Omaha was the westernmost assault beach under the original COSSAC plan. Located between Port-en-Bessin and the River Vire, its sectors stretched over 7,000 yards (6,300m), and was the largest of Overlords assault areas, Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow’s US V Corps planned to land two regimental combat teams abreast, one from each of the corps’ assault divisions.
Assault Force “O” included the 1st Infantry division (Maj. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner) headquarters, its own 16th and 18th Infantry Regiments, and the 115th and 116 Infantry Regiments drawn from the 29th Infantry Division. Attached were artillery, tanks, the Special Engineer Brigade, and the Provisional Ranger Force of two battalions (the 5 th and 2nd). Together, there were over 34,000 men and 3,300 vehicles.
The beach was backed by high bluffs, which merge into high cliffs at each end of the landing area. The area behind the sand exposed by the withdrawing sea was heavy shale with seawalls in the western area. Five draws provided small exit corridors off the beach and onto the high ground behind, three with dirt tracks, one with a paved road, and one merely a steep draw leading to a rough road. These were seen by both sides as key to a possible landing. At the end of three of these were villages whose stone buildings made natural defense strongpoints.
The Omaha sector had 12 strongpoints, and beginning in April the Germans began fortifying the area with three bands of obstacles. Starting with huge gate-like obstacles some 250yards (225m) from shore a second band consisted of posts or logs driven seaward and mined about 225 yards (200m) from the waters edge, and the final belt consisting of mined, triple-pronged hedgehogs, each 51/2 feet high (1.5m) and some 130 yards (117m) from shore. The tidal sands were free of mines, but the trek inland and the approaches to the draws were heavily booby-trapped.
The German 352nd Division took over this area in May, and was a complete surprise to V Corps who still expected to find a reinforced battalion in the sector and not the two regiments that they encountered holding the bluffs and the ground behind.
Huebner planned to land two battalions from the attached 116th Infantry on the right, and two battalions from his own divisions I6th Regiment on the left. Their D-Day objective was the ridge line parallel to the main coastal road ranging from two to three miles (3-5km) inland.
Additionally, the 116th was responsible for seizing Pointe du Hoc’s coastal battery with two attached Ranger battalions. This battery located to the west, about four miles (6km) from Omahas right flank, and about seven (11km) from Utahs left, was a significant component of the German coastal defense. Its six French-made 155mm guns, two thought to be casemated, could reach 25,000 yards (22km) and hit both corps transports and landing crafr.
Three companies from the 2nd Rangers would scale the 85-100 foot (25-30m) cliffs and assault the guns, while another company landing with the 116th moved on the position from inland.
Omaha’s violence contrasted with Utah’s relatively bloodless success. At H - 50, two companies of DD tanks launched 6,000 yards (5,400m) from the beach. Heavy seas sank 27 tanks, drowning many crewmen; three of the five making the beach were actually put ashore by a craft whose ramp malfunctioned. Heavy seas also swamped ten landing craft making the 11-mile (17km) run to the beach, DUKWs ferrying artillery to the beach also foundered, losing most of the guns of two battalions and a separate cannon company. Additional guns were lost when landing craft struck
Mines.
Starting without hope of tank or artillery support, the infantry suffered more severely. Lateral currents dragged units hundreds of yards from their objectives, landing them on a strange beach out of sight of rehearsed objectives and in front of heavy enemy opposition. Though the Germans claimed that the preparatory bombardment exploded entire inshore minefields, beach defenses were neither destroyed nor suppressed. The defense rapidly recovered and brought its weapons to bear.
Heavy machine gun and mortar fire greeted inbound boats whose equipment-burdened soldiers were often dumped in waist-to-neck deep water, causing many to discard equipment or drown. The scrambled landing bunched units in two areas, two companies in front of the D-3 draw (les Moulins) and four companies astride the E-3 draw near Colleville. Right flank companies landed on the wrong beaches; one company’s boats were pulled so far from their objective that they circled offshore for 90 minutes.
The Ranger company and company of the 116th at the right beach exit lost more than half of their men to mortar fire and small arms before making the seawall. The 29th’s landing force decided to bring its DD tanks all the way into the beach rather than floating them in, but artillery fire rapidly destroyed eight of the 16 tanks before their tracks hit dry sand. Further to the east, two full tank companies made the beach in their landing craft to find their assigned infantry teams either missing in the tangled landings or withering away under heavy fire.
Subsequent waves piled onto a confused mass of men pinned to the beach. With leaders downed by fire, others rose to take their places. With the German defense pinning the invaders to the seawall or behind obstacles, the naval demolitions and Special Brigade troops were unable to clear obstacles, soon adding 40 percent of their number to the rising casualty list. With a tide rising four feet (1.2m) and shrinking the dry beach 80 yards (72m) each hour, obstacles were soon covered with water compounding the danger to shorebound boats. Wounded too weak to crawl faster than the advancing water drowned.
After nearly an hour and a half of what appeared to be impending disaster, the flow of battle started to change. Several destroyers risked grounding and fired on visible enemy activity from close inshore. The surviving tanks moved forward giving supporting fire as groups of men attempted to crack the defense by climbing the bluffs and attacking the defense line that blocked the exits.
The 2nd Ranger Battalions three companies (D, E and F) landed at Pointe du Hoc at 07:10 40 minutes late - victims of currents and rough seas. While the Rangers scaled the cliffs with one company to the west and two companies to the east of the promontory, the destroyers USS Satterlee and HMS Talybont provided effective suppressive fire from close inshore. Once atop the cliffs, small groups rushed the casemates finding them empty with the actual battery hidden farther inland, unmanned and unguarded. After destroying the guns, the Rangers endured heavy counterattacks and were besieged for two days while V Corps expanded its beachhead.
While the Rangers were overrunning the Pointe, V Corps and Gen. Bradley were receiving observer reports from a liaison boat circling offshore. Through the smoke, enemy fire was seen to be hitting troops who were pinned on the beach. Bradley later was said to have considered pulling troops off and relanding them at Utah, which was probably an impossibility.
But what couldn’t be seen were the four thin penetrations made in the defense, two in each regiment’s sector. A score of nameless leaders emerged to form small groups to move forward and reduce defenses.
After they individually landed some time after H - i - 1, Gen. Cota and Col. Canham of the 29th Division, and Col. Taylor of the I6th Infantry, each started tying together independent group actions, galvanizing the pinned-down troops who were already beginning to fight back.
Waterlogged radios and the namre of the terrain made coordinating attacks impossible, but the picmre developed identically in each of the footholds gained. The independent fire of the destroyers had inflicted significant losses on the defenders whose thinning ranks focused more heavily on blocking key exits. Once assaulting troops cleared the fireswept beaches, they found that stretches of the dominating bluffs were undefended.
Gaining these heights, the assault groups began moving inland to become entangled in hedgerows.
Even with troops moving inland, the situation was tenuous. The beach area remained under fire, and follow-on waves were restricted to narrow columns by uncleared obstacles. By mid-morning, large landing craft ignored obstacles, ramming their way to the beach while destroyers moved closer to continue firing on targets. By midday, the batde devolved into three independent battles for the villages of Vierville, St. Laurent, and Colleville, the villages controlling the east-west road and the keys to capturing the ridgeline, which determined if the landing force could survive serious counterattacks.
World History
