D-Day from the German Perspective - Armchair Historian Reaction

at 20:52 I definitely meant Saving Private Ryan not BoB. I should also mention that some Rangers did end up landing at Dog Green, but not in the first wave.

VTH: WW2 isn't really my area of expertise. Also VTH: adds more context to WW2 with 15 minutes of added content than my history book did in a semester

As a Canadian it is taught in school how well we did on D Day and that we had to stop to have the other beaches (and countries) catch up. In WW1 we became a nation, in WW2 we gained a reputation.

Just went to Normandy back in April. You're gonna love it. Gotta do the Utah museum

I have to say as a german your pronunciation of Widerstandsnest is very good

Rommel felt that Allied airpower would prevent the German Panzer units, and its logistics to move around, so they had to be close to the coast or they would not be able to react. There was also a shortage of fuel. Gerd von Rundstedt thought naval gunfire was a big threat, and had no faith in the atlantic wall and that a defence in depth inland was a better option.

I've been to the Normandy beaches, specifically Point DuHoc aka Utah Beach. The first thought I'd imagine what a German soldier would've thought when the Allied invasion force came in. That must've been the largest amount of ships they would ever see in their entire lives! It must've felt that the entire world is bearing down on them!

It's pretty dang long, but I think you'd enjoy the iwo Jima series from the operation room. Goes in depth into the specifics and forces you to understand the genuine and unexpected brutality of that fight

In regards to the US Navy in the Pacific, they are in route to the Marianas for the invasion of Saipan that would commence the following week. It’s scale is equal in size to the forces that the Americans would put towards the Normandy landings.

Drinking game add on. When @vlogging Through History mentions a place he is going soon.

I'm glad you mentioned about the British engineers manning the landing crafts. I had the fortune of visiting Omaha beach in 2004 and our (British) tour guide said that he had a relative who fought on Omaha beach. I was (naturally) surprised at this until he explained that the US landing forces requested the aid of British engineers.

The streets in the subdivision where I grew up were all named after WWII battles. A boy in my class lived on Dieppe. We lived on St. Lo

For the American/allied perspective, I highly recommend visiting the D-Day memorial in Bedford, VA for anyone who is able to make the trip. Lots of interesting history to read there. And it's an impressive memorial that's on par with those in Washington DC. The flags of every country that participated in Operation Overlord/Neptune are flying there and they have an explanation of how they all contributed. Bedford is a small town about halfway between Ronoake and Lynchburg. The memorial was built there because 19 of the 30 "Bedford Boys" that were enlisted died during the operation, which means that Bedford suffered the highest per Capita loss of any town/city on D-Day. A very nice gesture to build it there, even though that puts it out of the way for some potential visitors.

I second that comment about James Holland’s book on Normandy. Absolutely superb author with many other books on WWII including the Battle of Britain, Burma and Sicily.

Man, I love these perspective series he's done! I hope you continue reacting to them in the future!

Will you be visiting Juno Beach? I think it’s important to remember that it wasn’t just the Americans who landed on D day it was the Canadians and the British to hack through even other nations that weren’t landing on the beaches, but helped in a multitude of other ways to prepare for operation overlord through the Polish British subjects from India, Vichy, French, and many more I think it’s important that we remember everyone who helped contribute on D-Day not just the individual people who landed

I visited normandy in 2018 and we had this really great tour that showed german and american perspective and omaha beach was really a killzone when you saw how good the germans had visibility to the beach

My wife and I are going to London and Paris in July. Won't be particularly history focused, since that's not her thing, but very much looking forward to it. Great that you're working with P. Woodadge. I've watched a ton of his video's and am amazed at this knowledge of WWII generally, but D-Day in particular. I envy his ability to speed read and comprehend all of the books he reads. Also, it would have been hilarious if Armchair Historians paid ad about Patton, Rommel and Montgomery would've been Manscaped instead of Keeps!

Weather Looks good for Normandy next week!

In the Pacific Theater, at this time, the USN is preparing for the invasion of Saipan on June 14th, which leads to one of the major naval engagements, the Battle of the Phillipine Sea. You have two of the largest amphibious operations in history occurring near enough simultaneously.