3,283 dead, 12,600 wounded is U.S. invasion toll
By Don Whitehead
With U.S. forces in France (AP) –
The U.S. Army had 3,283 killed and 12,600 wounded in opening the western front in Normandy, Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley said today.
The total of 15,883 casualties was for the first 11 days of the campaign, and included reports up to midnight last night, Gen. Bradley said.
He paid high tribute to the courage of doughboys in establishing the beachhead on the European continent.
The tall, tanned Missourian, looking extremely fit and in good spirits, appeared before beachhead correspondents in a group for the first time to discuss the campaign.
Bradley said casualties on the central beachhead, where the U.S. 1st Infantry Division and elements of the 29th Infantry Division landed, had run higher then anticipated, but that casualties in the peninsula area to the west had been lower than anticipated.
This casualty report confirmed Bradley’s confidence before the invasion when he predicted that the continent could be invaded without creating the bloodbath which the enemy insisted would result and which many persons expected.
Bradley’s first words to the correspondents who gathered in the tent under the shade of a huge beech tree were in praise of his doughboys and parachute troops and their leaders.
He said:
Only by guts, valor and extreme bravery on the part of the men and their leaders involved were we able to make the landing a success, and I cannot say too much for the parachute troops who dropped in the rear and made the job easier for the beach troops. They did a marvelous job.
D-Day casualties below casualties
Medical services set up immediately behind lines
SHAEF, London, England (AP) –
D-Day casualties were below what had been expected and planned for and less than one percent of the American wounded who reached medical stations died, it was officially disclosed today.
The invasion medical service surpassed that available in the North African landing or in World War I.
Extensive use was made of a new anesthetic, sodium pentanal, which is administered intravenously through an operation which is quicker acting and more pleasant than ether. This anesthetic, however, is unfeasible where abdominal relaxation is required.
The most frequent type of wound was from big expensive shell fragments in the arms and legs. In World War I, there was a big proportion of chest wounds because of more static fighting.
Evacuation hospitals with nurses were set up within five miles of fighting lines four days after D-Day and were doing major surgery within two hours.
There was extensive use of penicillin and sulfa drugs and many transfusions of plasma and whole blood which were delivered by both ship and air.
Gangrene from a gas-producing bacillus, which developed in about three percent of the wounds in the last war and which was greatly feared, has been almost negligible in the Normandy operation because of quick treatment. It occurred mainly among German wounded.