"A Tale of Two Invasions" Topic

The United States devoted massive resources to the invasion of Normandy but during the same month still was able to conduct one of the biggest amphibious landings of the Pacific war…

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The ability to stage amphibious invasions was largely dependent on the number of landing craft available. When a cross-channel invasion in Northern France was scratched for 1943, Marshall (a bit peevishly) diverted a lot of landing craft to the Pacific, few of which ever got returned to the Atlantic. So by June 1944, there were a lot in both theaters and twin invasions like this were possible.

That article is highly misleading – the amphibious aspect of D-Day, Operation Neptune, was a predominantly Royal Navy operation:

Of the 4,126 landing craft and landing ships deployed, 3,261 were British.

Of the 1,213 warships engaged 892 were British.

Of the 195,700 naval personnel involved; 112,824 were from the Royal Navy and another 25,000 from the Merchant Navy.

The naval operation was commanded by Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Royal Navy which the article does concede.

Vessels were also supplied by the Dominion navies, mostly Canada, Free France, Poland and the Netherlands. I've probably left out a few.

The article mentions British and other involvement but mixes up the figures in several categories in a very misleading way. For example, for Neptune it lists nine battleships/monitors – of these three were American (Arkansas, Nevada and Texas); it lists 23 cruisers – there were 25 of which three were American; 80 fleet destroyers are listed of which 19 were American; there were 139 escorts, including the destroyers – 40 of these were American; one of three minesweeping squadrons was American; not sure where the 1,123 landing craft number comes from.

So, although the US obviously devoted massive resources to the operation, and to other theatres, and obviously eventually provided the preponderance of forces which liberated Europe, please let's not forget that D-Day was an Allied operation to which others contributed massively and not just an American effort.

22ndFoot, so Britain and its Dominion navies supplied landing craft/ships for the invasion. Who owned them doesn't really matter in terms of the original point. How many of those landing craft and landing ships were British/Canadian built? I would bet most of them were still American built, leading back to the discussion at hand.

Sundance – a significant number of the vessels involved were, obviously, American built and I would not claim otherwise. For example, of 1,000 Landing Ships (Tank) built (though not all used at D-Day) only 80 were built in British or Canadian yards.

But that does not apply to all of them – for example, there were multiple types of smaller landing vessels built in British yards including approximately 2,000 Landing Craft Assault – though not all of these were used at D-Day – by Thornycroft and its subcontractors who were mostly woodworking and furniture factories. The Royal Navy did not operate the ubiquitous Higgins boat of which 20,000+ were built. A significant proportion of troops landed at Utah and Omaha were landed in LCAs manned by Royal Navy crews.

Similarly, it does not hold for most of the other categories of ships and vessels nor of the men operating them. The battleship/monitor, cruiser and destroyer/escort categories used in the article are particular examples.

As I tried to make clear, I am not out to belittle US efforts and the overwhelming and ultimately succesful contribution the USA made in all our defence for which we are, or should be, grateful. I am pointing out that the article is trying to make a valid point but does so by being misleading.

In the run up to the 75th anniversary of D-Day it would be positive if the contributions of others to this and other operations were recognised.