20 D-Day Facts You’ve Never Heard Before

1. That the majority of the Higgins boats which delivered troops to the D-Day invasion beaches were piloted by members of the U.S. Coast Guard.

2. Omaha Beach sand is up to 4% microscopic iron fragments from D-Day.

3. D-Day was originally supposed to happen on 5th June but meteorologist James Stagg persuaded Dwight Eisenhower to postpone it by a day right at the last minute. The weather conditions had to be just right for the landings, and planners took the tide, wind speed and even the moon cycle into account.

4. The MV Derrycunihy, which was carrying troops to the D-Day landings, hit a mine before it could debark its troops and sank, killing more than 200 soldiers and sailors. It was the biggest single loss of life of the Normandy invasion beaches.

5. James Doohan, Scotty from Star Trek, was shot six times on D-day, four in his leg, one in the chest, and one that cost him the middle finger on his right hand...something he would conceal on-screen during most of his career as an actor.

6. Bill Millin was a Scottish soldier who walked up and down the beaches of Normandy on D-Day playing the bagpipes. Two captured German snipers would later reveal why the piper at the front hadn’t been shot at. They said it was because they thought he was ‘dummkopf’, a foolhardy idiot.

7. In the months leading up to the D-Day invasion in 1944 the crossword in the Daily Telegraph had a series of words including 'Mulberry' 'Overlord' and 'Neptune' all codenames connected to the invasion. After a thorough investigation by MI-5 it was concluded it had all been a coincidence.

8. Despite having a heart condition and arthritis that forced him to use a cane, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. led the first wave of landings at Utah Beach on D-Day, becoming the only general to land with his soldiers that day.

9. During D-Day, the allies laid submarine fuel pipelines from England to France. These pipelines provided necessary fuel for tanks/planes/ships during Operation Overlord.

10. U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower had a speech prepared in the event that the 1944 D-Day invasion failed. In the speech he takes full responsibility for the failure of the operation.

11. During the D-Day invasion of Normandy by the allied forces, German commanders wanted to send the armored (Panzer Tanks) division to stop them. They had to wait for the order from Hitler because he was sleeping at the time and didn't want to be disturbed. When he woke up, it was too late.

12. Among the thousands of men on the Normandy beaches on D-Day there was one single woman. Martha Gellhorn, a rogue war correspondent who stowed away in the toilet of a hospital ship and also happened to be the third wife of Ernest Hemingway.

13. Juan Pujol Garcia was a British double agent during WWII. He told Hitler D-Day would happen at the Strait of Dover, earning him the German Iron Cross. It was actually carried out at Normandy, earning him the British MBE.

14. When practicing for the D-Day landings in "Exercise Tiger" at least 749 Americans were killed by friendly fire and a "wolf pack" of 6 German E-boats who stumbled on the LST ships in the dark. D-Day was nearly called off because 10 officers who knew the exact plans went missing.

15. Of the 1,213 warships involved in D-Day, only 200 were American and 892 were British; of the 4,126 landing craft involved, 805 were American and 3,261 were British.

16. During the the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe (Battle of Normandy), From D-Day, June 6th to 21 August 1944, the Allies landed 2,052,299 men in northern France. That would make it over 27,000 men per day for those first 76 days.

17. British breweries donated free beer to soldiers during WWII, but after D-Day, there was no room for it on the ships going across the English Channel. Spitfire mechanics and pilots worked together to modify pylons to carry beer kegs and deliver brews to the troops. Flying high enough chilled it.

18. British Cmdr Terence Otway, wanting to be sure his men wouldn’t leak the D-Day plans, tested them by sending 30 pretty members of the Women’s Aux. Air Force in civilian clothes to the local pubs with instructions to do all they could try and get the info, but none of the men fell for it.

19. On D-Day, Paratrooper John Steele became stuck hanging from his parachute on the church steeple for two hours during the battle for Sainte Mère Église. A statue of him still hangs there today.

20. That in preparing for D-Day, the Allies fooled Germany into thinking that they would attack Pas de Calais instead of Normandy by creating a phantom army complete with fake landing crafts made from painted canvas and inflatable tanks which they moved overnight.