How did the Allies make it through D-Day in WW2? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

How did the Allies make it through D-Day in WW2?

by ilunite2

Weren’t there so many machine guns that just mowed the Allied forces? How did the Allies end up taking the beaches?

Is it because of sheer numbers? Perhaps, the Germans ran out of ammo? Or maybe the reload times of the German machine guns gave enough time for Allied soldiers to gradually gain territory until they were close enough to take over the fortresses?

How did the Allies make it through the beaches? Or were the casualties on DDay very bad for the Allies and were technically not a win on that specific day alone?

DanKensington

The problem here is that you're starting from a false assumption. Omaha Beach was the bloodiest of the five landing beaches, but what happened at Omaha cannot be generalised to all five. Here's a few previous posts for your perusal:

u/thefourthmaninaboat has an overview of Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches, as assaulted by the British and Canadians (the Brits had Sword and Gold, the Canadians had Juno).
u/the_howling_cow examines Utah Beach, the other American beach, where they had a much easier time of it. For completeness, they also examine the casualties at Omaha Beach, and how they compared to the other beaches.