The official casualty estimate on D + 1 was 3,000 killed and wounded most of whom were lost in the first few hours.
This surely must be wrong when notice is taken not only of the strength of the enemy but also of German accounts of the battle.
The Casulties of D Day
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The beaten zones of over one hundred machine guns which lined the top of the bluffs would almost certainly have accounted for many more than 500 dead if the ratio of 15% is taken as reasonable.
This 15% is a depressingly accurate on the relationship between killed and wounded in every conflict since the Franco Prussian War. German soldiers who lined the bluffs that dreadful day and who were behind the machine guns reckon that the dead must have numbered well over 2,500 but put the casualties to 6,000 plus.
Perhaps is was politically impossible for Gerow to confess to such a blood-bath. Perhaps there were other reasons to conceal the true figure, one of which may have been the effects on public opinion back in the USA?
Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, pocked by D-Day bombardment
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Utah Beach with ruins of a diagonal tank barrier still visible
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Sonar equipment and cameras have been used to find remnants of the invasion fleet beneath the sea.
As recently as May 2001 a trawler sank with three aboard - a tragedy blamed on a war time wreck.
Underwater archaeologists of the US Naval Historical Centre have begun a survey of D-Day wrecks off Omaha and Utah Beaches.
A rusting amphibious tank - sunk on its way to Utah Beach
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US Navy flashlight found inside the wreck of a wooden hulled mine-sweeper
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We can leave this desolate scene with a first hand description by a platoon commander:
"My landing craft came in as dusk was falling. I leapt off quickly into knee-deep water and started to wade towards the shore near the Casino Hotel.
I looked down, I looked down again and realised that I was moving through a thick, pinkish soup of tattered human remains and bits of anatomy.
The memory haunts me to this day and I do not wish to come back, ever. The place was a hell-hole."
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