26 Henry Miller Leaked D-Day Timing
An American general was sent home in disgrace after revealing the timing of the secret D-Day invasion at a London dinner party. In April 1944, Major General Henry J. F. Miller told a fellow officer at Claridge’s that the invasion would take place before June 15. When Dwight D. Eisenhower learned of the security breach, Miller was demoted from major general to his permanent rank of lieutenant colonel and returned to the United States. The public remained unaware of the incident until after the Normandy landings.
27. Captain Leonard Treherne “Max” Schroeder Jr. became the first American soldier to come ashore from a landing craft during the D-Day invasion. At 6:28 a.m., two minutes ahead of H-Hour, his boat reached Utah Beach, and he waded the final 100 yards through waist-high water under enemy fire. Half of his company became casualties, and Schroeder was shot twice in the left arm but survived. He earned the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart during World War II and died in 2009 at the age of 90.
28. Before D-Day, Allied planners combined civilian holiday photographs with covert beach surveys to determine whether Normandy could support an amphibious invasion. On May 17, 1942, the BBC broadcast a public appeal for prewar photographs and postcards from across Europe, eventually receiving ten million items.
29. On D-Day, 27 of the 29 Sherman DD amphibious tanks that the US 741st Tank Battalion launched offshore at Omaha Beach sank before reaching land. Each 35-ton tank used twin propellers and a raised waterproof canvas screen to float, but the system was designed for waves no higher than one foot. The tanks were launched about three miles from shore into waves reaching six feet, and some turned side-on to the swells, allowing water to overwhelm their screens. Most crewmen were rescued, but five died, and the loss of nearly all the swimming tanks deprived the assault troops of vital armored support.
30. In 1982, the skeleton of a carrier pigeon was discovered inside a chimney in Surrey, with a red message canister still attached to its leg. The handwritten note contained 27 five-letter code groups, was signed “Sjt W Stot,” and was addressed to “X02.” Although widely suspected to have been sent from France around D-Day, its date and origin have never been proven. GCHQ examined hundreds of proposed solutions but found none credible, concluding that the message cannot be decoded without the missing codebooks or other original cryptographic material.
31 Comanche Talkers Coded D-Day Messages
The Navajo were not the only Native American code talkers during World War II. Fourteen Comanche code talkers serving with the US Army’s 4th Signal Company landed at Utah Beach on D-Day and began transmitting messages shortly afterward. Their 250-term vocabulary called a tank a “turtle,” a bomber a “pregnant bird,” a machine gun a “sewing machine,” and Adolf Hitler a “crazy white man.” Some were wounded during their European service, but none were killed.
32. During World War II, Britain revived the name of its First World War-era Fourth Army as a phantom force that never took the field. Although the army itself was fictional, its invented order of battle combined real formations with nonexistent corps and divisions. Under Operations Cockade and Fortitude North, its supposed headquarters at Edinburgh Castle helped convince Germany that the Allies were preparing to invade Norway, keeping German units away from Normandy. The imaginary army was later placed under the fictitious First U.S. Army Group to threaten Pas-de-Calais and was reused for notional assaults on the Dutch and German coasts.
33. After the Utah Beach landings during the Normandy invasion, Lieutenant Robert Brewer of the 101st Airborne recalled capturing four men in German uniforms who were identified as Korean. According to the account later published by historian Stephen Ambrose, they had been conscripted by Japan, captured and absorbed into the Red Army, captured again by Germany, and finally taken prisoner by the Americans.
34. D-Day did not unfold as one enormous rush onto the Normandy coast. At Omaha Beach alone, planners scheduled 26 assault waves beginning at 6:30 a.m., allowing successive groups of troops, vehicles, and equipment to land in sequence. The other beaches followed their own timetables, while Allied airborne operations had begun several hours earlier.
35. The Naval Combat Demolition Units of World War II eventually went on to become the Navy SEALs. Landing with the first assault waves on D-Day, the NCDUs blew eight complete gaps and two partial gaps through the German obstacles at Omaha Beach. At the less heavily defended Utah Beach, they cleared 700 yards within two hours and another 900 yards by the afternoon.
36 Submarines Marked Juno And Sword
Before D-Day, British midget submarines X20 and X23 secretly reached their positions off Normandy on June 4 and then waited two days after bad weather postponed the invasion. Early on June 6, they surfaced and raised 18-foot telescopic masts fitted with seaward-facing lights while also operating radio beacons and underwater sound transmitters. X20 marked Juno Beach and X23 marked Sword Beach, helping guide the approaching British and Canadian forces to the correct landing sectors.
37. During the Normandy campaign, an inexperienced British tank gunner named Joe Ekins destroyed three German Tiger tanks with his first five shots fired in combat. On August 8, 1944, Ekins used his Sherman Firefly’s 17-pounder gun to hit the tanks from about 800 yards away, despite having fired only six live rounds during training. One victim has traditionally been identified as Tiger 007, commanded by Waffen-SS tank ace Michael Wittmann, who was credited with around 135 tank kills.
38. American author J.D. Salinger carried six unpublished stories about the Caulfield family when he landed in the second wave at Utah Beach on D-Day. The developing pages traveled with him through liberated Paris, the brutal fighting in the Hurtgen Forest, and the concentration camps of the Dachau system while he continued writing and revising them. Those stories eventually formed the spine of The Catcher in the Rye, while the death and trauma Salinger witnessed gave Holden Caulfield’s voice greater darkness and emotional depth.
39. At 6:36 a.m. on D-Day, Able Company of the 116th Infantry Regiment landed with the first wave at Omaha Beach and was immediately swept by German machine-gun and mortar fire. Within seven minutes, the company was leaderless and unable to fight as an organized unit. Only one officer, Lieutenant Elijah Nance, remained alive, and he had already been wounded twice; by ten minutes, every sergeant was either dead or wounded. After half an hour, roughly two-thirds of the company had been lost.
40. The Allied deception campaign surrounding D-Day, called Operation Bodyguard, used fake radio traffic, double agents, phantom armies, and Australian-born British actor M.E. Clifton James impersonating General Bernard Montgomery. Its connected operations suggested possible invasions of Norway, the Pas-de-Calais, southern France, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans while presenting Normandy as a diversion. Even after D-Day, Hitler continued expecting a larger assault at Calais. The deception helped keep the German Fifteenth Army in the Pas-de-Calais for nearly seven weeks, delaying its deployment against the Normandy beachhead.
41 Rangers Climbed Pointe du Hoc
On D-Day, 225 U.S. Army Rangers commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James Rudder landed beneath the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, which rose as high as 100 feet, and climbed them using ropes and ladders while under German fire. Their mission was to destroy six 155mm guns capable of shelling Omaha and Utah beaches, but they found the clifftop emplacements empty because the weapons had been moved inland. Ranger patrols located five of the guns and disabled them with thermite grenades and explosives. The Rangers then endured repeated German counterattacks until relief arrived on June 8, by which time fewer than 75 of the original 225 men remained fit for duty.
42. The Filthy Thirteen were an unruly demolition section of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment whose exploits and embellished press coverage helped inspire The Dirty Dozen, although they were not condemned criminals like the fictional characters. On D-Day, enemy fire scattered them about eight miles from their objective, but survivors and other displaced paratroopers regrouped, destroyed two bridges over the Douve River, and held a third for five days. They had a reputation of drinking, fighting, ignoring regulations, and rarely bathing. During the Battle of the Bulge, Jake McNiece and several former members parachuted into the surrounded Bastogne as pathfinders, using beacons to guide more than 600 planeloads of critical supplies over five days.
43. The iconic X-shaped obstacles on the D-Day beaches were Czech hedgehogs, steel anti-tank barriers repurposed to obstruct landing craft and vehicles. Collisions could puncture boat hulls, while mines attached to many obstacles caused even more serious damage. German planners initially expected the invasion near high tide, when many of the obstacles would be submerged and difficult to see. The Allies instead scheduled the landings around low tide to expose them for demolition, although delays and rough water left the first rows partly submerged.
44. In summer 1943, an early copy of the secret Operation Overlord plan reportedly blew from a window at Norfolk House in London, where Allied officers were planning D-Day. A passerby found the papers and returned them, explaining that his eyesight was too poor to read them.
45. At age 23, U.S. Navy Ensign Joseph Vaghi served as beachmaster for the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach on D-Day, a role he compared to being a traffic cop at a busy intersection. After landing at 7:35 a.m., he directed troops, vehicles, and supplies across the exposed beach while German machine-gun and artillery fire struck around him. Amid the battle, he unexpectedly encountered his Providence College classmate Edward Gallogly, who greeted him with, “Hi Joe, what the hell are you doing here?” Gallogly survived the war and later became lieutenant governor of Rhode Island.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Spitfires Chilled Beer At Altitude
After the D-Day landings, RAF and RCAF pilots began using Spitfires as improvised beer carriers after troops in Normandy complained that local inns offered little besides watery cider. Ground crews steam-cleaned auxiliary jettison tanks normally used for fuel, filled them with ale, and later mounted beer barrels beneath the wings. Flying across the English Channel at around 15,000 feet chilled the beer before the aircraft landed at forward airfields in France.
47. On D-Day, American combat medics Robert Wright and Kenneth Moore parachuted unarmed behind enemy lines with the 101st Airborne Division. They converted a small church in Angoville-au-Plain into an aid station and worked for three days without sleep or fresh supplies, treating more than 70 wounded American and German soldiers as well as local civilians. When German forces captured the village, an officer allowed the neutral aid station to continue after seeing German casualties receiving the same care as the Americans.
48. The Canadian troops who assaulted Juno Beach on D-Day had all volunteered, as Canada had no conscription for overseas deployment. More than 1.1 million Canadians served in the armed forces during World War II, representing roughly one-tenth of the country’s population.
49. Canadian soldier Leo Major landed at Juno Beach on D-Day and helped capture a German armored half-track containing communications equipment. During the Battle of the Scheldt later in 1944, he single-handedly brought 93 German prisoners back to Canadian lines. In April 1945, after his partner was killed during a reconnaissance mission near Zwolle, Major entered the occupied Dutch city alone and helped force its remaining German troops to withdraw. His actions spared Zwolle from a planned Allied bombardment and earned him the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
50. The “D” in D-Day simply meant “day.” Military planners used D-day for the date an attack or operation would begin and H-hour for its starting time, particularly when the exact schedule remained secret or undecided. This allowed other events to be scheduled as D-1, D+1, H-3, and so on, although the Normandy invasion made D-Day synonymous with June 6, 1944.
RE: Fact #10 (James Doohan Survived Six Bullets) – He actually retired to my hometown, Redmond, WA. I saw him in a parking lot once, and he was driving a conversion van with a bumper sticker that read: ‘STARFLEET ACADEMY – GRADUATE’.
RE: Fact #15 (Hitler’s Sleep Delayed Panzer Reinforcements) – Just imagine how differently things would have played out if he had actually been competent.
I mean, how about starting with not committing genocide and actually trying to develop nuclear weapons first?
RE: Fact #37 (Joe Ekins Destroyed Three Tigers) – Joe Ekins was a crack shot, even though he’d only fired that 17-pounder a handful of times in his life. He was terrified, but he just thought, “Get the bastard before he gets you.” After he fired, there was a blindng flash, and it took a moment for the smoke to clear. Then, the Tiger went up in flames, the ammo cooked off and launched the turret. In under 15 minutes, he’d taken out three Tigers with only five shots.
RE: Fact #17 (Eisenhower’s Failure Note Accepted Blame) – I can’t imagine having to commit to an operation like D-Day without knowing for sure that it would work. The pressure must have been unbearable.
RE: Fact #42 (Filthy Thirteen Inspired Dirty Dozen) – There is something both necessary and awful about being a maverick in the military. You just hope the right person is in charge of those decisions when it counts.
RE: Fact #11 (Allies Briefed De Gaulle Belatedly) – It reminds me of the time in 1966 when Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO and told the US to leave. President Lyndon Johnson reportedly had his Secretary of State ask de Gaulle if that included the 60, 000 American soldiers buried in France from the world wars. The story goes that de Gaulle was so embarrassed he just got up and left.
Since we’re talking about LBJ, I have to mention the time he used an amphibious car on his Texas ranch. He’d take guests for a drive and then ‘accidentally’ steer into the lake while pretending to panic, just to watch them freak out. Total madman.
I don’t know much about LBJ, but I’m definitely curious to hear more. That was a brutal verbal takedown.
If you look into him, he’s one of the most interesting presidents. He came from absolutely nothing in rural Texas, yet he passed the Civil Rights Act, which changed the country for the better for millions of people. He definitely had his flaws, but he was a fascinating guy.
That’s not quite right. De Gaulle didn’t pull France out of NATO entirely; he just withdrew the country from the unified command structure. France didn’t drop its treaty obligations, but he was making a point that French troops should be led by French officers, not American ones. They were still fully expected to fight alongside NATO if it came to that.
“Committed, ” lol. France was threatening to walk away from NATO basically every chance they got throughout the Cold War.
RE: Fact #29 (Omaha’s Amphibious Tanks Sank Offshore) – The way this is written makes the tanks sound like a failure, but they worked fine at the other four beaches where they were launched much closer to the shore. The real mistake was launching them three miles out at Omaha.
RE: Fact #6 (USS Texas Deliberately Flooded Herself) – The way the Allied ships moved in dangerously close to Omaha Beach, practically grounding themselves just to provide cover fire for the infantry, is absolutely wild.
RE: Fact #40 (Operation Bodyguard Kept Calais Defended) – The deception plan was codenamed Operation Fortitude. It also involved using General Patton as a decoy because the Wehrmacht held him in such high regard.
RE: Fact #38 (Salinger’s Caulfield Pages Crossed Normandy) – So he had all those intense, real-world experiences, and he used them to write a book where basically nothing happens?
RE: Fact #32 (Fourth Army Was Entirely Fictional) – Every side was doing this kind of deception, but the British were definitely the best at it. They even hired magicians and stage performers to use their skills to pull the wool over the Germans’ eyes.
RE: Fact #23 (Patton’s Phantom Army Threatened Calais) – It wasn’t just about punishment. Patton was someone the Germans genuinely feared and respected. They were convinced he’d lead the main invasion, so putting him in command of the decoy force just confirmed their suspicions about where the attack would happen.
Exactly. They picked him for his profile because nobody would believe he was actually in charge of a fake army. I remember reading a book where he supposedly said something like, ‘They want me to run around making noise and showing off, and that’s exactly what I’m best at.’
RE: Fact #50 (D-Day’s D Simply Meant Day) – It’s interesting because the operation most people think of as D-Day actually had a cool name. “Operation Overlord” covers the entire Battle of Normandy, while the actual landing was “Operation Neptune.” I wonder if we just call it D-Day because it involved two different operations and it became confusing to name just one.
RE: Fact #48 (Canadian Juno Troops Volunteered Overseas) – I know our contributions often get overshadowed by the work of the big three, but for Canadians, this is a huge part of our national identity and heritage.
RE: Fact #49 (Leo Major Captured Ninety-Three Germans) – It is worth mentioning that he isn’t better known or celebrated partly because he was a vocal separatist. Separatists weren’t popular in the rest of Canada back then, and they still aren’t, though for different reasons now. I’ve heard that some movie studios wanted to make a film about him but insisted he be portrayed as an American.
RE: Fact #40 (Operation Bodyguard Kept Calais Defended) – Seven weeks seems like a stretch. There were hundreds of thousands of troops and thousands of tanks and aircraft involved in the fight by then. It’s hard to imagine Hitler believed that force was just a decoy.
RE: Fact #8 (Daily Telegraph Crosswords Alarmed MI5) – The logic was hilarious: ‘We were shocked they thought Dawe was a spy. He was a member of the golf club!’ Yeah, definitely not a traitor if he plays golf.
RE: Fact #19 (Rupert Dummies Diverted German Defenders) – There’s a scene in “The Longest Day” where the British show how they worked. They even rigged them with gunpowder charges so that if a German soldier walked up to one, it would pop off when it hit the ground to make them think they were being fired on. British ingenuity in that war is really underrated.
RE: Fact #14 (Martha Gellhorn Became D-Day Stowaway) – Gellhorn hated being defined by her marriage to Hemingway, and she famously demanded that his name not be mentioned in interviews. She once said, ‘I’ve been a writer for over 40 years. I was a writer before I met him and I was a writer after I left him. Why should I be merely a footnote in his life?’
RE: Fact #21 (Exercise Tiger Killed 749 Americans) – This disaster was mentioned in “Band of Brothers, ” where it noted that authorities suppressed the information for obvious reasons at the time.
RE: Fact #39 (German Fire Shattered Able Company) – It was brutal. The Allies basically had to get men onto the sand faster than the German machine guns could cut them down. It’s pretty amazing that Normandy was a success at all when you think about it.
RE: Fact #5 (Woodson’s Aid Station Treated Hundreds) – Considering someone like Edward A. Carter Jr. didn’t get his Medal of Honor until the 90s, I would say yes, he was absolutely deprived of it. The US was so racist back then that Black veterans were treated poorly and often denied GI Bill benefits that helped build the middle class.
RE: Fact #3 (Bill Millin’s Bagpipes Defied Gunfire) – The account says he was armed only with his pipes and a black knife kept in his kilt, and per tradition, he wasn’t wearing any underwear. He mentioned later that the freezing water really took his breath away. The man went into combat against the Nazis with a tiny boot knife and a musical instrument while people were dying all around him.
RE: Fact #41 (Rangers Climbed Pointe du Hoc) – That’s wild. The allies actually attached fuses to the grappling hooks and lit them before firing them up the cliff. Since the Germans saw the burning fuses, they assumed they were explosives and stayed away from them.
RE: Fact #15 (Hitler’s Sleep Delayed Panzer Reinforcements) – It’s wild that they kept him drugged up to make him sleep. He was taking uppers like amphetamines and cocaine to stay alert during the day, so he couldn’t sleep at night, which forced them to give him downers like opiates and benzos. It’s a miracle his heart didn’t just give out.
RE: Fact #21 (Exercise Tiger Killed 749 Americans) – I think this stayed secret until a diver found a submerged Sherman off Slapton Sands and started digging into it. The government was able to keep it under wraps for so long because they’d evacuated all the civilians from the area to keep the landing exercises secret.
RE: Fact #29 (Omaha’s Amphibious Tanks Sank Offshore) – To add some context, there were reasons other than just those big waves. According to a BBC investigation, the tanks were launched way out at 6, 000 yards without really accounting for the actual conditions. Plus, the landing craft drifted off course, which forced the tanks to turn side-on to the swells, leaving their canvas screens vulnerable to getting swamped. A couple of crews who had some sailing experience knew to keep their backs to the waves and actually made it to the beach. Some of the crews even managed to radio a warning back to units behind them, which definitely saved some lives and equipment.
RE: Fact #22 (Eisenhower Smoked Six Packs Daily) – He still lived to 78, eventually dying of congestive heart failure. I’m sure he wasn’t smoking and drinking that much coffee during his quieter years, but it’s still surprising.
RE: Fact #28 (BBC Holiday Photos Mapped Normandy) – That’s the kind of mundane detail that actually wins wars. Unlike having 40-mile supply convoys stuck in the mud, right?
RE: Fact #20 (Folding Bicycles Carried Canadians Inland) – I can see myself getting on a bike with a rifle and a 70-pound pack and immediately tipping over into a ditch.