Talk:Utah Beach

Comments

Someone posted a first hand account of the landing at Utah Beach. It is interesting reading (see, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Utah_Beach&oldid=14530649) but it doesn't really fit in an encyclopedia article. Maybe try wikisource, if the copyright status can be ascertained. Ydorb 14:47, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

A generic "catch all" reference is unacceptable. Mojodaddy 21:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The D-Day section reads like it was written by a 5th grader and I'm too lazy to fix it. Mojodaddy 21:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I have no horse in this race, but the source cited is authoritative, not "generic". Very detailed and written by US Army historians. It does require other sources, I do agree.--Buckboard 18:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Utah Beach Song

Is there anything that makes this song notable? I find no wp:rs sources that establish it as wp:notable.--Work permit (talk) 01:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No citations, I deleted it--Work permit (talk) 07:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Notes

• The first image in D-Day is too light; the second one ("obstacles") is only a little better. I'm crap with images; does anyone know if this can be fixed? - Dank (push to talk) 19:44, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Airborne Losses

The estimate of 40% losses for the 101st seems high. Are we sure that number isn't referring to the reduction in "effective strength" due to the highly scattered formations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjk81 (talk • contribs) 16:17, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

German radar station, Douvres-la-Delivrande

“Some 20 minutes after the first waves, British Royal Marine Commandos from 30 Commando Assault Unit, under the command of Captain G. Pike, landed at the beach. Their mission being the capture of a German radar station at Douvres-la-Delivrande”: this seems very unlikely as Douvres-la-Delivrande was located between the Sword and Juno sectors, at about 80km from Utah Beach. <http://www.normandie44lamemoire.com/versionanglaise/fichesvillesus/douvresus2.html>

ScarletteSca (talk) 13:04, 22 May 2013 (UTC)ScarletteSca

I removed the sentence. There is a confusion here, for sure. I've never heard any reports about British commandos on Utah, and certainly not with a mission to Douvres-la-Delivrande ! --Kormin (talk) 18:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Utah Beach/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jonas Vinther (talk · contribs) 21:19, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Is it well-written?

The article is perfectly written with no sentence or grammar errors, but here is a list of suggestions for improvements.

1. "at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943" - How about changing this sentence to "at the Trident Conference, hosted by Churchill and Roosevelt, in Washington in May 1943".

"Hosted" is the wrong word; these two men headed their respective delegations. It's probably too much detail for this article. -- Diannaa (talk) 23:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

2. "The Allies initially planned to launch the invasion on May 1, 1944. A draft of the plan was accepted at the Quebec Conference in August 1943" - No way to connect these two sentences? How about "The Allies initially planned to launch the invasion on May 1, 1944 and a draft of the plan was accepted at the Quebec Conference in August 1943". Y

3. "General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF)" - How about this wording "General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces". N It streamlines the prose, but that was not his title. -- Diannaa (talk) 23:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

4. "Its current commander, Major General Roscoe Woodruff, was replaced with Major General J. Lawton Collins" - It might just be me, but I was confused at the "its current commander" wording. How about removing "current" or reformulating it to "the commander". Y

5. "A report by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Oberbefehlshaber West (Supreme Commander West; OB West), overall commander on the Western Front" - How about simply writing "A report by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, overall commander on the Western Front" Y

6. "which stretched from the Netherlands to Cherbourg" - Are we talking about the Atlantic Wall or just the most likely landing sights? My understanding is that the Atlantic Wall stretched some 2000 miles from coast of Denmark to the Spanish border. Y You are correct. Ford-Zaloga (p.54) says Rommel was responsible for improvements all along the Atlantic Wall, but he focused most of his attention along the Channel, which was the most likely scene for an invasion, being within reach of air bases in Britain (Beevor p.33). Amended the prose to reflect that. -- Diannaa (talk) 23:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

7. "Many of the men were Ostlegionen (non-German conscripts recruited from Soviet prisoners of war, Georgians, and Poles)" - How about changing this sentence to "Many of the men were Ostlegionen (non-German conscripts recruited from Soviet prisoners of war, Georgians, and Poles), known to be deeply unreliable". Y

8. I know there's only two in "German order of battle", but if you don't arrange it in the same way as "Allied order of battle", it will just look ... stupid. Y

9. "but two men were killed and 17 wounded by mines and German artillery fire" - WP:NUMERAL says you should not switch between writing numbers in words and numbers in the same sentence, so I would recommend changing "17" to "seventeen". Y

10. "Cherbourg fell in the Battle of Cherbourg" - Doesn't quite flow. How about "Cherbourg fell during the Battle of Cherbourg". Y

• Is it verifiable with no original research?
• Is it broad in its coverage?
• Is it neutral?
• Is it stable?
• Is it illustrated?

The article meets the GA-criteria, but I would like the GA-nominators thoughts on my suggestions before it's listed, so going to put it on hold. Excellent job. :) Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 21:55, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Jonas for the review and for your kind words. Most of the suggested amendments have been done, and the article is ready for your review. -- Diannaa (talk) 23:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Good job, Diannaa. I am passing the article. :) Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 23:40, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Canadian minesweepers at Utah Beach

This subject came up on the Omaha Beach talk page, but it's not appropriate there so I'll continue the conversation here... The reference http://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1132&context=cmh, e.g., page 3: "The one thing that remained in common was that they [31st Canadian Mine sweeping Flotilla] were all attached to the western Task Force so would be leading the way into the American beaches Utah and Omaha. " has been offered as a source for the statement that the Canadian navy (specifically minesweepers) were part of the naval component at Utah Beach. However, the quote above is I think slightly misleading. The 31st was indeed part of the Western Task Force which was (the Task Force I mean) tasked with supporting the American landings at Omaha and Utah, and the minesweepers would I imagine have led the way on the approaches to Normandy, but as the next section makes clear, the 31st's duties were to "...sweep Approach Channel 3 into Omaha Beach." The rest of the article covers the work the flotilla did at Omaha, and Utah is never again mentioned. http://www.mcdoa.org.uk/Operation_Neptune_Minesweeping.htm gives some more information about the minesweeping operation, and in the planning section we can see a map of the channels, with the third clearly heading to Omaha. Furthermore, all of the sources I have seen place the Canadian flotilla exclusively in Task Force O, assigned to Omaha Beach. FactotEm (talk) 15:39, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Once again..I am no expert. BUT (lol) (a) it may be difficult to separate any of the western task forces minesweeper coverage, (b) it may be that the british 16nth minesweeper flotilla had specific duties on the Utah approaches AND that the some of the six Canadian minesweepers not part of the 31st were allocated to the 16nth. I'll try to find sources that make me think that later. However, it is very difficult (esp. for a layman such as I) to determine where ALL the Canadian minesweepers were that day. But thanks for your diligence on these matters. Juan Riley (talk) 20:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

FactotEm: These are not great ref's but as best as I can do on short term and without book access. The site http://www.mcdoa.org.uk/Operation_Neptune_Minesweeping.htm indicates that the 14nth MS flotilla "Swept Ch. 2 ahead of Force U" and this site http://www.nauticapedia.ca/Articles/RCN_Present_D-day.php states that 3 named Canadian minesweepers were part of the 14nth MSF. Checking for better refs without book access might be difficult. Juan Riley (talk) 20:44, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Nice find. Those references are fine. Thanks. FactotEm (talk) 02:39, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Canadian forces at Utah – revisited

At the moment the Canadian flag is included in the infobox list of belligerents, but this is not supported by any statement in the main body of the article. The conversation above provides two sources which strongly suggest that there was in fact a Canadian contribution, to the naval operations, at Utah. However, the first source states only that the "14th MS flotilla Swept Ch. 2 ahead of Force U" (which, it is clear from the source, means Utah Beach), but without specific mention of the Canadians, while the second source lists three Canadian minesweepers that were part of the 14th MS flotilla at the time of the Normandy landings, but without specific mention of Utah Beach. While in my opinion common sense dictates that this verfies a Canadian contribution, I believe that technically it would be a violation of WP:SYNTH to include this in the article. What do others think? Without some sourced statement in the main narrative, there's no justification for the inclusion of Canada in the list of belligerents. FactotEm (talk) 12:49, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I have removed it from both the infobox and the lead. It was not present in the version that passed GA review, and at present it's unsourced. Good catch — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 13:01, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

The Netherlands as a belligerent?

From a cursory reading of the article (and other related articles) I gather that the Dutch contribution to the landings at Utah consists mostly of the participation of a single gunboat. I'm not familiar with military articles about battles, but to me this does not seem sufficient contribution to be mentioned as a separate belligerent in an article's infobox? DragonFury (talk) 22:12, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

There is something wrong...

Once the four troop transports assigned to Force U reached their assigned position 12 miles (19 km) off the coast, 5,000 soldiers of 4th Division and other units assigned to Utah boarded their landing craft in rough seas for the three-hour journey to their designated landing point The was no rough sea. The "source" says: But the seasick GIs who would soon be forced to travel three hours or more to Utah Beach on the Channel's famously rough waters, packed like cattle into diminutive landing craft, perhaps wished that their commanders would be a little more bold and anchor the transports closer inshore. I don't know what that is, but it just seems to be some sort of storytelling to make it more heroic. Apart from the strong current, the sea near Utah was calm, so no tanks sank, which was one of the main differences to Omaha. Even the photos on this page show the conditions very well. Military Review, Number 26,Volume 11 p.45 seems to be the only one that calls the sea also rough, but "moderatly rough". --2003:D1:670B:AB40:C4BF:C7C1:65CC:A6B2 (talk) 11:45, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The article says that the sea was rough when they were transferring to their landing craft 12 miles from the coast, not when they were disembarking on the shore. — Diannaa (talk) 21:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Beach designations map in Landings section

The map currently shown at the head of the Landings section on this page, File:d-day-landing-map-beaches.png is extremely inaccurate. The beaches are in the correct order, but Sword Beach actually ends approximately at the middle of the word "Juno" and there were no D-Day landings east of that. This should either be replaced with one of the other maps on the D-Day pages or a new map should be made along the same lines but with locations corrected. Hammerquill (talk) 09:20, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I have replaced the map. Thanks for the suggestion.— Diannaa (talk) 10:31, 11 April 2021 (UTC)