The American Divisions on Omaha beach :
SHAEF
US First Army US 5th CORPS
2nd Rangers 5th Rangers
US 1st Infantry Division
"BIG RED ONE"
16 th Infantry Regiment 18th Infantry Regiment 116th Infantry Regiment
US 29th Infantry Division
"The Blue and Grey"
115th Infantry Brigade 26th Infantry Regiment
Operation OVERLORD :
The amfibious invasion of Normandy was a very exclusif enterprise in fact a military innovation,never before in the twentieth century military history such a military action had been planned and executed,never before such a large amount of men,materials and informations had been assembled to beat one ennemy.England was like an enormous military boot camp.Overlord was the result of years of patience,patience that had been on the British side since the Dunkerque evacuation.Since that painfull event Sir Winston Churchill worked with a large staff on possible invasion plans,this staff was the joined operations staff,their task assemble as much information has possible to make an invasion of Europe possible ,plan this invasion and make preparations to the assault.One of these was the assault on Dieppe,Dieppe was an assault needed to see if what later would become D-Day could be possible to execute, the negatif result of this assault would later direct the plans for Overlord.
Picture:Churchill & Eisenhower.
The only question that remained was : where ? The most evident place for the Allies and for the Germans,would have been the Pas de Calais, so evident that the Allies would mislead the Germans with it, making them believe that the landing would take place over there.This would become one of the biggest lies in WW2 history:OPERATION FORTITUDE.This was a briljant and at the same time a very dangerous plan that would contribute to the succes of OPERATION OVERLORD.The purpose of this plan was to send out messages to the German intelligency services containing true and false informations about the landing,making the Germans believe that the Normandy landing would be a diversion and that the real landing would take place at Calais.To make this believable the Allies would build a ghost army in the South of England, near Dover,this army was under General Patton's command,his presence was highlighted by the Allied propaganda what resulted in the fact that the German high command believed that the landing would take place in the Pas de Calais.To make this ghost army more than real rubber tanks were build ,wooden authentic scale models of army materials were made,placed as visible as possible so German reconnaisance flights would see them and photograph them.Al those tricks used to mislead the Germans resulted in the fact that one week after D-Day the Germans stationated in the heighly reenforced Calais area were still waiting for the Allied landing over there. For Operation OVERLORD 2.876.439 troopsmen were gathered in England.Marshall Montgomery's plan for OVERLORD was to secure in the first three weeks of the assault,the Eastern flanc of the Orne river,securing at the same time with the help of the British-Canadian-Polish and French troops the town of Caen and Falaise.Lt General Omar bradley on his side,with the help of his American troops,would capture the Contentin peninsula and the Harbor of Cherbourg,liberating this harbor was a capital target for the succes of the Overlord operation,the Allies would have the use of a big sea harbor to keep their materials coming from Britain.Once these targets reached ,the assault would push towards the South of the Loire river.Once this new target reached the assembled assault forces would push their offensif towards the Seine river and Paris.But has simple has it looked ,the plan would encounter many obstacles,the landing on Omaha Beach would be one of these.Overlord was a plan with many incertitudes that would be the one ,that with the bravery of those who executed it,who made the liberation of Europe a fact.
Introduction : the night from monday 05.06.1944 to tuesday 06.06.1944
Omaha beach June 1944 the beach is sowed with all sorts of obstacles Tjechoslovakian hedgehogs,Belgian portals,concrete tetraeders en all kinds of mined Rommel asparaguses.It is June 5th 1944 airplanes are flying up and on,targets near Calais and Cherbourg are bombed,between these bombers British halifax airplanes are throwing paratrooper dummies or Rupperts above the German defence lines at Calais, the Germans are not aware of the fact that Operation Overlord has started.The Omaha beach area is icely calm,the German observers over there are not aware of what is happening at Calais and don't know what is coming up to them from the other side of the channel,even Major Pluskat commander of the first group of the 352nd artillery Regiment,who has joined on his proper initiative WN 60, is staring at the horizon,he also isn't aware of what's happening.The Germans at Omaha beach don't even know that the first gliders and paratroopers have landed and have attacked,Pegasus bridge, Ste-Mère-Eglise,Ste-Marie-du-Mont and the battery of Merville-Franceville.The resistance has cut off all German communications.
Tuesday 06.06.1944 00:05 hrs
Since midnight the German defences at Omaha beach are being bombed, the trenches are hit,barbedwire and concrete blocks are flying around but the concrete blockhouses stay intact.
A bomber fleet of 117 bombers with as target Omaha beach and it's coastal defences, is in approach of his target, the target is covered by the low cloud deck,it has become invisible,the flight leader descides to fly back to England without throwing one bomb,an unknown lucky fact for the German defenders a big piece of bad luck for the assault wave that is heading towards Omaha Beach.
Around three o'clock in the morning the German coastal observers of Omaha beach see strange figures on the sea,with the thick mist they asume it's their own fleet stationned in Port-en -Bessin that is making a patrol , they don't pull the alarm bell.At 10 nautic miles the boys are preparing the invasion of Normandy.
05:02 hrs :
On the Channel horizon the shadows in the mist are getting slightly bigger ,their forms are getting more and more recognizable,they are American destroyers,cruisers and many other ships of all forms,there are thousends of them.Suddenly when the mist has totaly disappeared,the German soldiers at WN 62 have understood what is happening , while the first LCT landingcrafts are approaching the beach ,they know that this is going to be THE LONGEST DAY !
05:35 hrs :
At Colleville-Sur-Mer an LCT opens his tail-board , 32 Duplex Drive tanks of the 741st batallion drive in to the heavy sea.Tank 1,2,3 and 4 are submerged by the wild sea,for the tankcrews this is hell,these men are facing death in a few seconds they are going to drown,the tanks sink like stones to the bottom of the sea.It's a drama, the tanks are to far from the beach,the LCT is at 5,5 km from the beach, while the British engineers had calculated that they had to be released at 1 km from the beach.From the 32 D.D. tanks 27 would sink to the bottom of the Channel,2 would reach Omaha beach and 3 would stay blocked on the LCT.While facing Vierville-Sur-Mer an LCT skipper decides that the sea is to rough and brings his landingcraft to the beach to unload his DD tanks safely. On an LST the order is given to release the DUKW's that are carrying each 12 heavy guns of the 111th artillerie batallion,a much to heavy load for the DUKW's on this rough sea as would be proved by the first relaesed DUKW ,it sunk immediately to the bottom of the Channel,but even tough the LST continues to release his DUKW's after 10 minutes only 6 remaining guns are counted and the beach is at 3 km.At 1500 m from the beach more Duplex drive tanks will sink.The rough sea is harming the all operation,landingcrafts are launched in the air and many of them will make water and sink taking everything and everyone with them.
05:45 hrs :
The Navy opens fire on the German defences of Omaha Beach,the shelling is so heavy that the Germans have the impression that the Allies are shooting with Jeeps on them.The German defenders can't do nothing more than wait that the shelling ends,while the allies are bombing the beach by the milimeter.When the shelling stops there's nothing more than a deadly silence on Omaha Beach,the landingcrafts are at 10 meters from the beach,the Germans are preparing for the American landing that's coming up.
05:50 hrs :
Lt Colonel Sepp Meyers grenadiers,who haven't received direct orders from the German high command are moving towards the battle field on their own initiatif,they are at the Cérisy woods, at 15 km from their objectif the Southern part of Carentan.At Omaha beach two of the seven LCA landingcrafts that are carrying the soldiers of the 116th infantry regiment towards Omaha beach are sunk,twenty infantry soldiers will encounter death by drowning.The survivors have more luck,they'll be transported back to England again.The landing has begun several minutes ago and the infantry men already know they've rendez-vous with hell.The longest day is becoming a fact.More and more landingcrafts are reaching the beach,the 180 soldiers of the first assault wave are spread over 40 landingcrafts.The understreaming of the sea makes that the landingcrafts lose their directions and that units are mixed up,for the 116 th this fact is a disaster,from the six units that had to land in sector DOG RED (Vierville -Sur-Mer)only one unit will reach her objectif.The biggest concentration of soldiers is landing at Colleville-Sur-Mer in front of WN 62.The US soldiers are wading trough the waves towards the beach,the German soldiers are still waiting,waiting for the moment that the American soldiers have reached the point that the waves are at their kneehight,when this arrives they open fire ,in a few secondshundreds of lives will be taken down by the infernal rain of machinegun bullets spit out by the German machineguns.The sea is coloring blood red, the first assault wave has been destroyed before she has actualy reached the beach.
Gesneuvelde GI's en hun stukgeschoten landingsboot
06:32 hrs :
On the Colleville-Sur-Mer beach par LCT 600 tempts to bring three tanks of the 741st tankbatallion on to land,this won't go without nnnnnnnnnthe necessary troubles,when the first tank shows her nose the Germans immediately open fire on her with their machineguns,but the tank stays intact.From the 29 tanks of the same batallion that were unloaded in the open sea only two would finaly reach Omaha beach.From out WN 74 the Germans thankfully zero in on the tank transporting LCT's.An LCT sustains a direct hit from the gun at WN74 and sincks, taking the tanks and personnel inside them with him to the bottom of the Channel.The seven other LCT's ,succeed to deploy their tanks on the beach,the tanks are like sitting ducks on the beach,their flanks are at point blank and the gunners hit them on this most sensible side.Four tanks are destroyed,the other tanks shoot back but blinded by the gunsmoke they are shooting blindly with no aim.Fate is not better for the landing infantry men,from the moment that the landingcrafts letted down their ramps,the Germans fire upon them,the front soldiers don't even have time to look at the beach as they touch the bottom of the landingcrafts death.The others are blocked and panicked,they jump into the sea from the starboard and portside of the landingcrafts,but the water is deeper there and most of the soldiers drown into the water,while the survivors tempt to reach the beach,soaked by the seawater,they have heavy difficulties to advance in the water,the German machineguns shoot them down, the soldiers on the beach try to hide behind the beachobstacles,they wait for orders but their commanders are killed or missing,fear blocks them there,the beach is full of death and wounded men,Omaha becomes BLOODY OMAHA.LCM's down their ramps , it are the men of the Spaecial engineer task force that land on the beach, they'll also face hell,the German gunners shoot them down as clay pipes at the fair.The engineers are pulling dingies behind them with their explosifs,if they aren't simply shot down , the Germans aim on the dingies to makethem explode and take the soldiers with them in this explosions or they are reduced to meatloaf when the German snipers hit the explosifs in their jacket pockets.
Even tough the heavy losses they encountered the engineers would ratherly fast liberate a causeway trough the mined obstacles..Several meters behind GI's of the first assault wave begin to land,their LCVP's and LCT's grate over the sand and sandbanks and stop at 10 meters of the from the beach,the landingboats lower their ramps the soldiers run to the assault,the first soldiers are literally cut in two pieces by the German machine guns,vomit and blood mingle,the situation is dramatic,between the noice of the machineguns you could here the painfull screams of the wounded soldiers and the calls for help,teared apart bodies were floating on the sea who was coloring red with the blood of the soldiers,Omaha had become a real chaos,neither the soldiers,neither their officers see where they are,they can't see anything before their eyes,they don't know from where dead is getting to them,the dry sands are 5 meters further but the medics are already flooded with work,the assault has begun an half an hour ago and already 95% of the first assault wave is already dead or wounded.
The Martyrdom of The A company of the 116th Infantry regiment :
The men of A company 116th Infantry Regiment find themselves in front of the beach at Vierville-Sur-Mer,their target is the main road to the center of the village.The beach on this part is clean,no bomb craters no wall for protection,no pebble wall...there's absolutly nothing for protection on this part of Omaha Beach.Their LCT's landing ramp go down, the men get out of their landingcrafts they are wading trough the seawater that reaches at breast hight,holding their weapons above their heads,when the water is at their knee hight the Germans open fire,hell opens her doors to the brave soldiers coming on to the assault,its a massacre,several soldiers are hit,their commanding officer Lt Tidrick has been hit at his troath whil his blood is squirting out of his wound Tidrick jells his orders to his men before being literaly shot in two pieces.While leaving their landingcrafts most men had teared of the protections that they had putted on the canons of their guns,with has result that their weapons were jammed by the water and sand that had entered their guns.The soldiers had to disassemble their weapons to clear their them,most of these soldiers would be found dead on the beach without shooting one round their disassembled weapons still hold in their hands.On LCA 1015 officer Taylor Fellers and 30 of his men are killed while leaving their landingcraft,the surviving soldiers left without a commanding officer are in panic and don't know were they have to go,they become sitting ducks on a shooting range for the Germans.The wounded men are in shock or frozen by fear and can't react anymore,with the flood coming up the number of casualities by drowning in their ranks will grow,the landing for the A company of the 166th Infantry Regiment is only a several minutes old and the company is already exterminated.The destiny of captain Madills Easy company of the 116 th Infantry Regiment is not much better on Omaha,while leaving their landingcrafts several of them will be immediately killed,their only protection on this part of Omaha Beach was a pebble wall.There was a distance of 400 meters between the assaulting soldiers and this pebble wall.An awfull distance to run when you're heavily loaded,tired and soaked by the seawater and under heavy fire.Those who've survived the leaving of their landincrafts try to reach this pebble wall and run to it.Imagine : You start to run,the first hundred metres are done no time to look around, you run, run ,run..suddenly you don't ear the breathing of your fellow brother in Arms anymore,you want to survive,you throw all the heavy equipement you carry on the beach,the only thing you only keep your rifle and ammunition,the race against time continues to go on,every meter is a meter of life,your brothers in arms go down around you,the German machineguns keep firing on you,finaly you reach this pebble wall...it's a disaster only sixty men are sitting behind the pebbles,the rest of your company is spread around on the beach death or heavily wounded,this is what Captain madill saw when he reached the pebble wall.It was hell and the worst still had to come,pinned down behind the pebbles the Germans have a good target to fire on, and they do, he who lifts his head up to look above the pebbles won't do it a second time.Captain Madill who's already wounded by several hits looks around him suddenly it get's to him, they had left their ammunition behind them on the beach and thammo would be needed,Madill starts to run for the ammo,bullets are hitting the sand near his foots,his men are stunned by his heroism,suddenly a bullet cuts trough his body,with his last strenght he succeeds to bring the ammo back but in a few seconds Captain Madill will die on Bloody Omaha.
picture: Hell on OMAHA BEACH
At Colleville-Sur-Mer,the Big Red One or US First Infantry Division is comming ashore,from all the division landing on Omaha Beach this division is the most experienced one,she has already participated on the landing operations in Africa and Sicily,D-Day was their third amfibious operation,this were the best infantry men you could find and the best division a division with a reputation already build on the European theatre duing WW1 .Most some of her soldiers engaged in the in the 16th Regiment were citizens of New York that's why they were nicknamed " THE METRO SOLDIERS" refering to another name given to the big city the Metropolitan.Their experience would not favourise them here on Omaha Beach,faith would change the odds,the unexpected would geopardise their initial operation task, the Big Red One would come ashore far from her objectifs,there were Omaha Beach was most heavily defended on the beach parts codenamed FOX GREEN and FOX RED in front of the defence sites WN 60,61 and 62,for them Omaha Beach will also become hell,on one landingcraft transporting 32 soldiers only 6 or 7 would reach their brothers in arms looking for shelter againsst the pebble wall,the rest of the men aboard of the landingcraft were killed or wounded by the heavy defensif German firing.At the same time the landingcraft pilots had lot of dificulties to navigate on the heavy Channel and trying to avoid the beach obstacles,the already cramped soldiers had to jump out of their landingcrafts in high water and had to move has shoot practice targets towards the beach,moving in to their dead.At this part of Omaha Beach the first assault wave would also count 90% of causualities dead or wounded.An example : The assault group of one Sergeant Widener counting 32 soldiers would once they had crossed the beach only count the sergeant included only 3 survivors.The battle is so heavy that the men of the Big Red One would look for shelter against the rocks of the Mont de la Revolution,straight under defence site WN 60,they are being shelled from out Vierville-Sur-Mer,the other soldier take protection behind the pebble wall in front of WN 61 anD 62 , the beach is full of dead men,the surviving men are blocked the second assault wave would encounter the same problems, neverless all these problems the men of the 1st Infantry Division would do their jobs and keep on going for it.
Picture: Heavy losses on Omaha.
As we already mentioned,the BIG RED ONE as all other divisions of the first assault wave had been pinned down on Omaha Beach.One hour after the start of the landings on Omaha Beach the outlooks on the cruisers couldn't observe any movement on the beach anymore.The second assault wave was in approach of Omaha beach the Norman beachwhere body parts and dead bodies were lying on the sand.The survivors of the first assault wave were holding on to each sand grain trying to avoid a gloryless dead.The Germans knew they were on the winning hand at that moment of the battle for Omaha Beach,Fortress Europe was still standing,they wanted to threw the Americans back in to the sea and aim for the pebbles now with their mortars,the pebbles became deadly projectiles for the sheltering soldiers.The medics spread around on the beach ,are trying to rescue some of the wounded men,but the Germans open fire on them,their red crosses on their helmets are good targets for the German gunners,the Geneva conventions are not protecting them here on Omaha Beach,the poor lads are shot down , killed or severely wounded by the machine gun bullets,the medics are at open range there is no difficulty to shoot them down and they can't even protect their wounded friends lying on the beach,there is no evacuation possible,the men are waiting for the second assault wave.The Big red One is suffering under heavy casualities and the heavy German fire,they can't see anything, they are shooting in to the blinding smoke,a soldiers suddenly falls on his back he's been hit trough his helmet,he's part of Sergeant Pinders Unit,the sergeant who's unit has been practicly destroyed,won't surrender or give upZ,he's already severely wounded,he's loosing much of his blood but refuses any medical help,he runs across the beach to bring back the radio material that he needs to make contact with the rest of his unit,while running back to the pebbles a machinegun shoots in his legs ,Pinders legs are like meatloaf,he's lying at open range on the beach,he shouts to his men trying to get them to make the radios work,suddenly a machinegun ends his agony the sergeant dies on Omaha Beach.In the sector of the 29th Infantry Division the 743 rd tank batallion is trying to bring 16 tanks into battle , of the 44 tanks on the beach 10 are already out of order,5 others are blocked by technical breakdowns.Their crews continue to shoot on the hills,but not for long anymore with the flood coming up they 'll have to leave their Shermans if they don't want to drown in them.
Picture:waiting to board a landingcraft.
The Second Assault Wave :
The second assault wave starts to reach the beach,somewere between Vierville-Sur-Mer 4 sections will escape by coinsidence to what happened to their brothers in arms already on the beach,the smoke that hung over the beach had made them invisible,the soldiers run over the beach towards a wall that protects both villages from the sea,there they take cover,their officers don't know what to do,they are at the wrong spot,on the right side the beach is hopelessly empty on their left side at Les Moulins the slaughtering continues,they decide to wait.The Rangers of the second Bn are in approach of the beach,they'll know the same hell as their fellow soldiers,one of their LCT's is literaly blown up in full sea and sinks into the sea taking the complete crew with him,an other one lowers his assault ramp the first rangers are instantly killed by a German machinegun,fifteen Rangers will die here at this first moment,but their motivation and training will bring them further than the poor men of A/116,they reach reach the edge of the cliffs of Vierville-Sur-Mer,they'll count only 35 men in their ranks,the ladders are raised,the Rangers will assault WN 73 and the Pointe de la Percée.At this moment the second assault wave is landing on Omaha beach,several landingcrafts will sink taking all their soldiers aboard to the bottom of the Channel,other landingcrafts capsize and sink,their soldiers ejected into the sea struggle with the heavy waves to reach the beach some will survive ,most will drown or will be killed in their struggle by the hostile firing,the landincraft pilots of the second wave will have al troubles they need to avoid the mined beach obstacles who are covered by the flood,LCVP higgins boats and LCA 's will stay stucked on the obstacles.The nigtmare of the first assault wave is repeating himself,the beach should have been cleared of all obstacles but with all the troubles the first assault wave knew ,the beach hasn't been cleared at all.
Painting: hell on Omaha Beach.
The 272 special engineers didn't succeed in their task,this task consisted in clearing the beach from obstacles and open causeways into the atlantic wall,clear the mine fields and disable the German weapons,but the chaos of Omaha had not given them that chance,this fact was subject for many problems,nothing accorded to the initial plans anymore drawn in London.This created heavy problems to the landingcraft pilots and also created incidents on the higgins boats, one of these incidents occured near Vierville,between a commanding officer of B/116 -a captain-and a landingcraft pilot,the incident started when the pilot refused to approach closer to the beach,the officer pulled his revolver against the head of the pilot,forcing him to go closer to the beach,the officer,Captain Zappacosta would not survive D-Day, the LCA would approach at 50 meters from Omaha Beach and lower his ramp to let the soldiers of,Captain Zappacosta and many of his men would be shot down by a German machinegun and drown into the sea.From this LCA only 1 soldier would survive the landing.An other LCA of this group would never reach the beach hit by a German 88 mm shell the LCA would explode,the bodies of the soldiers and the landingcraft pilot would be found back spread around on omaha Beach.The other 4 LCA's of this group would spread larger on the coast,one of them would lower his ramp near WN 73,the men who came out it would reënforce the Rangers already fighting at this place.The fourth LCA would lower his ramp in front of WN 71,launching his men in very deep water,many soldiers would be shot down or would drown over here taken down by the weight of their packages.9 DUKW's of 13 would sink in the channel with their heavy guns aboard.The landingcrafts of D/116 are victim of the rough sea,many of them would sink the others wouldn't even be able to reach the beach,others would land at the same spot on the beach.The second assault wave of engineers would know the same troubles as their brothers in arms of the first wave,in first they'll land on a beach where chaos is total,in second they're hit by the Vierville guns,one of their LCI's carrying number 91,is hit by a shell,killing the men near the ramp,the LCI reverses his engines but hits a mine and takes fire,burning the GI's alive,those who aren't hit try to save their lives but the fire reaches the reservoirs of the flame throwers aboard of the ship,they exploded taking everything with them,giving an awfull view of burned and dislocked bodies,the surviving men would be transported back to Britain,the engineers of the 29th Infantry Division would lose 3/4 of his men and materials between Vierville-Sur-Mer and Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer.
07:35 Hrs :
The landing operation on Omaha beach is fully going,there's just one positif note :some 200 men have broken trough in the direction of WN 60 and 62 at the Nord-East of Colleville-Sur-Mer.At Vierville-Sur-Mer the troops are being crushed on the beach and destroyed,the spectacle is horrible.The flood his coming up at full strenght,this will hinder the landing operations,the obstacles that Rommel had putted on the beach became invisible with has result that many landingcrafts would not be able to avoid them,the obstacles would damage the landingcrafts and even tear their bottoms open,the engineers who made it alive to the beach had to make openings between them at al costs.They begin to assemble their materials to this purpose,but they are not only there to clear the obstacles but also to clear the minefields and cut the barbed wires,many engineers who went on the move to assemble those materials would not make it back fallen under enemy fire.Under the heavy fire of the Vierville guns,two bulldozers would succeed in rolling up and down the beach and clear it from the wreckage.An LCVP brings the 450 Rangers of Colonel Schneider on Omaha Beach,they run towards the wall separating the road from the beach,the overcrossing of the beach would take only 6 lives.From the last LCA of B/116,that arrived at Colleville-Sur-Mer,the soldiers who reached the beach had succeeded to cross the beach to Le Hamel aux Prêtres,without a scratch.Four LCA's that had deviated towards Port en Bessin because of the understream of the Channel are in approach of Omaha Beach,aboard the men of L company of the Big Red One,it took them more than an hour to reach their destination,now 127 GI's are running over the beach seeking for shelter,that they'll find under the cliffs of La Revolution.
An other LCVP is hit by a shell approaching the beach in front of WN 61, the 19 GI's standing near the landing ramp are killed,the survivors of this landingcraft would join the zombies of the first wave already on the beach.But behind the pebble wall they aren't really save, the Germans aim on the soldiers hiding behind them and regulary take one soldier down,like on a turkey shoot,suddenly a GI will go down with his face in the sand,teared apart by the German machinegun bullets.LCVP 71 has Vierville-Sur-Mer in sight,aboard Brigadier General Norman D. Cota and Colonel Charles Canham,none of those two men knows what happened on Omaha beach since the first wave started to land.Six other landingcrafts with the men of the Big Red One aboard arrive at Colleville-Sur-Mer,on the left side of WN 62 the soldiers immediately seek for shelter behind the pebble wall,of the 190 GI's that came on the beach 50 would be killed or wounded.On the beach part in front of Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer,a group of wounded soldiers is taken under fire by the Germans a chaplain is waving a rag with a Red Cross on it, he painted it with the blood of the wounded men on the beach,he tried to convince the Germans ton stop the slaughter of those poor men lying there without any defence,but the Germans don't respect the Geneva convention up here,the slaughtering continues.An half an hour after the start of the assault the odds are very bad for the soldiers stuck in a clearly hopeless situation,prisoner of the heavy German defensif firing,the barbed wires and the upcoming flood.General bradley is moving towards the observationpost on the USS Augusta,the messages he's received announce nothing good,when he reaches the observationpost and looks at Omaha he can't believe his eyes,it's a total chaos that he's seeing,there's no movement viewable on the beach,you can't even make the difference between the dead and living soldiers on Omaha,Bradley has doubts about the succes of the operation and his thinking about giving the al operation up...can these men win the battle for Omaha ?the first wave has been slaughtered,the second wave is trying to hold foot on the beach...will Omaha totaly turn in to a DRAMA ?
08:16 hrs :
The commander of the USS COOK has seen enough from out his position,he decides on his own initiatif to engage his ship into the battle ,bringing the destroyer closer in to the beach and help the GI's stucked on the beach,the guns of his destroyer open fire on the Pointe de La Percée.His fellow ship commanders decide to follow his example,the other destroyers also open fire in support of the blocked ground troops.The Germans untill that moment were in a privilegde position,holding the beach under their fire,the unexpected artillery support from the destroyers would change the odds and turn the tide.The pinned down infantry soldiers became inspired by the sudden help of the destroyers and gained courage again to continue a battle that looked lost.The small surviving units on the beach,began to operate as units again,bangalores are passed on and pushed under the barbed wire fences to blow them up.One man in all this will inspire his fellow brothers in arms to fight on, he jumped up on his own ,jumped over the coastal wall run up the road under heavy machinegun fire,crowled on his belly towards the barbed wires to pass his bangalore torpedo under them,his name:private Imgram lambert,he would be killed by machinegun bullets right at the moment he wanted to detonate his bangalore,first frozen by the shock his buddies would first hesitate,but his heroism would not stay without reply,Luitenant Schwarz runs in the same direction,he detonates the bangalore,the barbed wire obstacle expoldes,there's an opening, the infantry men run towards this opening into the German Trenches,the Krouts will pay for all the killing they did that day.
Painting:Rangers lead the way at Omaha
pictur
Picture:Omaha after the Battle.
There's one man on the beach who's walking up and down between the bullets,if like he's walking on a boulevard on a simple week day,the bullets doesn't seem to bother him ,this man is general Norman D.Cota,he shouts to his men, he wants them to take courage and to attack the enemy,he shouts " there's only two kind of men who are going to stay on this beach,those who are already dead and those who are going to die.The soldiers gain courage again,no they aren't going to die here, it's pay back time jerry is going to pay for al the suffering on this bloody beach,they gatter their materials together and go to it!! Colonel Canham also shouts his men forward he shouts" they are slaughtering us down here ,lets go up there,to slaughter them",Canham would not survive D-Day.The 136 rangers of the second batallion arrive at the beach,their landing has costed them many lives,but they immediately assault the hills around Omaha,WN 70 and 71 take them under heavy fire,the Rangers are pulled back,the price to pay is heavy,very heavy,31 dead rangers,66 wounded and 5 missing Rangers are accounted in their ranks.The 150 men of the 116 th Infantry Regiment and the 450 Rangers of Kolonel Schneider are heading for the breach Luitenant Schwarz opened ,under the cover of the heavy smoke courtain hanging over the area they begin to climb the hill, the German Grenadiers can't see them coming,the infantry men and Rangers are moving between the minefields ,they are very carefull, one bad move and they are gone.half way that hill general Cota has installed a temporary CP,suddenly a shell hits the place,Cota is blasted away,when he stands up he has no scratch,two other men who were with him were killed on the hit.The battle for OMAHA Beach continues.
Picture : Brigadier-General Norman D.Cota
Colleville-Sur-Mer the metro boys go for it !!
At Colleville-Sur-Mer the metro boys have got enough of it,they free themselves from the deadly trap in wich they had landed and in wich they were blocked since more than an hour,they start moving towards WN60 wich is assaulted by men of 5 different company's,a patrol of 5 men had been sended forward to recognize the site and clear it from landmines,when they cutted the barbed wire fences they felt on heavy defended trenches,handgrenades were trown in these trenches,on the sound of the explosions the patrol was fastly reenforced by 4 men accompagnated by two Shermans.At the same moment down on the beach a young Lieutenant,Jimmy Monteith,is geopardising his live,helping the Shermans to aim up hill,he would pay his act of bravoury with dead, Monteith has fallen on the beach between the Shermans ,he's one of the three Medal of honor recipients burried on the US War cemetery of Colleville-Sur-Mer.The patrol who's up hill is reenforced again and with all of their strenght the GI's succeed in their mission,the hill is taken and WN 60 is put out of order.With this defence site eliminated more soldiers will go up hill now and will fastly move towards the road leading towards Colleville-Sur-Mer and Port en Bessin.The break trough for the realisation of the bridgehead has become a fact.On the beach general Wyman does the same thing has General Cota at Vierville,he encourages his men to fight shouting them forward ,Sgt Strojny assembles his men and moves without any direct order trough a minefield and destroys a blockhouse with a bazooka.An other group attacks WN 62,but is stopped by the mined swamps down the defence site hill,spotted by the defenders of WN 62 the attacking force will not stop,WN 62 will fall in their hands.Captain Dawson,who's at the other side of the defensif site,is climbing from bush to bush and shuts a machinegun nest down,the three German soldiers defending this place were totaly surprised,the path upwards WN 62 is open,the metro soldiers are assaulting WN62.
Picture:Gi's trying to get to the beach.
At the Ruquet valley things are running out of hands,one of the commanders has totaly lost the North and sends his men right into dead,in the chaos that rised out of this the GI's open fire on each other thinking they're facing the enemy,the battle of the Ruquet valley became a slaughtering.At WN 62 captain Dawson leaves the site to join the WN 64 site or Ruquet battery.Going trough the woods and bushes,crossing barbed wire fences,the men who'd left WN 62 reached WN 64 to assault it.The Ruquet defence site soldiers are token by surprise,but the German Grenadiers who were factly in majority decided to defend themselves until the last man standing,the fight becomes a body to body battle,the outnumbered American soldiers will beat the Germans,after two hours of hard combats the last Germans surrender,the ruquet has fallen.At the same moment that WN 64 has fallen in allied hands,the 18th Regiment soldiers come ashore,the causeway to Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer is open for them,the only resistance on their path is a small machinegun bunker that is taken out by an half-tracks machinegun,the bunker is literaly blasted out by the bullets,in the meanwhilea destroyer takes on WN 65,the defence site is eliminated.General Cota's have token WN 68 and WN 70 .The landing is already 5 hours old and the battle,unless the positif advances, isn't over yet.At Colleville-Sur-Mer the Big Red One encountered heavy German resistance,the village would be liberated at 11:00 hours in the morning on June 7th.At Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer the Americans have heavy troubles in their progression towards the village centre,combat is heavy,the GI's are fighting on, moving from house to house and from hedge to hedge,the houses and hedges are deadly traps, the number of casualities keeps on growing.The town centre of Vierville-Sur-Mer is in American hands,but on the town outskirts it's full of Germans.From the 14 strongholds surrounding Omaha Beacdh only 4 have been taken out.General Cota who's in vierville is terribly worried,because of the fact that the acces to the village coming from the beach still is blocked by two strongholds located up hill,he calls in the help from the destroyers.During 7 minutes strongholds WN 71 and 72 are shelled by the detroyer TEXAS,the strongholds are pulled out of order,the acces towards the village is open.
Painting Le Ruquet is token.
General Cota moves back to the beach following the open causeway,on his way back he makes some POW's,down the road he remarks an anti-tankwall that's blocking the road,this wall has to be destroyed,Cota goes searching for the engineers to do this work at his big surprise he finds them somewhere up the middle of the beach holding a sort of summer holliday picnic,on a beach that now and then receives a shell or two from the German batteries who are getting trough their ammunitions.The engineers put down their forks to go and destroy that anti-tank wall.For the first time since they came ashore these men are taken under enemy fire,when they reach the wall another problem is facing them, they have no explosifs to do their job,a Ranger sended by General cota brings them the needed explosifs with a bulldozer.The wall is blown up.The fight for a bridgehead continues,many men will die,but the beach has been taken,the strongholds will al be silenced,the last German defenders have surrendered,it's 23:20 hrs the battle for Omaha Beach is over,the battle for Normandy is just to begin,General Huebner of the Big Red One installs his CP at Le Ruquet,the enemy is just 2km away from there.The hour to count the losses has come, the hell of Omaha Beach is over.
Epilogue :
More than 3000 deads and wounded men and many sweat and tears that's what Omaha beach became to the American divisions who came ashore there.Many war specialists know the stories of the boys from Bedford,of wich only a few would survive D-Day coming ashore in the first assault wave.Not many of them know the stories of al those who survived D-Day,many of these stories will never be told,the landing has shown in "Saving Private Ryan" shows the beach assault has like it has been seen by those who lived it,it's just a part of the hell that was Omaha Beach but so accurate...We may never forget what happened here,never forget the sacrifices of those young men who landed here to liberate our Europe,It's our task to see this never happens again.Monuments and cemeteries don't mean a thing if we don't know their story ,that's why I wrote this down, to let the next generations know what happened some 60 years ago on this now so peacefull Norman Beach.
I' ve just one thing to say to those who fought and died here :
Less we forget,Thank you boys !!
Pictures : The Bedford Monument and AFTER D-DAY
Sgt Eagle Januari 2005 , with special thanks to HBO ,Saving Private Ryan ,JJ Gaffié & Dietz war paintings.
