Omaha Beach

• 1. Introduction

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  Captain Logan Scott-Bowden stood before General Omar Bradley with a warning about Omaha Beach. He and Sergeant Bruce Ogden-Smith had swum ashore from midget submarines more than thirty times. Each trip was to collect sand samples from the Normandy coastline by night. The goal was to find out whether the beach could bear the weight of a tank. When Scott-Bowden presented his findings, he was blunt. "Sir, I hope you don't mind me saying it, but this beach is a very formidable proposition indeed and there are bound to be tremendous casualties." Bradley placed his hand on the young officer's shoulder. "I know, my boy. I know."

  Omaha was a 5-mile crescent of Normandy coast facing the English Channel. It ran from just west of Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to just east of Vierville-sur-Mer. It sat between the British landing zone at Gold to the east and the American landing at Utah to the west. Without Omaha, the entire Allied beachhead would be cut in two. There was no substitute.

  On the 6th of June 1944, the landings at Omaha almost failed entirely. The defense force was far stronger than Allied intelligence had recognized. The air and naval bombardment that preceded the assault produced almost no effect on the German positions. The assault plan began unraveling within minutes of the first craft reaching the shore. How a landing that came so close to failure became a foothold is what the rest of this story examines.

• 2. The Ground Itself

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  Three hundred meters separated the low-water mark from the high-water mark at Omaha. Above the tidal zone, a shingle bank ran the length of the beach, 2.5 meters high and up to 15 meters wide. Beyond that sat a sand shelf, and beyond the shelf rose steep bluffs that dominated the entire position. Those bluffs were cut at just five points by small wooded valleys called draws. They were codenamed D-1, D-3, E-1, E-3, and F-1, running from west to east. Every vehicle leaving the beach had to pass through one of those five narrow exits.

  Omar Bradley probably suggested both the names Omaha and Utah, after two privates fitting out his London headquarters. One was from Omaha, Nebraska, a man named Gayle Eyler. The other was from Provo, Utah. The beach had previously been designated X-Ray, under the phonetic alphabet of the day. The name was changed on the 3rd of March, 1944.

  In the intertidal zone, four lines of obstacles had been built. The outermost, 250 meters from the high-water mark, consisted of 200 Belgian Gates with mines lashed to the uprights. Thirty meters behind those, logs were driven into the sand pointing seaward, every third one capped with an anti-tank mine. Another 30 meters shoreward, 450 ramps sloped toward the shore with mines attached, designed to force flat-bottomed craft to ride up and detonate. Closest to shore, a continuous line of hedgehogs sat 150 meters from the waterline.

  Fifteen strongpoints, called Widerstandsnester, or resistance nests, were positioned primarily around the entrances to the draws. They were numbered WN-60 in the east to WN-74 near Vierville in the west. Positions within each strongpoint were linked by trenches and tunnels. More than 60 light artillery pieces were deployed across these strongpoints, with eight gun casemates and 35 pillboxes. Eighteen anti-tank guns completed the battery targeting the beach. Even obsolete tank turrets from a panzer development program, armed with 75 mm L/24 guns, had been fitted into permanent bunkers. No area of the beach was left uncovered by fire.

  Allied planners had identified the coastal defenders as a reinforced battalion of the 716th Infantry Division, estimated at 800 to 1,000 men. That estimate was wrong.

• 3. The Missing Division

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  In March 1944, Field Marshal Rommel ordered the 352nd Infantry Division forward to the Normandy coast. Its previous position had been roughly 30 kilometers inland, near Saint-Lo. The 352nd absorbed two battalions of the 726th Grenadier Regiment and the 439th Ost-Battalion. It then took over responsibility for the coastal sector that included Omaha.

  Of the 352nd's 12,020 men, 6,800 were experienced combat troops. They were assigned to defend a 53-kilometer front. Their orders followed Rommel's doctrine: stop any seaborne invasion at the water's edge, not in depth.

  Allied intelligence had become aware of the 352nd's relocation by June 4. That information passed to V Infantry Corps and 1st Infantry Division headquarters through First Army. But at that late stage, no plans were changed. Post-action reports still documented the original estimate. They concluded that the 352nd had arrived at the coast by chance, just before D-Day, as part of an anti-invasion exercise. The actual source of the error was German prisoners of war from the 352nd, captured on D-Day. Their statements were reported in the 16th Infantry's D-Day action report.

  American planners, working from the original estimate of an 800-to-1,000-man static battalion, had not accounted for a full-strength division at the beach. The 716th Division that intelligence had identified was estimated to be up to 50 percent non-German troops: Russians, Ukrainians, and German Volksdeutsche. What was actually waiting at the water's edge was a battle-ready division with 6,800 veterans.

  Kenneth P. Lord, a U.S. Army planner, later said the naval gunfire support plan for Omaha deeply upset him and his colleagues. The plan limited support to one battleship, two cruisers, and six destroyers. He considered it grossly inadequate compared to what had been provided for Pacific landings.

• 4. Ringside Seats

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  While reviewing Allied troops in England before D-Day, General Omar Bradley promised they would see the German defenses on Omaha blasted with naval gunfire. "You men should consider yourself lucky," he told them. "You are going to have ringside seats for the greatest show on earth."

  Rear Admiral John L. Hall Jr., who commanded Task Force O, saw it differently. His force of 1,028 vessels was responsible for transporting the troops and landing them on the beach. Hall strongly disapproved of the scale of fire that had been approved. He said so plainly: "It's a crime to send men on the biggest amphibious attack in history with such inadequate naval gunfire support."

  The pre-landing bombardment began at 05:50 on June 6. The naval guns opened on the beach defenses. At 06:00, 36 M7 Priest howitzers and 34 tanks approaching on landing craft began supplementing the naval fire. Nine Landing Craft Tank (Rocket) vessels were planned to deliver their volleys just 300 meters from the beach. In theory, the defenses would be shattered before the first soldier's boots hit the sand.

  At 06:00, 448 Consolidated B-24 Liberators of the United States Army Air Forces returned to the target. The sky was overcast. Under orders not to bomb the troops already approaching shore, the bombers displaced their targeting inland to compensate for the reduced accuracy. Only three bombs fell near the beach area. The coastal defenses, the minefields, the gun casemates, and the strongpoints remained almost entirely intact.

  Historian Adrian R. Lewis has argued that American casualties at Omaha could have been greatly reduced by a longer barrage. The First Infantry Division's chief of staff offered a different view. He said the division could not have moved off the beach at all without the naval fire it did receive.

  On the 16th RCT front, the landing boats passed men in life preservers and on rafts. They were survivors of the DD tanks that had sunk in the rough sea before reaching shore.

• 5. The First Wave

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  Of the nine companies that landed in the first assault wave, only one arrived at its intended target. Company A of the 116th RCT hit Dog Green as planned. Every other company was pushed off course by the current or navigational drift, some by hundreds of meters, others by more than a kilometer. Smoke and mist had obscured the landmarks needed for navigation. By the time the boats were within a few hundred meters of shore, they were already under intense fire from automatic weapons and artillery.

  On the 16th RCT front, 27 of the 29 DD tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion were swamped in rough seas. Only two survived the swim to shore. On the 116th RCT front, rough seas led to the decision to carry the DD tanks all the way to the beach by landing craft. Company B of the 743rd Tank Battalion landed opposite the Vierville draw. It lost all but one of its officers and half its DD tanks.

  Company A of the 116th, the only unit that landed where it was supposed to, was cut to pieces within 15 minutes. Among approximately 120 casualties, the section leaders went down first. Survivors were reduced to seeking cover at the water's edge or behind obstacles. The combat engineers were no better situated. Sixteen teams were tasked with clearing lanes through the beach obstacles; only five arrived at their assigned locations. Three came in where there was no infantry or armor to cover them. Working under intense fire, with enemy rounds detonating their own explosives, the engineers suffered more than 40 percent casualties. They still managed to clear six gaps.

  By 07:00, a second and larger wave arrived to face nearly the same conditions. The incoming tide was hiding the remaining beach obstacles, claiming landing craft before they reached shore. Radios were lost. Command groups were cut off from their units. The survivors at the shingle bank were protected from small-arms fire but still exposed to artillery and mortars. In front of them lay heavily mined ground with no cover, under active fire from the bluffs above.

  As late as 13:35, the German 352nd Division was reporting that the assault had been hurled back into the sea. From an observation post at Pointe de la Percée, an observer had counted ten tanks burning on the beach. He had also noted that American troops were seeking cover behind obstacles. At WN62, machine-gunner Heinrich Severloh later claimed to have fired 13,500 rounds from his MG 42. He also claimed 400 rounds from two Karabiner 98k rifles, representing more than 375 kilograms of ammunition in total. Historians remain skeptical of those numbers, which imply a rate of fire and hit ratio considered implausible. His soubriquet was "The Beast of Omaha."

  Brig. Gen. Norman "Dutch" Cota, the 29th Division's assistant commander, had managed to land relatively unscathed at Dog White. By 07:50, he was already looking for a way off the beach.

• 6. Up the Bluffs

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  Survivors of C Company 2nd Rangers landed on Dog Green around 06:45. By 07:30, they had scaled the cliffs near the Vierville draw. A mis-landed section from B/116 joined them. Together they spent much of the day taking WN-73, which defended the D-1 draw at Vierville.

  With a Bangalore torpedo and wire cutters, Cota forced gaps in the wire and led men forward. Twenty minutes later, the 5th Ranger Battalion joined the advance and blew more openings. The command party established itself at the top of the bluff. Elements of G/116 and H/116 joined them, widening the penetration eastward. By 09:00, more than 600 American troops had reached the top of the bluff opposite Dog White and were moving inland.

  Between 07:30 and 08:30, elements of G/16, E/16, and E/116 came together at Easy Red. They climbed the bluffs between WN-64 and WN-62. At 09:05, German observers reported that WN-61 was lost, with only one machine gun still firing from WN-62. One hundred fifty men, mostly from G/16, continued south to attack the WN-63 command post on the edge of Colleville.

  Colonel George Taylor, commander of the 16th RCT, landed at 08:15. Seeing the troops pinned on the beach, he organized them regardless of unit, placing each group under the nearest available non-commissioned officer. His words became the day's most repeated order: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die - now let's get the hell out of here!" By 09:30, his regimental command post was set up just below the bluff crest. His first and second battalions were being sent inland as they reached the top.

  Second Lieutenant John M. Spalding and Captain Robert L. Sheppard V turned E/16 westward along the top of the bluffs. They fought a two-hour battle for WN-64. At one point, their effective fighting group numbered just four men. By mid-morning, they had neutralized the position and taken 21 prisoners, just in time to prevent an attack on freshly landing troops.

  None of these advances followed the original plan. No functioning radio networks coordinated the breakouts. Groups were assembled from whoever was alive and willing to move. That evening, the German 352nd Division committed its last reserve, an engineer battalion, to the 916th Regiment. It was ordered to hold against a breakout from the Colleville-St. Laurent beachhead.

• 7. The Days After

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  By the close of the 6th of June 1944, V Corps had suffered between 5,000 and over 6,000 killed, wounded, and missing. The exact figure remains disputed across sources. Only 100 of the 2,400 tons of supplies scheduled to be landed on D-Day actually made it ashore. Losses in equipment included 26 artillery pieces, more than 50 tanks, and about 50 landing craft. The German 352nd Division had lost 1,200 men, roughly 20 percent of its strength. It had no reserves left.

  The losses at Omaha were severe enough that Lieutenant General Omar Bradley briefly considered evacuating the beach. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery weighed the possibility of diverting V Corps forces through Gold to the east. Neither course was taken.

  During June 7, the beach was reorganized as a supply area. Construction of Mulberry A began that day with the deliberate scuttling of ships to form a breakwater. The 1,429 tons of stores that came ashore on June 7 were still below plan but substantially more than the previous day. Over the following two days, the RCTs pushed inland and achieved the original D-Day objectives.

  By the morning of June 9, the 1st Division had made contact with the British XXX Corps, linking Omaha with Gold to the east. That same day, the 175th Regiment had taken Isigny. By the evening of June 10, forward patrols established contact with the 101st Airborne Division, linking Omaha with Utah to the west. The German 352nd Division was reported as "reduced to small groups" by June 9. By June 14, the German corps command was reporting the 352nd as completely used up and needing to be pulled from the line.

  One unit endured a separate ordeal in those first days at Omaha. No. 21 Base Defence Sector brought about 160 technical personnel, equipped with mobile radar to guide night fighters. The United States did not yet have mobile ground-controlled interception radar available for D-Day. A British GCI unit was lent to provide that coverage for the beachhead. No. 21 BDS was scheduled to land on Omaha around 11:00 on D-Day but touched down six hours behind schedule, in the wrong location. They landed near the D-3 draw, which was still being contested. Of 27 vehicles, only 8 survived. The unit lost 11 dead and 39 seriously injured out of roughly 150 personnel. Their RAF blue battle dress, treated with a chemical anti-gas compound, turned grey when wet. It was close enough to German grey that they were fired upon from both sides. Six men received either the Military Cross or Military Medal. By the 1st of July, after replacements arrived, the unit was fully operational. In the first three months of the campaign, 21 BDS downed more than 46 enemy aircraft. It became the joint most successful ground-controlled interception unit on the Western Front.

  By D+10, Mulberry A's first pier was complete. LST 342 docked and unloaded 78 vehicles in 38 minutes. Three days after that first docking, the worst storm to hit Normandy in 40 years began to blow. It raged until the night of June 22 and so badly damaged the harbor that the decision was taken not to repair it. In the brief time it operated, 11,000 troops, 2,000 vehicles, and 9,000 tons of equipment came ashore. Supplies were then landed directly on the beach until fixed port facilities could be captured. Over the 100 days following D-Day, more than a million tons of supplies, 100,000 vehicles, and 600,000 men came through Omaha.