How successful was the Normandy landings with regards to expected/acceptable casualties to actual?

by allyc31

Hi,

I’ve learned a lot of about D-Day and the Normandy landings via cultural osmosis but one thing I’ve always wondered was if the landings were considered to be successful when comparing what was considered to be acceptable casualties by the allies to the actual.

And, bonus question, if there was more actual casualties than deemed acceptable ,did this change the allies tactics in short or long term?

Thanks

Stay safe Ally

Edit - a word

DanKensington

One major failure point of the pop-cultural narrative of 1944 June 6 is what I call the 'Omaha Monolith', which I suspect is largely driven by Saving Private Ryan. Note, I have no animus against SPR. It's a most excellent film, and if veterans who were there say they did it right, that's the end of it. We may discuss the inevitable myriad flaws of a movie versus reality, but personally I think that's just pointless nitpicking to no real effect.

The problem of the Omaha Monolith is not so much the movie itself, but in people thinking that the experience of Omaha was consistent across all five landing beaches. This is most assuredly not the case, as we will demonstrate in the posts below. I've done a thorough search for posts examining the landings and so far nothing seems to have addressed your specific question of expected versus actual casualties; while we wait for that, we can examine actual casualties per beach to see how they stack up.

  • u/thefourthmaninaboat looks at Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches, as assaulted by the British and Canadian forces;
  • u/the_howling_cow examines Utah Beach, assaulted by the US and the 'easiest' of the five in terms of casualties;
  • and also shows Omaha Beach.

As always, should anyone else like to make their own contribution (especially one that addresses OP's direct question!), please don't let this post stop you! More insight is always welcome.