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Re: How many tonnes of bombs did the Allies drop on D-Day?
From memory, many of the missions flown in the night of June 5-6 were in the hours before dawn, while a good part of those flown in the night of 6-7 were in the evening of the 6th. As the bombing effort on the second night was bigger than on the first (1065 Bomber Command aircraft vs 1012), this would add some thousand more tons of bombs. According to the BC War diaries by Middlebrook and Everitt, 3488 tons of bombs were dropped that night.
A quick check in the BC Losses book for 1944 show that most raids of the 6-7 June actually hit their targets after midnight British time. So either Mr Cony's total is including all activity from the day and both nights, or something is wrong with his numbers. By the way, 7,616 tons for the night of 5-6 June is too high for the Bomber Command only, the tonnage estimated by the BC War diaries is "over 5,000 tons"
The USAAF chronology says that "In all, 1,729 bombers drop 3,596 tons of bombs during D-Day." That is only for the heavy bombers (B-17 and B-24). Medium bombers and fighter bombers will add some thousands. Still the strategic bombers of RAF and USAFF so delivered about 12,000 tons of bombs from evening of the 5th to dawn of the 7th, so 11,000 tons by medium and fighter bombers is probably too high. On the other hand, with probably 15,000 tons delivered in total on this 36 hours period, 23,000 tons is certainly not the right amount for the month.
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