Relevant to this week:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/first-wave-at-omaha-beach/303365


Pure and utter hell on Omaha

It still amazes me they got on shore that day. Indeed, we aren't worthy.

I'm going to post some quotes about Omaha beach from the german points of view from a book i recently read.

This is from one of the mg gunners on omaha.

The German defense at omaha:

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This was an area of about thirty metres width and ten metres depth, set on the top of some cliffs beside one of the ravines that led down to the beach wall. The Point had a trench across its width, and several running to the rear, in jagged lines. Inside, these trenches were faced in concrete and had wooden floors with drainage points. Outside, there was a raised concrete parapet about one metre high, in which there were firing points, which were vertical slits. There were two machine gun points at either end aiming through these points. It was about three hundred metres down from the cliff to the nearest part of the sea wall, and there was a long, uninterrupted line of fire along the beach to the northwest. The guns were MG42 types. The Point was surrounded by barbed wire with a single exit point at the rear, and the dunes on top of the cliffs around it were mined. There were also mines hanging on cables down the cliffs, which could be dropped on any attackers from the beach. The position was open to the air, but steel covers were available to drag across the trenches in case of a bombardment

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German instructions:

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In case of an attack, we were told specifically to hold our fire until any enemy troops were four hundred metres from the edge of the beach; although the MG42 could fire effectively beyond 2,000 metres, this instruction was intended to ensure that we had the largest possible target area on each attacking soldier. We were told to fire at their chests when their torsos were above water, that is to say when they reached the shallows and were wading.

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Dawn:

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The sea was slightly foggy out there, but I could still see first a handful of shapes, then more, and finally an absolute wall of these grey outlines stretching almost across the whole horizon.

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Naval bombardment:

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The power of the explosions made the concrete of the trench ripple and fracture, and if I glanced up, I could only see enormous spouts of earth and sand hanging over the dunes and the beach. The shockwaves punched all the air out of our lungs, and made our eyes bleed. The shrapnel that flew around us was monstrous in size; I saw one piece of shell case as big as my arm, which simply fell down out of the air and jangle at the end of the trench, still smoking. But other pieces were flying left and right horizontally, screeching and smashing off the parapet and the steel roof plates. It went on and on, for salvo after salvo, with absolutely no pause in between the impacts. It was as if a gigantic hammer was falling on the beach, trying to pound it flat that is how it felt to me.

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Quote:

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These 88mm gunners were very accurate, and shot into the landing craft straight through the tall vertical bow. They fired high explosive, and the shells pierced the bow and exploded inside. I saw one of the landing craft opposite my location being hit in this way. The 88mm shell detonated beyond the bow, and the bow door, which I then realised was a ramp, was thrown up into the air. Inside the craft, I could see a large number of troops who had been injured in the explosion, surrounded by men who were still able-bodied. They were clambering and scrabbling over each other, because the craft began to tip forward as water entered the open bow. I saw then from the shape of their helmets that these were Americans. The 88mm gunners fired another shot into the mass of men, and this threw several of them directly out of the craft into the water. The whole craft began to sink from the bow, which made the stern of the craft lift into the air, and this movement tipped the men into the sea immediately.

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The landing:

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It was orderly, very orderly. The craft were stopping at a point where the water was about chest or neck height, and the men were running down the ramps and stepping into the water, holding their guns, plunging down and then bobbing up again, with the sea up to their shoulders or chests. In most cases, the men tried to advance in the water one behind the other, with each man holding or reaching for the back pack of the man in front.

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The approach:

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And so the first of these lines of men began to trudge that is the only word I can use, they walked slowly and deliberately they began to advance in this way into shallower water, and the waves came to their chests, then their waists. That is when we opened fire on them, as our orders stated.

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Quote:

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The Americans began to run, wade or stagger forwards, trying to get out of the water and onto the sand itself. They still moved quite slowly, and because of that and the close range they were easy targets to hit. In some cases, they tried to remain in the water up to their necks, perhaps hoping to be less conspicuous, and I did not fire at those men, because they showed no signs of advancing. In other cases, these troops tried to take shelter behind the anti-tank devices on the beach, which were triangles of girders sticking up from the sand. Those devices were too narrow to give any real protection, though, and those men were also hit. There were other troops who I could see removing their back packs and equipment and running onto the sand, attempting to surge up the beach towards the sea wall. I paid particular attention to these men, of course, and made sure that none of them advanced beyond a few paces.

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Quote:

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After the initial burst of energy and determination that I felt when the attack started, I began to feel pity for these troops, because they kept arriving in landing craft. The craft would deposit them in the shallows, and they would walk towards us through the water in the same way as the first set of troops. We fired at them in the same way, causing the same deaths and injuries. My loader was moved by this, and he shook his head, saying that the Americans should not sacrifice their men in this way.

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Tanks:

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This tank had some kind of screen or tubing around it, and it travelled slowly but effectively through the shallows and onto the sand, and immediately began firing up at the Resistance Points on the cliffs down there. Other tanks came out of the craft behind it, I am not sure how many, but several. At the same time, we began receiving very accurate mortar fire onto our position. So the moment when I thought that we might win was very brief.

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Beginningof the end:

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My memory of the closing phases of that battle are rather disjointed. My position was struck by mortar fire, which I think was coming from a mortar set up in a crater along the beach. These rounds were small calibre, but they produced a lot of splinters which flew around and ricocheted off any surface. My loader was hit in the back of the neck, and he had to withdraw from the gun slit. He had a large piece of flesh hanging loose from his neck, and it was bleeding very profusely. A replacement loader took over, bringing a new pair of ammunition boxes, and we continued firing through the slit. But these mortar rounds made it difficult to see the targets on the beach, as they produced a lot of smoke and dust, and to some extent I was firing blindly into the beach zone. I don't know if this was a deliberate smokescreen, but it certainly made us less effective in our firing. In addition, heavier calibre shells began to hit us again, and I think these were tank rounds coming from the Shermans. Our position was hit by one of these, and many of the men behind me in the zig-zag trenches were injured.

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Rudder(i presume):

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I then saw flashes and gunfire for the first time on top of the cliffs on the other side of the ravine that we were close to. This was a terrible moment, because it suggested that the Americans on the beach had somehow climbed up and broken through onto the cliffs, or that they had airborne troops who had joined up from inland. However this had happened, the presence of Americans up among us on the cliffs was a great threat.

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Quote:

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I could see hand-to-hand fighting on the cliffs directly across the ravine from me, with our troops and Americans so close that I could not fire into them because they were mixed up together. The ferocity of that fighting astonished me. Men were lunging at each other with fixed bayonets, and with their rifle stocks, and even with entrenching tools or shovels. The Americans were charging upon our German gunners in the barbed wire entanglements up there. Some men were in flames, and other men were shooting or stabbing them as they staggered on fire. I could no longer see which men were from which army, as the smoke and flames made them all a similar outline as they fought.

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After the gunner's capture:

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No, there was no reprisal. Apart from the initial interrogation, which took place in England, the Americans took little interest in us. While I was a prisoner, I spoke with a couple of other German troops who survived in a different sector of that beach. None of them had heard of any reprisal or mistreatment against our troops from the beach.

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74OA said:

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The Allies had both air and naval supremacy at Normandy on D-Day.

7 battleships, 5 heavy cruisers, 20 light cruisers, 139 destroyers and armed escorts. 171 British and US fighter squadrons. All in direct support.

So it has always baffled me why overwhelming suppressive close support wasn't immediately forthcoming once it became apparent that Omaha was becoming a massacre.

One brave destroyer skipper disregarded orders to provide on-call gunfire is the only exception I'm aware of.

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Yeah, I know what you mean. I do not know a great deal about the Normandy invasion and I thank the OP for posting this. Absolutely crazy what they faced. My dad made the wade in on Tarawa and I do know a lot about that amphibious landing. Some of the same things that baffle you baffle me. I will say that for the contested amphibious landings (some were not contested very much at all) things just go to pieces and not quite as planned. Communication problems, some choosing to land where there is less resistance, loss of commanders, some delaying their landing, etc. just cause some of the wheels to come off the wagon.

These men were beyond brave. As someone posted earlier, we are not worthy.

Fook, yer dad waded over the reef at Tarawa??
Golly. He still around? I'd love to chat with him.
He survived as bad as it gets.

SRBS said:

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Fook, yer dad waded over the reef at Tarawa??
Golly. He still around? I'd love to chat with him.
He survived as bad as it gets.

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My dad died in 1989. He was a BAR man in L/3/2, Michael Ryan was his company commander. The resistance on Red Beach 1 was so intense that Ryan wound up with remnants of other companies and those under Ryan's command became known as Ryan's Orphans. Dad was in the first wave of Higgins boats, so the 4th wave overall. Those guys got to witness the Alligators landing, or trying to land, be hit with mortars and other artillery, and like in the Omaha beach write up, many were caught in machine gun fire such that none, or very few, got out into the water alive. I have been there twice, and the first time I waded out around 400 yards (they waded 600 to 800 yards) and waded in to Red Beach 1. Do not see how a single Marine made it to the beach.

Casualties were, of course, quite high. K Company and L Company suffered very high casualty rates. I have a picture of my dad and probably 40 Marines taken at a party in New Zealand. He put an X on the faces, or neck, or shoulder of those who later died on Tarawa. As I recall, 23 or 25 of those in that picture died there.

I have so much respect for those who landed in the Pacific or in the European theatre like Normandy and did so under fire. I just cannot wrap my head around so many of them dying.

As to the article posted, I was somewhat surprised by the number of men who drowned trying to land.

74OA said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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Rudder(i presume):

Quote:

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Quote:
I then saw flashes and gunfire for the first time on top of the cliffs on the other side of the ravine that we were close to. This was a terrible moment, because it suggested that the Americans on the beach had somehow climbed up and broken through onto the cliffs, or that they had airborne troops who had joined up from inland. However this had happened, the presence of Americans up among us on the cliffs was a great threat.

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Not Rudder; they scaled a cliff to get to the Germans; this German was at OMAHA Beach

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There are cliffs of varying height along much of Omaha beach which were scaled by our infantry. Rudder over at PdH is just the most extreme example. The Germans quoted above were on one of those other cliffs of Omaha.

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I know; I stood on Omaha Beach on June 6, 2004, when the tide was out and was 300+ yards from the shingle.

The high cliffs of the Vierville draw area were a killing field. I stood in a German machine gun nest where the Big Red 1 landed and I had complete coverage of the beach with complete cover. The German 88 gun emplacements are pointed across the beach instead of out to sea so that they cover the landing areas.

Thank goodness the destroyer commanders had the good sense to move in close to provide fire support for the infantry on Omaha; I've read accounts where destroyers were scraping the bottom as they moved parallel to the beach as the fired on German positions.

My father served in the Marine Corps in WWII and Korea. He began at Guadalcanal and made 4 subsequent landings under fire before the war ended. He became a sergeant at age 17 on Guadalcanal. He passed away 2 weeks ago at 95.

I took him to see Saving Private Ryan when it came out. During the opening scene he was weeping. He was whispering "why, why, why"?

When we got to the car after the movie I asked him about it. He was simply shocked at what he perceived as lack of and/or improperly used naval gunfire and close in air support. His perception was that the inter-service rivalries that existed along with what he perceived as conflicting roles and goals of the ETO and PTO were to blame. His belief was that the leaders of the ETO did not consider what the Navy and Marine Corps had learned in the Pacific and then put that hard won knowledge to use on D-day.

I'm certain it was/is much more complicated than his perception. That said, he truly believed those who landed on D-day faced much worse conditions than he experienced throughout the war. At least, regarding an amphibious assault.

Vierville Draw; Landing site of the 29th Infantry (June 5, 2004)

Omaha Beach; Big Red 1 landed here (June 6, 2004)

Now this is how you do a texags thread!

Every year on June 6 I reread a letter that my grandfather sent home that was printed in the local Dardanelle,Arkansas paper that described a bit of his landing on Omaha Beach.

I watched the 40th anniversary celebrations with my grandfather in his home and it made an impression on me how even 40 years later he and my grandmother were pretty emotional about it, and really for the first time he talked to me about his experience. As we talked about what he saw/did that day he said something that always stuck with me, he described how machines and trucks and advancing were more important than individual men. To exemplify this he described coming upon a severely wounded soldier lying on the beach trying to hold in his guts in and crying out for his momma. When I asked him how he helped that man he simply said he simply moved forward. That story always stuck with me and many years later when I saw that scene in Saving Private Ryan, the landing became all too real. And to think that my grandfather hit the beach when he was 38 years old with a wife at home and a kid he had never seen. Greatest generation indeed.

Additionally,I visited Normandy a number of years ago with my father and my visit to the Longues Battery got my attention as well because I realized that my grandfather saw one side of the artillery duel described below.

https://instagr.am/p/BjtGJbNHJBY

https://instagr.am/p/ByX0aZIllae

https://instagr.am/p/ByX0buelYeT

https://instagr.am/p/ByX0c0eF1p8