The Reception: The Germans on D-Day
How the sheer raw power of the Allies overwhelmed the Germans.
How the sheer raw power of the Allies overwhelmed the Germans.
Robert G. Aldous flew 42 missions in B-24s with the 90th Bomb Group during World War II, and another 32 missions in B-29s with the 98th Bomb Group during the Korean War.
At the end of the war, more than 12,000 American POWs were scattered in camps across the Pacific in desperate shape. From August 30-September 20, 1945, in Operation Swift Mercy, B-17s and B-29s flew 1,000 missions and dropped 4,500 tons of supplies to American troops no longer prisoner, but still trapped.
On July 7, 1944, the US Army 27th Infantry Division bore the brunt of the largest Banzai attack of the war. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, over 4,000 Japanese troops were dead, and American dead and wounded numbered nearly 1,000.
The 1944 massacre became the norm for the Third Reich's war in Italy.