regiments and the Mind of the | 7 |
Early Training and the Buildup to June 6 1944 | 19 |
Copyright | |
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