The Stories Behind Normandy Casualties of WW2

Discover the human stories behind the numbers of Normandy casualties from D-Day.

Who fought at Normandy?

Image: Men of No.4 Commando coming ashore on Sword Beach © IWM (BU 1184)

The D-Day landings and the subsequent Normandy Campaign were fought between the forces of the Allies and the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany.

On the Allied side, 12 nations were represented in the invasion force. The predominant players were the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Units from these three nations were the first to hit the beaches.

They were supported by either full divisions or a small number of personnel from Free France, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway.

Defending Normandy was the Wehrmacht, although many nationalities could be found in the German Army at this time, either volunteers or those from occupied nations press-ganged into service.

Read stories of D-Day & Normandy 1944 casualties

Read on to discover some of the stories of invasion of Normandy casualties, including those sadly killed on D-Day.

Private Emile Servais Corteil

Image: Private Emile Corteil

The Airborne were the first forces to land on D-Day itself, and subsequently became some of the earliest casualties of the Normandy Invasion.
Amongst their number in the airborne assault was Private Emile Servais Corteil.

Emile was the son of Servais and Jessie Corteil. He was born in Watford, Hertfordshire. During the Second World War, Emile served with the 9th (Essex) Parachute Brigade.

He was also a dog-handler and dropped into Normandy with his para-dog, Glen.

On the morning of D-Day, the 9th Essex was tasked with destroying the Merville Battery: a heavily defended Wehrmacht position overlooking Sword Beach. Taking out coastal batteries overlooking the Normandy D-Day landing beaches was one of the key objectives of the paratroopers on the morning of Operation Overlord.

While Emile and Glen landed successfully, the pair were sadly killed in action together on D-Day itself. Emile was just 19 years old. The pair are believed to be buried together at Ranville War Cemetery after being moved from temporary graves at Gonneville-sur-Merville.

Emile’s mother chose the words for his headstone: "Had you known our boy you would have loved him too."

Lieutenant Oliver John Sinnatt 

Image: Lieutenant Oliver Sinnatt

The eldest son of Doctor Oliver Sturdy Sinnatt and his wife Marjorie, Oliver was born in Sleaford, Lincolnshire in 1922. 

Oliver was commissioned into the Army on 30 January 1943. Half a year later, as a Lieutenant with the Royal Armoured Corps, he landed on Juno Beach on 6 June 1944.

He landed on Juno with ‘C’ Squadron, Inns of Cour Regiment, alongside the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. Oliver’s British unit had been assigned to the Canadian sector to offer armoured reconnaissance support as they pushed inland.

‘C’ Squadron, equipped with Daimler Armoured Cars, were to advance inland at speed ahead of the main Canadian force and stop any German reinforcements from reaching Juno.

By 16:00 on 6 June, Oliver and ‘C’ Squadron had fought its way inland to the village of Reviers. Oliver’s vehicle attacked a German defence post. Sadly, Oliver and his Armoured Car Operator, Trooper William George Hall, were killed.

They are buried next to each other at Ryes War Cemetery.

Major Robert Heberden Barber

Image: Major Robert Heberden Barber

Major Robert Heberden Barber was one of the first British soldiers to land on Sword Beach on the morning of D-Day.

Robert was a career soldier. He joined the Army in January 1936, serving for three years in India with the Nottinghamshire Regiment, until the outbreak of the Second World War.

By the time of Operation Overlord, Robert was commanding officer of ‘D’ Company, 2nd East Yorkshire Regiment.

Robert came ashore on one of the first waves but soon became one of the earliest D-Day casualties when he was killed when a mortar bomb exploded nearby. He was 28 years old.

Today, Robert is buried in Hermanville War Cemetery. His older brother, Captain Colin Barber, was killed in North Africa in 1942 and is buried in Benghazi War Cemetery, Libya.

Lieutenant Guy Napier Westley 

Image: Lieutenant Guy Westley

Born in Surrey in 1919, Guy Napier Westley was working as a dairy farmer in Argentina. He returned to the UK in 1940.

Upon his return, Guy was commissioned into the Army as an officer with the Royk and Lancaster Regiment. With them, Guy served in North Africa, the Middle East and Sicily.

Guy was reassigned to the 1st Hampshires in June 1943.

A year later, on D-Day, he was made his battalion’s Assistant Landing Officer on Gold Beach. 

The job of a Landing Officer was a perilous one.

Arriving in the first wave, they had to get out their own landing crafts, and coordinate the men coming ashore while under constant fire, exposed from the first instant. 

Landing officers were, therefore, some of the first to be killed during amphibious landings and it was almost guaranteed you would be at least wounded.

Guy was one of the first ashore on Gold Beach. His job was to clear the beach, coordinate units and get them ordered. Under fire for hours, Guy was killed in action on D-Day.

Private William Ducker MM

Image: Private William Ducker

Private William Skirving Ducker, a native of Toronto, Canada, was one of the first Canadians to land in Normandy.

Originally a steel rigger and truck driver by trade, William enlisted in the Canadian Engineers in January 1941 before later transferring to the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion.

William and his battalion jumped into Normandy in the early hours of June 6 alongside the paras of the British 3rd Parachute Brigade. Fighting with skill and known for reliability, the Canadians achieved all their objectives on D-Day, gaining a strong reputation with their British counterparts.

As the fighting pushed inland, while under heavy fire, he entered a building that was being used a shelter by some of his comrades. The building took a direct hit.

Out of the four soldiers inside, three were dead or mortally wounded. William was able to rescue the fourth man but was mortally wounded in doing so. He died of his injuries on 19 June 1944 and is buried at Hermanville War Cemetery.

For his actions in Normandy, William was posthumously awarded the Military Medal. 

Normandy Landings Casualties – Facts

What were the odds of surviving Normandy?

Image: Bodies on Juno Beach show the cost of the D-Day Landings (© IWM (MH 2329))

The odds of surviving Normandy depended on numerous factors: which landing beach you were on; whether you were an airborne soldier or not; your role on D-Day itself; which wave you arrived on and so on.

If you were in the first wave of United States soldiers assaulting Omaha Beach, the most heavily defended of Normandy’s landing beaches, then you were likely to get hit. 

Airborne troops were dropped behind enemy lines and were often scattered throughout northern France. What’s more, they landed hours before the main amphibious assault, so chances of survival for airborne troops was probably slimmer than others, just based on the nature of their battlefield role.

Likewise, if you had come ashore later in the day following one of the main beach assaults, your chances of surviving D-Day were higher.

There is no definitive answer, but some historians have calculated, based on unit casualties against men landed, that Allied soldiers had a 97.6% chance of surviving D-Day.

That isn’t to say they would not get hit or wounded. Most infantrymen expected at one time to be hit. Normandy landing casualties were not necessarily deaths. 

How many casualties were there in the Battle of Normandy?

The Battle of Normandy lasted from June to August 1944.

In that time, the Allies landed over two million men and tens of thousands of armoured fighting vehicles, deploying them to Normandy’s battlefields.

Despite the overwhelming superiority in men and materiel, the Battle of Normandy was still a tough campaign for the Allies. The concentration of death is comparable with the battlefields of the Somme from the First World War.

The Allies took 226, 386 casualties, including killed, missing, or wounded in the Battle of Normandy.

How many Allied troops died on D-Day?

Allied D-Day casualties killed in the Normandy Landings total 4,441.

Landing on the beaches was extremely dangerous, having to dodge machine gun, mortar, and artillery fire from dug-in German troops, particularly on Omaha. 

Some units, particularly those in the early waves, suffered horrendous losses, often taking up to 50% casualties during the Normandy Landings.

How many airborne died on D-Day?

Image: "The Channel stopped you but not us" - Glider troops send a message to the Wehrmacht (© IWM (H 39178))

The Airborne element of Britain and Canada’s part of Operation Overlord was called Operation Tonga. 

They were dropped into Normandy by plane or glider on the night of June 5, 1944. Their objectives were to capture key bridges and canal crossings such as those on the Caen Canal and Orne River. The Merville Battery overlooking Sword Beach was also a key target. 

The 6th Airborne Division and the 1st Canadian Parachute Brigade collectively totalled around 8,500 men on D-Day.

By the end of Operation Tonga, which ended on 7 June, both parachute units had collectively taken around 1,200 casualties.

For 6th Airborne, the total was 800 casualties out of 8,000 men deployed, a rate of 10%. This total includes men killed missing our wounded.

The Canadian 1st Parachute Brigade dropped into Normandy with 27 officers and 516 men. By June 7, it had suffered 367 casualties. Around 80 Airborne troops were killed in action.

Why did so many soldiers die on D-Day?

Image: British Sherman-DD tanks and infantry push inland during the Normandy Invasion (© IWM (MH 2013))

Amphibious assaults like the Normandy Landings are very, very hard operations to pull off.

You are facing a well-dug—in-enemy, attacking them with no real retreat route except the sea.

They require absolute supremacy in men, machinery, and materiel to work successfully. Control of the skies and sea is also essential.

In the case of some beaches, such as Omaha Beach, the German troops were well dug in with the terrain favouring defence. Omaha was the bloodiest of the Normandy beaches, whereas the other American landing zone, Utah Beach, had the lightest casualties.

Then there were the elements to contend with. Bogged down with heavy equipment, some soldiers simply drowned in the surf. Others, like the Canadians at Juno, were blown off course, resulting in the loss of landing craft as well as intense loss of life.

What thing to remember about D-Day and the Normandy Landings is that the Allied planners were expecting a potential bloodbath, an attitude summed up by Chief of Imperial Staff Sir Alan Brooke:

“I am very uneasy about the whole operation. At the best, it will fall so very far short of the expectations. At worst, it may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war.”

Allied planners originally thought the invasion force would take between 60-80% casualties. Luckily, their worst fears were not realised.

The defences of the Atlantic Wall were not as formidable as once thought. The Allies also spent weeks and months bombing key targets in Northern France and collaborating with local resistance to prepare the ground.

It’s true Normandy Landing casualties include 4,000 men killed out of 10,000 total losses. But given the Allies landed over 130,000 men on the landing beaches by the end of D-Day, they were comparatively small.

However, as the fighting pushed into the bocage of Normandy, full of thick hedgerows, twisting country lanes, and sunken roads, losses began to seriously mount.

D-Day Normandy 1944 Casualties by Country

British Casualties of Normandy

Britain’s Normandy landing casualties and those of the wider Normandy Campaign total approximately 65,000 killed, missing, or wounded.

The total number of British troops killed in Normandy is around 11,000. 54,000 were wounded or went missing.

This number does not include naval or air force casualties under British command. Adding these in, the total number of British servicemen killed during the Normandy Campaign to over 22,400.

Canadian Casualties of Normandy

By number, Canada deployed the lowest number of troops of the major attacking forces on D-Day, but as a result, took a much higher proportion of losses.
14,000 Canadians came ashore on D-Day, resulting in roughly 1,100 casualties including roughly 380 killed.

Many thousand more Canadians would flood into Normandy as the Allies forged inland.

At the forefront of some of the most savage battles of Normandy, the Canadians had taken 18,700 casualties by the end of August 1944. Over 5,000 were killed.

German Casualties of Normandy

German casualties of D-Day and the whole Normandy campaign are higher than the attacking Allies.

While the Allies were able to push off the landing beaches and breach the Atlantic Wall on D-Day, the Wehrmacht was able to keep the Allies bottled up in Normandy for two full months before capitulation.

At this time, the German troops in Normand were under near-constant attack. Allied Aircraft prowled the skies with impunity, while the Allies had enough men and armour to keep pressing attacks.

By the end of the Normandy Campaign, Germany had committed some 640,000 troops to Normandy.

30,000 had been killed and another 80,000 wounded. 210,000 were either taken prisoner or went missing. 

German D-Day casualties are estimated at between 4,000 and 9,000 men killed, wounded, or missing.

United States casualties of Normandy

The United States, proportionally, lost the largest number of Men on D-Day of any single Allied nation.

Of the 4,400 or so Allied soldiers killed during the Normandy Landings, 2,500 were American.

The Americans had to face Omaha Beach, the toughest and most well-defended landing zone and it was here where they took the most casualties.

Conversely, Utah Beach saw the lowest loss of life of the five Normandy Beaches.

Initially, Commonwealth troops outnumbered US personnel in Normandy, but by August and the closing of the Falaise Gap, they were the most numeric force.

This meant US losses were second highest of all combatant nations in Normandy. 

By the campaign’s end, 29,000 US servicemen had been killed. A further 106,000 were wounded or were missing.

Commemorating the war dead of Normandy

Image: Bayeux War Cemetery, one of the key Commonwealth War Graves Commission sites containing Normandy D-Day casualties.

Commemorating D-Day 1944 casualties and those of the Normandy Campaign is undertaken at multiple locations throughout Normandy.

There are over 115 Commonwealth War Graves Commission sites in the departments of Normandy, including purpose-built war cemeteries, D-Day war memorials, and individual burials.

There are 27 major national war cemeteries in Normandy, including the larger CWGC sites.

Please note: Commonwealth War Graves do not commemorate US or German troops overall, although there are German burials in some of our Normandy cemeteries.

US troops are instead commemorated at home in the US or at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. 

Dedicated German war cemeteries exist in Normandy. They are cared for by the Volksbund Deutsche Kreigsgräberfürsorge (VDK). The largest of these is La Cambe German War Cemetery which contains 21,000 war graves.

Some of the key points of commemoration for British and Canadian remembrance in Normandy include:

• Bayeux War Cemetery
• Ranville War Cemetery
• Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, Reivers
• Hermanville War Cemetery
• La Deliverande War Cemetery Douvre

The British Normandy Memorial commemorates 22,000 British casualties from D-Day and Normandy. 

While this is not a Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial, we are currently caring for it on behalf of its owners the Normandy Memorial Trust.