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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 18
... carrying the main body of the regiment arrived over the drop zone four miles northwest of the key route center of St. Mere Eglise , to the West of the Merderet River and its swamps . A little after 2:30 AM the first of 117 C - 47 ...
... carrying such a weight of equipment that once in deep water they had to abandon most of it in order to give their preservers a chance to do their job . PFC John Barnes of A Company was a flamethrower's assis- tant . Carrying his ...
... carrying the first wave of the 4th Infantry Division were lost on the run into the beach , opposing fire was mercifully light . Some 865 vessels in twelve convoys from nine different sortie points had come together to form Force U.34 ...
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 | |
15 other sections not shown