Question about deployments for Normandy

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luftschiff
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Question about deployments for Normandy

#1

Post by luftschiff » 29 Jan 2018, 04:00

If an American division arrived in England in 1943 or early 1944 for the eventual Normandy invasion, would they keep taking in new recruits from the US as more troops completed their training? For example, if a soldier's training ended in April or May or June of that year, would they join the division or would they remain on standby in the US or something?

Richard Anderson
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Re: Question about deployments for Normandy

#2

Post by Richard Anderson » 29 Jan 2018, 07:00

luftschiff wrote:If an American division arrived in England in 1943 or early 1944 for the eventual Normandy invasion, would they keep taking in new recruits from the US as more troops completed their training? For example, if a soldier's training ended in April or May or June of that year, would they join the division or would they remain on standby in the US or something?
Not exactly. One of the War Department requirements for a division to "POM" (Prepare for Overseas Movement) was that they had to have all TO&E personnel slots filled. Given normal attrition that meant that at the last moment most divisions were filled to a slight overstrength, usually by drawing "Basic Privates" from another division still in the training cycle (which could have bad effects on that division's readiness) or from a Replacement Center (but only if they had received at least nine months - IIRC - training, which was rare in an RC, so they went back to the first option). Once in England divisions continued to train and continued to lose personnel through attrition - sick, injured, deserted, transferred, and etc - and then if selected as an assault division they needed to be made up to a 15% overstrength as mandated by the NEPTUNE plan. Those personnel were drawn from the Replacement Depots in England, which had Replacement Battalions theoretically assigned to the various corps and divisions. In theory they were all trained personnel, but most had little or no unit training experience and so endured the classic FNG experience when they actually went into combat. After the invasion, the Repple-Depples and the Replacement Battalions moved to the Continent. In theory they drew new personnel from the States and then prepared them for delivery to divisions as needed. In practice, initial casualties in Normandy were so heavy that most of the Repple-Depples and battalion were stripped to bare bones in a matter of weeks and then spent most of their time doing basic administration processing new replacements that passed through them, often in a matter of days.

There is considerably more details in the Army Official histories...I can steer you to them if you are interested.
Richard C. Anderson Jr.

American Thunder: U.S. Army Tank Design, Development, and Doctrine in World War II
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall
Hitler's Last Gamble
Artillery Hell


Carl Schwamberger
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Re: Question about deployments for Normandy

#3

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 31 Jan 2018, 01:19

Richard Anderson wrote:
luftschiff wrote:If an American division arrived in England in 1943 or early 1944 for the eventual Normandy invasion, would they keep taking in new recruits from the US as more troops completed their training? For example, if a soldier's training ended in April or May or June of that year, would they join the division or would they remain on standby in the US or something?
... - and then if selected as an assault division they needed to be made up to a 15% overstrength as mandated by the NEPTUNE plan. ...
How were those 15% distributed within the division?

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Sheldrake
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Re: Question about deployments for Normandy

#4

Post by Sheldrake » 31 Jan 2018, 01:54

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
Richard Anderson wrote:
luftschiff wrote:If an American division arrived in England in 1943 or early 1944 for the eventual Normandy invasion, would they keep taking in new recruits from the US as more troops completed their training? For example, if a soldier's training ended in April or May or June of that year, would they join the division or would they remain on standby in the US or something?
... - and then if selected as an assault division they needed to be made up to a 15% overstrength as mandated by the NEPTUNE plan. ...
How were those 15% distributed within the division?
They were somewhere back in the deployment schedule. Each unit in the assault formations was divided into echelons or waves landed in sequence in order of how important they would be to fight a battle within six miles of the Beach.

e.g A = the people and equipment essential to be landed and needed within the first 24 hours
.. B men and equipment needed within x days
.. C men and equipment needed within Y days
.. Z everyone else men - Residue.

Someone with access to Omaha and Utah beach loading lists should be able to identify where the over strength manpower was distributed within these waves.

Carl Schwamberger
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Re: Question about deployments for Normandy

#5

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 31 Jan 2018, 03:38

This reminds me of the Marine rifle companies/battalions appearing unusually large in 1944-45. They were padded out with all sorts of extra assault sections. One explanation I had was the divisions were front loaded with replacements, which some or all the regiment commanders used to create all those extra satchel charge carriers. Its a interesting story & I was wondering how far forward the Army had placed this extra 15%. 15% of 14,000 = 2,100. If 85% of that are infantry, vs artillery, drivers, or comm specialists then thats 1,785 to distribute across 27 rifle companies, or 66 per.

firstflabn
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Re: Question about deployments for Normandy

#6

Post by firstflabn » 31 Jan 2018, 04:01

If 15% of 14,000 is 700, then my checkbook balances. I'm rich!

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