By today's standards, the 82nd Airborne's sacrifice in Normandy seems almost fantastical. When the elite division vaulted Nazi Germany's Atlantikwall to launch the invasion of occupied Europe, Allied leaders fully expected few of its members would return. It was a suicidal mission, and 82nd Airborne was calculatedly sacrificed inland in hopes of ensuring indispensable amphibious landings along the coast.
Among Allied planners, casualty predictions for 82nd Airborne ranged as high as 75 percent. The most optimistic planners forecast 50 percent casualties, and by casualties, those planners meant deaths, not the generally accepted and all-inclusive definition of the word. But those losses were deemed acceptable in piercing Adolf Hitler's Festung Europa, and Allied High Command agreed with near unanimity to sacrifice 82nd Airborne to that end.
