Elsewhere on “D-Day”

So much has been said about the significance and heroism on the beaches of Normandy on this day 77 years ago, but consider that Operation OVERLORD was just one front of countless battlefields where American sailors, airmen, soldiers, and Marines fought on June 6, 1944. In his spectacular book The Second World Wars Victor Davis Hanson points out the vast scale of which American forces were involved that day:

“On the single day of the invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944), around the world other US forces were just as much on the attack at sea and in the air. As part of the ill-fated Operation Frantic shuttle-bombing operations between US air fields in Italy and refueling bases in the Soviet Ukraine, over 150 B-17s and their P-51 escorts attacked the oil fields at Galati, Romania. Another five hundred B-17s and their escorts hit the often-targeted Romanian fields at Ploesti. Meanwhile, the 12th Air Force conducted continuous tactical air strikes on German positions in Italy. Allied ground troops also had just occupied Rome two days earlier and were garrisoning the city in preparation for offensives against the Gothic Line in northern Italy.”

“In the Asian and Pacific theaters on this same landmark day of June 6,” Hanson writes, “the US Pacific Fleet was making preparations to invade the Mariana Islands within a week, with a combined force almost as large as had landed at Normandy. Meanwhile, B-29 bombers prepared for their first raid against Japan from forward bases in China, while six B-25 Mitchell medium bombers and ten P-51 escorts conducted operations against Tayang Chiang, China. B-25s were also attacking Japanese troops moving on Imphal, India. Meanwhile, the submarine Raton was tracking a Japanese convoy near Saigon. The submarine Harder sank a Japanese destroyer off Borneo, while the Pintado torpedoed and destroyed a cargo vessel off the Marianas. B-24 heavy bombers hit Ponape Island in Micronesia as tactical strikes were conducted against the Japanese on Bougainville, New Britain, and New Guinea.”