Historically examining the Normandy landings, it is a fact that it was indeed a huge military-political and organizational allied operation, which was crowned with complete success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The operation was planned and executed by the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) General Dwight Eisenhower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The command of the amphibious operation for the crossing of the English Channel and the assault phase of the amphibious forces, received the code name “Operation Neptune” and was entrusted to the English Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay. For this operation, 6,939 vessels from eight navies of allied countries were allocated for its implementation. Of these, 1,213 were combat warships, 4,126 landing ships, 736 auxiliaries and 864 merchant ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
57 convoys were planned for the operation, which, apart from weapons and supplies, carried thousands of tanks and millions of soldiers from 12 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Commander of the landing troops that formed 39 divisions (20 American, 14 British, 3 Canadian, 1 Polish and 1 French), which was manned by General de Gaulle’s “Free French”, was the English General Bertrand Montgomery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Battle of Normandy had a planned objective of forty days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The D-Day landings were partially successful, but the continuation of the operation was much more difficult and heavy fighting ensued. The initial phase involved 1,452,000 men (up to July 25) and 2,052,299 (up to the end of August). On the German side, 380,000 men participated (until July 23) and 640,000 in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allied forces crossed the English Channel and reached an 80-kilometer stretch of the French coast, thus recording the largest military landing operation in human history. The operation meant the opening of the second front in Europe, the Western Front. But it was coming too late, after years of hard pressure from the USSR on its Western allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Allied landing forces, rushing to land on the beaches of Normandy, encountered less than expected resistance from the German Nazi army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this happened because, on the one hand, Hitler had underestimated the operation, estimating that it would take place elsewhere, considering that he could face it, and on the other hand, he had already transferred his important and, for many historians, his best fighting units to the Eastern Front, where the Third Reich was really fighting survival with the Red Army, which was mounting a gigantic counterattack and dominating the fields of operations and already advancing westward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greece was under German occupation from April 1941 and had a small merchant navy at the time. However, he participated in “Operation Poseidon” with two units of our navy, the corvettes “KRIEZIS” and “TOMBAZIS” and with seven ships of the merchant navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus the name of Greece was included in the announcement heard on the BBC morning news of June 6, 1944 to the whole world: “Naval forces of the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Poland, Holland, Norway and of Greece made a landing in Europe today”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Allied toll is estimated at 226,386 casualties, 4,101 planes and 4,000 armored vehicles and tanks. German losses ranged from 288,695 to 530,000 casualties, 2,127 aircraft and 1,500 to 2,400 tanks and tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Civilian casualties in the area reached 39,000, with half killed during the bombardment before the ground operations began and the rest during the three months of military operations. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless and most of the areas infrastructure was destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So every D-Day anniversary, the same question comes to many people’s minds. Who defeated the Germans (and their allies) in WWII? The answer for many historians is the Red Army. For other Western historians, they consider that the landing in Normandy was the most decisive event of WWII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it is so. It is estimated that Western Allied input was invaluable, but the real winner is the Red Army of the Soviet Union, and we will see that by analyzing the numbers. Many believe that the theft of victory laurels was an act of deception by the Western Powers, a necessary propaganda initially after the end of the war, to ease them into the Cold War against the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After eight decades of systematic propaganda, aided by Hollywood movies, there is still the impression that the USA defeated the Third Reich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a recent survey in France it was shown that more than 50% of the French believe that the contribution of the USA was the one that contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany during WWII. Even today, many people in the Western world believe that the “bad” guys in this war were the Russians, even though they were allies of the Western powers against the Axis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The historical truth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I find it sad that even today, Western leaders insist on an arrogant and untrue position, that the most decisive action for the end of the war was the most important and I would say magnificent operation of the Normandy landings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is historically indisputable that the Soviet Red Army and the terrifying and colossal sacrifices of the Soviet citizens were the main factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the main factor in the liberation of Europe from the Nazi Third Reich, with the contribution of course of the allied forces of Western Front. But the mother of all battles, the greatest in the history of warfare, the terrifying battle of Stalingrad, which halted the eastward advance and literally destroyed the Nazi war machine, was over in February 1943! That is, about a year and a half before the Western Alliance decided on the overdue creation of the Western Front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus the Allied western Normandy landings gave the Red Army the opportunity, two weeks after D-Day, to launch the war-ending Operation Bagration, a gigantic attack against the central German Army Group on one front thousands of miles. Within 8 weeks the German forces had retreated about 200 miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 30 German Divisions (out of at least 200) were completely destroyed. It was the attack that cracked the military backbone of the German Wehrmacht and led to Germany’s final defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some historians cynically refer to Operation Overlord on the Western Front as a mere diversion for the much larger offensive on the Eastern Front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The relentless numbers of the dead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is considered appropriate to leave no doubt about the aforementioned, to refer to numbers of participation and dead on the Eastern Front between Germans and Soviets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the very thorough and reliable post-Soviet record, which most Western historians use and refer to (G. I. Krivosheev in “Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses”), the total number of Red Army men during the war finally amounted to 34,476 .700, including 1,000,000 women, and Germany’s army finally reached 21,107,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to many historians, Soviet archives are not the most reliable source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us clarify that the data from various sources do not completely agree with each other and there are some discrepancies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/image-99.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/image-100.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n