I didnt write this but thought it was cool.
6,000 American Casualties in Bloodiest Fighting to Date
In a disastrous attempt to invade Normandy, France, more than 6,000 American soldiers were either killed or wounded in action yesterday. Estimates of the number of American dead range from 2,500 to 4,900. It was the bloodiest day of the war for the U.S. thus far, and the single deadliest outing suffered by the American military since the Civil War.
Roughly half of the casualties were suffered on one beach alone, code-named “Omaha” by military commanders. The beach is 300 feet deep and ends at the base of 100-foot cliffs. Germans defended these cliffs safe inside concrete pillboxes, heavily armed with machine guns, mortars and rocket launchers.
According to sources, commanders fatally misjudged the deployment of German defensive forces. In a catastrophic failure of intelligence, commanders were unaware that the 352nd Infantry Division, the best and most experienced German unit in France, had taken up fortified defensive positions at Omaha Beach.
“They underestimated the level of resistance,” said one officer, who asked that his name be withheld. “It was a killing zone.”
At the end of the day, only a small percentage of the original invading U.S. units maintained a tenuous toehold on Omaha Beach. Just two of 29 “amphibious” tanks launched at the beach actually made it to shore. Destroyed landing craft, vehicles and bodies littered the water’s edge and beach.
The debacle at Omaha Beach was emblematic of the invasion as a whole, as countless units throughout Normandy landed in the wrong place or met fiercer than expected resistance. American censors barred the press from most areas of the deadly battleground, forbidding the publishing of any photographs of dead soldiers.
Military and White House officials defend these restrictions on the press as necessary to maintain troop and national morale. Civil libertarians retort that these and many other measures undertaken by the Roosevelt administration are unconstitutional.
“The administration is using the war on fascism as a pretext for stripping away our freedoms,” said a spokesperson for the ACLU.
The spokesperson argued that by “taking the war to the enemy,” as President Roosevelt has put it, we are actually worsening our security situation. “Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, there hasn’t been a single attack on U.S. soil,” he said. “Yesterday we lost some 6,000 men invading a country that had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.”
As a whole, sources estimate that the Allies endured a shocking total of 10,500 casualties in a single day of combined land, sea and airborne operations. This marks an unprecedented rise in the already high casualty rate from the war.
Inside sources which declined to be identified pointed the finger of blame at General Dwight Eisenhower, who they say was warned of the probability of high casualties and yet still approved the now-discredted battle plan. Back in the States, peace activists called for his resignation.
At a contentious press conference late yesterday, Eisenhower tried to cast events in the best possible light. “The invasion is a tremendous success,” he told an incredulous press corps. “The level of casualties, while high, is actually lower than we expected.”
According to highly-placed sources, the Allied high command anticipated that a “successful” landing would cost 10,000 dead and 30,000 wounded, and actually braced themselves for an even heavier casualty level.
A letter has come into the possession of this newspaper which Eisenhower had prepared on the eve of the invasion in the event that the invasion ended in just such a disaster. It reads: “Our landings have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
Eisenhower declined to comment on why, despite the disastrous results of the invasion, he has refused to release the letter. He also angrily rejected calls to withdraw the troops, as several experts have urged in the face of the exponentially growing casualty rate, and as he himself suggested in the letter above.
Inside sources whisper that Eisenhower suffers from a messianic complex. They point to the curious wording of another letter he issued to the troops, this one made public on the morning of the Normandy debacle. “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade,” he wrote.
Sources are troubled by Eisenhower’s frequent allusions to his “deep faith” in “God,” which he has repeatedly invoked as a justification for his decisions. Eisenhower closed his letter to the troops with, “Let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”
Frenchmen and Germans interviewed at a cafe’ in Paris, France angrily disputed Eisenhower’s characterization of the invasion as a “great and noble undertaking.”
“We don’t want to be ‘liberated,’” said one Frenchman, on break from his job as a Vichy government travel agent who books trains to Germany. “The arrogant Americans think the whole world wants to be just like them. We just want to be left in peace.”
He said that he looked forward to the day when France, Germany and the rest of Europe could be unified under one government, and such “messy wars of so-called ‘liberation’” would be a thing of the past. “Democracy is overrated,” he grumbled as he stubbed out his Galois.