Was an ‘interesting’ month in WWII… Two of the biggest battles of the entire war took place in June. One in the Pacific, and one in the Atlantic.
In 1942, June 4-7, it was the Battle of Midway, starting on the 4th with an attack on the islands at Midway ending on the 7th with the USS Yorktown finally sinking, but the Japanese losses were worse, Akagi, Kaga, and Sōryū. Hiryū did get damage done to the Yorktown before she was sunk.
In 1944, June 7th was the second day of the D-Day landings. The beachheads Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword had been finally established late on 6 June, and the 7th saw the bridgehead pushing out 15km from the beach.
The other thing started on 7 June was the mulberry that would allow the offloading of the prodigious amount of material the US troops would need.
The battle for France would obviously take more than four days, and end up costing 2,501 American soldiers, and 1,913 from other Allied forces, primarily the United Kingdom and Canada just on 6 June. Overall, including wounded, missing, and captured, the total was around 10,000. The Germans lost between 7,000 and 9,000 troops that day.
The Normandy cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer contains 9,389 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. On the Walls of the Missing, in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial, are inscribed 1,557 additional names.
They were truly the greatest generation. May they rest in peace.
On the morning of the 6th the USS Texas was parked broadside to Omaha beach. She fired 255 rounds of 14 inch shells onto the German positions in 34 minutes. Texas is the only battleship to support in every major theater during the war.
At Omaha Beach, the USS O’Brien and other destroyers ignored their standoff distance orders, maneuvering perilously close to align their guns with the bluffs and silence enemy positions that were pinning down the first waves of the 29th Infantry Division.
Houston, she also flooded down the starboard torpedo blister to create a 2-degree tilt, which gave her guns an additional 1 mile of range. She was 2700 yards off the beach at the time, well within the range of the German guns, had they been able to fire…
Here’s The Fat Electrician on that particular tactic:
https://youtu.be/3oJSRAFkJIs
Yup. That too. Smart captain.
Total time at sea 44 months. Total distance 106,000 nautical miles. Only one seaman lost in battle
And if that generation of young men could see what Europe has turned into do you think they would have willingly left the boats to go on to the beaches? Somehow I doubt it.
Wasn’t it June 4th 1944 we took Rome?
Ag- Thanks!
Dan- Nope…
Ed- I ‘think’ you are correct.
Also in June 1944 – the invasion of Saipan and the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”.