Today I watched a documentary about the navy’s part of D-Day in 1944. There were more than 132,000 sailors in the invasion.
I realized something that I never considered before. The army infantry were carried from ships and up to the French shores by sailors and Coastguard personnel. If a soldier made it from the shore to the cliffs he was safe. The sailors who brought the army soldiers to the shores went back to the ships and then back to the shores from 7 am to dark. The cockswains wheeling the landing craft went into danger every few minutes. A much greater danger than a soldier who made it to the cliffs.
The navy destroyers went up and down the coast of France firing their 5 inch guns at the Germans on the cliffs all day long. The bigger ships fired at the German bunkers, but the Germans made their bunkers strong enough that 8 and 16 inch naval guns did not knock those bunkers out.
I learned something else, the navy had sailors that went ashore the night before the invasion to set charges that blew up German steel obstacles so when the tanks reached the shore they could pass through and go to work. Demolition sailors did their parts long before there were navy seals. Perhaps their work was the idea for navy seals.
