Eighty years ago, 132,500 Allied forces stormed ashore on France’s Normandy coast to begin the final liberation of Europe from Nazi rule.
It was the biggest amphibious operation the world has ever seen. Nearly 12,000 Allied aircraft and 7,000 ships landed 132,000 troops on the beaches or by parachute behind German lines.
By the end of the day, a tenuous foothold in Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” had been won at a cost of more than 4,500 Allied soldiers killed and another 5,500 wounded or missing.
It was an operation that could have gone either way. That day in Normandy, the fate of the war hung in the balance for both the Allies and the Axis powers.
“Victory is not assured, but it can be achieved,” Capt. Tim Steigelman, deputy commodore of Naval Beach Group 1, told a gathering of West Coast Navy amphibious units in a ceremony on the beach near Naval Amphibious Base Coronado.
“The Allied armies’ foothold was tenuous,” he said. “We might have been thrown back into the sea. The Allied advance might have stalled out in the hedgerows or later that winter at the Bulge. But the advance continued, and allied forces prevailed.”
Present on the Strand Beach in Coronado were nearly 200 sailors from all units under the San Diego-based Naval Beach Group (NBG) 1. All are current Navy units whose jobs or unit lineage can be traced back to World War II and in some cases, the Normandy landings on D-Day.
These are the sailors and units that would be called should the Nation need to assault an enemy beach again.
The role of sailors on D-Day
The role of sailors throughout the D-Day armada was crucial to the battle’s successful outcome that day. Many more served on the destroyers who brought fire support to the soldiers on the beaches or scoured the beaches as Naval Combat Demolition Units (NDCU) cleared mines and obstacles in the way of the landing force.
In the days following the landings, Rear Adm. Alan G. Kirk, commander of U.S. Naval Forces off Omaha and Utah beaches reflected on the Navy’s participation, saying, “Our greatest asset was the resourcefulness of the American sailor.”
“Looking at you all here today, I am heartened,” Steigelman said. “You are training, you will continue to train…you may be called upon sooner than you think.”
“With great sacrifice and some good fortune, 80 years ago today, D-Day at Normandy was a painful, hard-fought success for America and her allies — keep your chin up, keep working every day — when the nation calls, we must be ready again.”
