D-DAY

Iamandi,

The U.S. had 6 Marine divisions by the later part of World War 2, but they were used as large units only in the Pacific. It just was not a good use of their time or the transport capacity to move them between theaters. The US was attacking in the southwest Pacific (toward the Phillipines) and across the central Pacific (Guam, Okinawa, ultimately Japan). Those two campaigns kept the Marines very busy.

As others have pointed out, it was mostly a land campaign after the invasion.

What was easy to transfer was the knowledge of how to conduct large ambphibious landings: how to load the ships, how to deal with obstacles in the invasion area, what to expect and not expect from naval gunfire support and attack aircraft, how to supply an invasion force before a major port was captured, and so on. The Marines had been studying those problems in the 1920s and 1930s and were the experts on them by 1944. In addition, there was plenty of amphibious experience in the US forces in Europe too: from North Africa, Sicily, Italy and other smaller operations.

Jeff

Hallo Messerscmitt

There never was one or two companies of Marines killed before they got to the beaches during D-Day.

For a start one or two "companies" is way to small a number for any beach landings conducted by the U.S. marines.

The U.S. Marine Corps played no part in the actual landing, U.S Marines were stationed on some of the big U.S Navy Battleships that shelled the French coastline, (this is traditonal in the US Navy that on certain sized ships there is a contingent of marines to provide security when the ship is in dock or at anchor.) It is still a tradition that they perform today.

Kevin in Deva.

Yeah, and they run the brig, too. traditionally, haul off the drunken sailors.

(Anybody ever seen the movie "The Last Detail"?)