Western Front (World War II)
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| Western Front | |||||||||
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| Part of the European theatre of World War II | |||||||||
 Clockwise from top left: Rotterdam after the Blitz, German Heinkel He 111 planes during the Battle of Britain, Allied paratroopers during Operation Market Garden, American troops running through Wernberg, Germany, Siege of Bastogne, American troops landing at Omaha Beach during Operation Overlord | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Allies  France Canada Poland Belgium Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Italy |
1944-1945 Germany Italian Social Republic Vichy France[4][5] | ||||||||
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1939–1940 |
1939–1940 Walter von Brauchitsch Gerd von Rundstedt Erich von Manstein Heinz Guderian Fedor von Bock Wilhelm von Leeb Erich Raeder Nikolaus von Falkenhorst Prince Umberto1944–1945 Adolf Hitler † Heinrich Himmler † Hermann Göring † Gerd von Rundstedt Karl Dönitz Günther von Kluge † Walter Model † Albert Kesselring Erwin Rommel † Johannes Blaskowitz † Hermann Balck Paul Hausser Benito Mussolini  Rodolfo Graziani  Philippe Pétain (POW)[6] Joseph Darnand (POW)[7] | ||||||||
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1939–1940
1944–1945
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1939–1940
1944–1945 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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1940 1944–1945 (~70% of Allied troops and casualties were Americans)[14] Total:
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1940 1944–1945 Total:
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Civilian casualties: 1,650,000 dead[nb 10] | |||||||||
The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The Italian front is considered a separate but related theatre.[nb 11] The Western Front's 1944–1945 phase was officially deemed the European Theater by the United States, whereas Italy fell under the Mediterranean Theater along with North Africa. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations. The first phase saw the capitulation of Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France, and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain. The second phase consisted of large-scale ground combat (supported by a massive strategic air war considered to be an additional front), which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy and continued until the defeat of Germany in May 1945 with its invasion.
1939–1940: Axis victories
On 1 September 1939, World War II began with the German invasion of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. The next few months in the war were marked by the Phoney War.
Phoney War
The Phoney War was an early phase of World War II marked by a few military operations in
The French forces launched a small offensive, the Saar Offensive against Germany in the Saar region but halted their advance and returned. While most of the German Army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, French troops stood facing them, whilst the British Expeditionary Force and other elements of the French Army created a defensive line along the Belgian border. There were only some local, minor skirmishes. The British Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain, while Western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months.
In their hurry to re-arm, Britain and France had both begun to buy large numbers of weapons from manufacturers in the United States at the outbreak of hostilities, supplementing their own production. The non-belligerent United States contributed to the Western Allies by discounted sales of military equipment and supplies. German efforts to interdict the Allies' trans-Atlantic trade at sea ignited the Battle of the Atlantic.
Operation Weserübung
While the Western Front remained quiet in April 1940, the fighting between the Allies and the Germans began in earnest with the
Battles for Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and France
In May 1940, the Germans launched the Battle of France. The Western Allies (primarily the French, Belgian and British land forces) soon collapsed under the onslaught of the so-called "blitzkrieg" strategy. Following the German breakthrough at Sedan, the BEF, along with the best of the French and Belgian armies became trapped in Flanders. With the use of paratroopers and concentrated firepower, the Belgian and Dutch armies surrendered after several days. Luxembourg fell within the first day.
The majority of the British and elements of the French forces escaped at Dunkirk. This was due to the combined factors of poor weather, Germans mishaps, and the incredible number of British civilian ships assembled for the undertaking. Following the conclusion of events at Dunkirk on June 4, the Wehrmacht commenced Fall Rot, an offensive against the remaining French armies. With most of the French armies either destroyed or taken prisoner, the Germans quickly broke through the French lines, taking Paris on June 14. As France was falling, the British began the strategic withdrawal of all remaining British troops from France, via French ports still under Allied control.
With the war all but decided, Italy also declared war on the UK and France, but made little progress. With the situation becoming dire, French Prime Minister Philippe Pétain signed the Second Armistice of Compiègne on June 22, 1940, with its terms taking effect on the 25th of June. The terms of the armistice called for the occupation of Northern France, along with the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine into the German Reich. Italy also was allowed a small occupation zone in the southeast. France was allowed to continue its existence in the form of Vichy France, a rump state of the former French Republic, led by Philippe Pétain. the Vichy regime was allowed to keep their colonial empire and navy fleet, as some of Hitler's few concessions.
In six weeks of fighting, the combined allied armies suffered more than 375,000 killed or wounded, as well as 1,800,000 soldiers becoming prisoners of war. Meanwhile, Germany suffered a more modest 43,110 killed and 111,000 wounded. Hitler had expected a million men to die in the conquest of France. Remarkedly low casualties and France's quick defeat led to a massive rise in morale among the German people. With the fighting ended, the Germans began to consider ways of resolving the question of how to deal with Britain. If the British refused to agree to a peace treaty, one option was to
1941–1944: Interlude
With the Luftwaffe unable to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain, the invasion of Great Britain could no longer be thought of as an option. While the majority of the German army was mustered for the invasion of the Soviet Union, construction began on the Atlantic Wall – a series of defensive fortifications along the French coast of the English Channel. These were built in anticipation of an Allied invasion of France.
Because of the massive logistical obstacles a cross-channel invasion would face, the Allied high command decided to conduct a practice attack against the French coast. On 19 August 1942, the Allies began the
For almost two years, there was no land-fighting on the Western Front with the exception of
Two early British raids for which battle honours were awarded were
A raid on Sark on the night of 3/4 October 1942 is notable because a few days after the incursion the Germans issued a propaganda communiqué implying at least one prisoner had escaped and two were shot while resisting having their hands tied. This instance of tying prisoner's hands contributed to Hitler's decision to issue his Commando Order instructing that all captured Commandos or Commando-type personnel were to be executed as a matter of procedure.
By the summer of 1944, when an expectation of an Allied invasion was freely admitted by German commanders, the disposition of troops facing it came under the command of
It was not possible to predict where the Allies might choose to launch their invasion. The chance of an amphibious landing necessitated the substantial dispersal of the German mobile reserves, which contained the majority of their panzer troops. Each army group was allocated its mobile reserves. Army Group B had the
The OKW retained a substantial reserve of such mobile divisions also, but these were dispersed over a large area: the
1944–1945: The Second Front
Allied landing in Normandy
On 6 June 1944, the Allies began
The Allies had been arguing about whether to advance on a broad-front or a narrow-front from before D-Day.
Liberation of France
| This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2020) |
On 15 August the Allies launched
The Germans in France were now faced by three powerful Allied army groups: in the north the British 21st Army Group commanded by Field Marshal Sir
Under the onslaught in both the north and south of France, the German Army fell back. On 19 August, the French Resistance (FFI) organised a general uprising and the liberation of Paris took place on 25 August when general Dietrich von Choltitz accepted the French ultimatum and surrendered to general Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, commander of the Free French 2nd Armored Division, ignoring orders from Hitler that Paris should be held to the last and destroyed.
The liberation of Northern France and the Benelux countries was of special significance for the inhabitants of London and the southeast of England because it denied the Germans launch sites for their mobile V-1 and V-2 Vergeltungswaffen (reprisal weapons).
As the Allies advanced across France, their supply lines stretched to breaking point. The Red Ball Express, the Allied trucking effort, was simply unable to transport enough supplies from the port facilities in Normandy all the way to the front line, which by September, was close to the German border.
Major German units in the French southwest that had not been committed in Normandy withdrew, either eastwards towards Alsace (sometimes directly across the US 6th Army Group's advance) or into the ports with the intention of denying them to the Allies. These latter groups were not thought worth much effort and were left "to rot", with the exception of Bordeaux, which was liberated in May 1945 by French forces under General Edgard de Larminat (Operation Venerable).[39]
Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine
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Fighting on the Western front seemed to stabilize, and the Allied advance stalled in front of the
The port of Antwerp was liberated on 4 September by the British 11th Armoured Division. However, it lay at the end of the long
In October the Americans decided that they could not just
South of the
Operation Market Garden
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The port of Antwerp was liberated on 4 September by the British 11th Armoured Division. Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, commanding the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group, persuaded the Allied High Command to launch a bold attack, Operation Market Garden, which he hoped would get the Allies across the Rhine and create the narrow-front he favoured. Airborne troops would fly in from the United Kingdom and take bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands in three main cities; Eindhoven, Nijmegen, and Arnhem. The British XXX Corps would punch through the German lines along the Maas–Schelde canal and link up with the airborne troops of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division in Eindhoven, the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division at Nijmegen and the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. If all went well XXX Corps would advance into Germany without any remaining major obstacles. XXX Corps was able to advance beyond six of the seven airborne-held bridges but was unable to link up with the troops near the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem.
The result was the near-destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division during the Battle of Arnhem, which sustained almost 8,000 casualties. The offensive ended with Arnhem remaining in German hands and the Allies holding an extended salient from the Belgian border to the area between Nijmegen and Arnhem. A German attempt to recapture the salient ended in failure in early October.
Winter counter-offensives
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The Germans had been preparing a massive counter-attack in the West since the Allied breakout from Normandy. The plan called Wacht am Rhein ("Watch on the Rhine") was to attack through the Ardennes and swing north to Antwerp, splitting the American and British armies. The attack started on 16 December in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Defending the Ardennes were troops of the US First Army. Initial successes in bad weather, which gave them cover from the Allied air forces, resulted in a German penetration of over 80 km (50 mi) to within less than 16 km (10 mi) of the Meuse. Having been taken by surprise, the Allies regrouped and the Germans were stopped by a combined air and land counter-attack which eventually pushed them back to their starting points by 25 January 1945.
The Germans launched a second, smaller offensive (
Invasion of Germany
In January 1945 the German bridgehead over the river
By the time the water had subsided and the US Ninth Army was able to cross the Roer on 23 February, other Allied forces were also close to the Rhine's west bank. Von Rundstedt's divisions, which had remained on the west bank, were cut to pieces in the '
The crossing of the Rhine was achieved at four points:
- One was an opportunity taken by US forces when the Germans failed to blow up the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen, one crossing was a hasty assault, and two crossings were planned. Bradley and his subordinates quickly exploited the Remagen crossing made on 7 March and expanded the bridgehead into a full-scale crossing.
- Bradley told General Patton whose U.S. Third Army had been fighting through the Palatinate, to "take the Rhine on the run".[41] The Third Army did just that on the night of 22 March, crossing the river with a hasty assault south of Mainz at Oppenheim.
- In the North Operation Plunder was the name given to the assault crossing of the Rhine at Rees and Wesel by the British 21st Army Group on the night of 23 March. It included the largest airborne operation in history, which was codenamed Operation Varsity. At the point the British crossed the river, it is twice as wide, with a far higher volume of water, as the points where the Americans crossed and Montgomery decided it could only be crossed with a carefully planned operation.[citation needed]
- In the Allied 6th Army Group area, the US Seventh Army assaulted across the Rhine in the area between Mannheim and Worms on 26 March.[42] A fifth crossing on a much smaller scale was later achieved by the French First Army at Speyer.[43]
Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast towards
The US 12th Army Group fanned out, and the First Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. On 4 April the encirclement was completed and the Ninth Army reverted to the command of Bradley's 12th Army Group. The German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal
Final moves by Western Allies
General Eisenhower's Armies were facing resistance that varied from almost non-existent to fanatical
After Bradley warned that capturing a city located in a region that the Soviets had already received at the Yalta Conference might cost 100,000 casualties,[49] by 15 April Eisenhower ordered all armies to halt when they reached the Elbe and Mulde Rivers, thus immobilizing these spearheads while the war continued for three more weeks. 21st Army Group was then instead ordered to move northeast toward Bremen and Hamburg. While the U.S. Ninth and First Armies held their ground from Magdeburg through Leipzig to western Czechoslovakia, Eisenhower ordered three Allied field armies (1st French, and the U.S. Seventh and Third Armies) into southeastern Germany and Austria. Advancing from northern Italy, the British Eighth Army[a] pushed to the borders of Yugoslavia to defeat the remaining Wehrmacht elements there.[48] This later caused some friction with the Yugoslav forces, notably around Trieste.
End of the Third Reich
The US 6th Army Group fanned out to the southwest, passing to the east of Switzerland through Bavaria and into Austria and northern Italy.[
On 7 May at his headquarters in
Casualties
Main article: World War II casualties
Allied
Thanks to competent management and industrial potential, the Allies suffered relatively low losses: 1,093,000 killed/wounded/missing. Apart from about 2 million prisoners, mostly French. The United States suffered the highest losses: 147,783 killed and missing, 365,086 wounded, 73,759 captured.France suffered relatively high losses: 132,590 killed or missing, about 300,000 wounded, and 1,454,730 taken prisoner. Britain lost 58,000 killed, nearly 111,000 wounded and 56,000 captured.The rest of the allied countries lost 284,000 killed, wounded and captured (among them 24,000 killed and missing).[12][13]
Axis
German losses are much more difficult to deal with, as different sources claim conflicting information. According to George Marshall, the Germans lost 263,000 killed. German historian Rüdger Overmans points to other numbers: 244,891 killed and missing on the Western Front in 1944. He also claims that in the "final battles" from January to May 1945, Germany lost 1,230,000 killed and missing, of which 1/3 on the Western Front. Due to low morale towards the end of the war, the Germans often surrendered. Unlike their colleagues on the Eastern Front and their Japanese colleagues, the Wehrmacht did not fight to the last in the defensive battles on the Western Front in 1944–1945 and for the most part surrendered when the defeat was obvious. 7,614,790 were held in POW camps by early June 1945 (including 3,404,950 who were disarmed following the surrender of Germany).[15]
Notes
Footnotes
- ^ Ultimately under the command of Field Marshal Harold Alexander, the supreme commander of the Mediterranean, not Eisenhower.
- ^ Interlude with only minimal activity, excluding the Battle of Britain and The Blitz, between 25 June 1940 to 6 June 1944
- ^ Ellis provides no figure for Danish casualties, he places Norwegian losses at 2,000 killed or missing with no information provided on those wounded or captured. Dutch casualties are placed at 2,890 killed or missing, 6,900 wounded, with no information provided on those captured. Belgian casualties are placed at 7,500 killed or missing, 15,850 wounded, and 200,000 captured. French casualties amounted to 120,000 killed or missing, 250,000 wounded, and 1,450,000 taken prisoner. British losses totalled to 11,010 killed or missing, 14,070 wounded (only those who were evacuated have been counted), and 41,340 taken prisoner.[12] Losses in 1940, according to Ellis's information, thus amount to 2,121,560.
- ^ 360,000 dead or wounded, and 1,900,000 captured[13]
- ^ Ellis's numbers: American: 109,820 killed or missing, 356,660 wounded, and 56,630 captured; British: 30,280 killed or missing, 96,670 wounded, 14,700 captured; Canadian: 10,740 killed or missing, 30,910 wounded, 2,250 captured; French: 12,590 killed or missing, 49,510 wounded, 4,730 captured; Poles: 1,160 killed or missing, 3,840 wounded, 370 captured.[15]
Thus according to Ellis' information, the Western Allies incurred 783,860 casualties.
US Army/Air Forces breakdown: According to a post-war US Army study using war records, the army and army air forces of the United States suffered 586,628 casualties in western Europe, including 116,991 killed in action and 381,350 wounded, of whom 16,264 later died of their wounds.[16] Total US casualties come to 133,255 killed, 365,086 wounded, 73,759 captured, and 14,528 missing, two thousand of whom were later declared dead. - ^ 43,110 Germans killed or missing, 111,640 wounded, no information is provided on any who were captured. Italian losses amounted to 1,250 killed or missing, 4,780 wounded, and no information is provided on any who were captured.[12]
- ^ Germany: 157,621 casualties (27,074 dead (The final count of the German dead is possibly as high as 49,000 men when including the losses suffered by the Kriegsmarine, because of additional non-combat causes, the wounded who died of their injuries, and the missing who were confirmed as dead.[21] However this higher figure has not been used in the overall casualty figure), 111,034 wounded, 18,384 missing,[21][22][23] as well as 1,129 aircrew killed.[24] Italy: 6,029 casualties (1,247 dead or missing, 2,631 wounded, and 2,151 hospitalised due to frostbite[citation needed]; Italian forces were involved in fighting in the French Alps, where severe sub-zero temperatures is common even during the summer.)
- ^ George C Marshall, Biennial reports of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army to the Secretary of War : 1 July 1939–30 June 1945. Washington, DC : Center of Military History, 1996. Page 202 Archived 1 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine. US Army historian Charles B. MacDonald (The European Theater of Operations: The Last Offensive, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington D.C., 1993, page 478) holds that "exclusive of prisoners of war, all German casualties in the west from D-day to V–E Day probably equaled or slightly exceeded Allied losses". In the related footnote he writes the following: "The only specific figures available are from OB WEST for the period 2 June 1941 – 10 April 1945 as follows: Dead, 80,819; wounded, 265,526; missing, 490,624; total, 836,969. (Of the total, 4,548 casualties were incurred prior to D-day.) See Rpts, Der Heeresarzt im Oberkommando des Heeres Gen St d H/Gen Qu, Az.: 1335 c/d (IIb) Nr.: H.A./263/45 g. Kdos. of 14 Apr 45 and 1335 c/d (Ilb) (no date, but before 1945). The former is in OCMH X 313, a photostat of a document contained in German armament folder H 17/207; the latter in folder 0KW/1561 (OKW Wehrmacht Verluste). These figures are for the field army only, and do not include the Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS. Since the Germans seldom remained in control of the battlefield in a position to verify the status of those missing, a considerable percentage of the missing probably were killed. Time lag in reporting probably precludes these figures' reflecting the heavy losses during the Allied drive to the Rhine in March, and the cut-off date precludes inclusion of the losses in the Ruhr Pocket and in other stages of the fight in central Germany."
- ^ Rüdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Oldenbourg 2000. pp. 265, 266, 275 and 279. Based on extrapolations from a statistical sample (see German casualties in World War II), Overmans claims that losses on the Western Front amounted to 244,891 deaths (fallen, deaths from other causes or missing) in 1944 (Table 53, p. 266). As for 1945, Overmans claims that the German armed forces suffered 1,230,045 deaths in the "Final Battles" on the Eastern and Western Fronts from January to May 1945. This figure is broken down as follows (p. 272): 401,660 fallen, 131,066 dead from other causes, 697,319 missing. The number of missing obviously includes soldiers who fell into captivity and died there, possibly months or years later. (The number of deaths in captivity calculated by Overmans is about 459,000, thereof 363,000 in Soviet captivity (p. 286). Overmans' figure of deaths in Soviet captivity is about 700,000 lower than the number (ca. 1,094,000) established between 1962 and 1974 by a German government commission, the Maschke Commission. Overmans (p. 288f.) considers it "plausible, though not provable" that these additional 700,000 perished in Soviet captivity.) Nevertheless, Overmans claims (pp. 275, 279) that all 1,230,045 deaths occurred during the period from January to May 1945. He states that about 2/3 of these deaths occurred on the Eastern Front, without explaining how he arrived at this proportion (according to Table 59 on p. 277, there were 883,130 deaths on the Eastern Front between June and December 1944, and according to Table 53 on p. 266 there were 244,891 deaths on the Western Front in the whole of 1944; the relation between these two figures is 78.29% in the East vs. 21.71% in the West). This would leave 410,000 deaths attributable to the Western Allied invasion of Germany between January and May 1945. Overall Overmans estimates deaths on the Eastern Fronts (by all causes, including POW deaths) as 4 million, and deaths on all other fronts (including POW deaths and deaths attributable to bombing) as 1.3 million (p. 265). He believes the men reported as missing on the Eastern Front died either from combat or in captivity. On page 286, he estimates ~80,000 German troops died in Allied POW camps after the war: 34,000 in French camps, 22,000 in American camps, 21,000 in UK camps, and several thousand more in Belgian and Dutch camps.
- ^ Total German casualties between September 1939 to 31 December 1944, on the Western Front for both the army, Waffen SS, and foreign volunteers amounts to 128,030 killed, 399,860 wounded. 7,614,790 were held in POW camps by early June of 1945 (including 3,404,950 who were disarmed following the surrender of Germany)[15] See also: Disarmed Enemy Forces
- Holocaust.[29]
Netherlands: 187,300. Includes 100,000 Dutch Jews in the Holocaust.[30]
Belgium: 76,000. Includes 27,000 Belgian Jews in the Holocaust.[31]
United Kingdom: 67,200. Mostly died in German bombing.[32]
Norway: 8,200.[33] Includes 800 Norwegian Jews in the Holocaust.
Denmark: 6,000.[34]
Luxembourg: 5,000. Includes 2,000 Luxembourgish Jews.[35] - David Glantz PDF Archived 9 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, In January 1945 the Axis fielded over 2.3 million men, including 60 percent of the Wehrmacht's forces and the forces of virtually all of its remaining allies, against the Red Army. In the course of the ensuing winter campaign, the Wehrmacht suffered 510,000 losses in the East against 325,000 in the West. By April 1945, 1,960,000 German troops faced the 6.4 million Red Army troops at the gates of Berlin, in Czechoslovakia, and in numerous isolated pockets to the east, while four million Allied forces in western Germany faced under one million Wehrmacht soldiers. In May 1945 the Soviets accepted the surrender of almost 1.5 million men, while almost one million Germans soldiers surrendered to the British and Americans, including many who fled west to escape the dreaded Red Army. "The Soviet-German War 1941–1945: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay" (PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 11 September 2008. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
- ^ 2,055,575 German soldiers surrendered between D-Day and 16 April 1945, The Times, 19 April p 4; 755,573 German soldiers surrendered between 1 and 16 April, The Times, 18 April p 4, which means that 1,300,002 German soldiers surrendered to the Western Allies between D-Day and the end of March 1945.
Citations
- ^ "Royal Artillery". www.heritage.nf.ca.
- ^ Nicholson, G.W.L. (1969). More Fighting Newfoundlanders: A History of Newfoundland's Fighting Forces in the Second World War. St. John's: Government of Newfoundland.
- ^ "Newsletter Volume 3 Issue 1" (PDF). rnfldrmuseum.ca. 2019.
- ^ "The lost cemetery of le Grand Bornand | le Franco Phoney". 23 August 2013.
- ^ Littlejohn, David (1987). Foreign Legions of the Third Reich. p. 169.
- ^ Aron 1962, p. 48–49.
- ^ "France — The Aftermath of Liberation Timeline". The World at War. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
- ^ a b Frieser, Karl-Heinz (2013)The Blitzkrieg Legend. Naval Institute Press
- ^ MacDonald, C (2005), The Last Offensive: The European Theater of Operations. University Press of the Pacific, p.478
- ^ The World War II Databook, by John Ellis, 1993 p. 256. Total German soldiers who surrendered in the West, including 3,404,950 who surrendered after the end of the war, is given as 7,614,790. To this must be added the 263,000–655,000 who died, giving a rough total of 8 million German soldiers having served on the Western Front in 1944–1945.
- ISBN 978-0-19-822889-9., was 1,873,000 personnel.
Quoting Alfred Jodl's "Strategic situation in spring 1944" presentation. The total given for German forces in the west in May 1944, prior to a slight upgrade of forces in the west in preparation for Operation Overlord
- ^ a b c Ellis 1993, p. 255
- ^ a b Hooton 2007, p. 90
- ^ a b MacDonald, C (2005), The Last Offensive: The European Theater of Operations. Page 478. "Allied casualties from D-day to V–E totaled 766,294. American losses were 586,628, including 135,576 dead. The British, Canadians, French, and other allies in the west lost slightly over 60,000 dead".
- ^ a b c Ellis 1993, p. 256
- ^ US Army Battle Casualties and Non-battle Deaths in World War 2: Final Report. Combined Arms Research Library, Department of the Army. 25 June 1953.
- ^ Zaloga 2015, p. 239, 6,084 U.S. Army tanks destroyed, including 4,399 M4 Sherman tanks, 178 M4 (105) and 1,507 M5A1 Stuart tanks..
- ^ a b Zaloga 2015, p. 276.
- Comet tanks, 2 M24 Chaffeetanks..
- ^ Zaloga 2015, p. 239, 909 U.S. Army tank destroyers destroyed, including 540 M10 tank destroyers, 217 M18 Hellcat tank destroyers and 152 M36 tank destroyers..
- ^ a b Frieser 1995, p. 400
- ^ L'Histoire, No. 352, April 2010 France 1940: Autopsie d'une défaite, p. 59.
- ^ Shepperd 1990, p. 88
- ^ Hooton 2010, p. 73
- ISBN 9783881990738) Pages 1508–1511. Only includes those wounded who were not captured after, and only records wounded up to 31 January 1945. Likely to be drastically underestimated considering the corresponding figures for the Eastern Front on the same document.
- ISBN 0-231-11200-9, p. 421.
- ^ Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960 Bonn 1961 p. 78
- ^ Bundesarchiv Euthanasie" im Nationalsozialismus, bundesarchiv.de; accessed 5 March 2016.(German)
- OCLC 924672733.
- ^ "Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Netherlands" (PDF). Retrieved 4 March 2016.
- ^ Frumkin 1951, pp. 44–45
- ^ Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2013–2014, page 44.
- ^ Frumkin 1951, p. 144
- ^ "Hvor mange dræbte danskere?". Danish Ministry of Education. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
- ^ Frumkin 1951, p. 59
- ^ North West Europe 1942 Archived 13 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine regiments.org Archived 4 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Dieppe Archived 17 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine, www.canadiansoldiers.com Archived 17 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Murray & Millett 2000, pp. 434–436
- London Gazette. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
- ^ Zaloga & Dennis 2006, p. 88.
- ^ Time Inc (30 April 1951). LIFE. Time Inc. p. 66.
- ^ "The Rhine Crossings". Ushmm.org. Retrieved 7 February 2013.
- ^ Willis 1962, p. 17
- ^ "Central Europe, p. 32". History.army.mil. Archived from the original on 22 May 2015. Retrieved 7 February 2013.
- ^ "12th Army Group Situation Map for 18 April 1945". Wwii-photos-maps.com. Archived from the original on 15 October 2013. Retrieved 7 February 2013.
- ISBN 1-57607-001-8
- ^ Such as the battles for Kassel, Leipzig, and Magdeburg.
- ^ a b Eisenhower Commission, Eisenhower Memorial Archived 2008-07-25 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ISBN 0-471-35382-5.
- ^ Germans played for time in Reims. Original emissaries had no authority to surrender to any of the Allies. New York Times, 9 May 1945
- ^ Keitel is defiant at Berlin ritual. The New York Times. 10 May 1945
References
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