Today marks the 81st Anniversary of D-Day. June 6th, 1944, allied forces stormed five beaches off the coast of Nazi-occupied France. The invasion used the largest-ever armada of ships, troops, planes and vehicles to breach Hitler’s defenses in western Europe. 44 hundred soldiers were killed on D-Day itself. In the ensuing Battle of Normandy, 73 thousand allied forces were killed and 153 thousand wounded. Glenn Miller with the Lethbridge Military Museum reminds us, peace comes at a price….
The exact German casualties from the D-Day invasion are unknown, but historians estimate between 4,000 and 9,000 men were killed, wounded or missing. The war in Europe ended less than a year later in May of 1945.