I am a German soldier stationed at Omaha Beach on the night of June 5th, 1944. What is my experience on the morning of D-Day?

by [deleted]
wiking85

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/352nd_Infantry_Division_(Wehrmacht) It depends on which regiment you're with in the 352nd. If you were in the two on the beach, you're pretty much alarmed out of bed and pushed into slit trenches, pill boxes, and bunkers to fight; if you were in the reserve regiment, you are alarmed out of bed to go traipsing around the woods in search of paratroopers that aren't in your sector, so pretty much you're on a hike all morning with no combat.

Pretty much you'd see massive fighting until you were overrun and were either killed, wounded, or surrendered or retreated in the face of major enemy forces. The division was wiped out by the 30th of July after nearly two months of bocage fighting after the invasion. Pretty much you'd be position fighting for the whole of June 6/7th before pulling back:

The 916th Grenadier Regiment saw action during D-Day (Operation Overlord), opposing the US 1st and 29th divisions at Omaha Beach. The 352nd gave a good account of itself, causing many casualties and defending the bluffs above the beach for several hours before being overwhelmed. The 916th retreated in the morning hours of 7 June after the commander, Colonel Ernst Goth, could no longer hold the positions retaken in the night of 6/7 June.

There would be lots of shelling from offshore, small unit combat defending positions, and counter attacks at night to reclaim some positions on the night of the 6th/7th before a fighting retreat inland.

This link has some interesting info about the invasion from both perspectives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach

Depending on what your job was, you'd either be in a hole behind the lines firing artillery, mortars, or rockets at the beach, otherwise you'd be in a bunker/pill box firing machine guns on the invaders or supporting the machine gun by fetching more ammo, loading it, or covering the flanks with rifle or smg fire. As the Americans broke into the defensive positions, you'd be counter attacking to contain them, or sitting in a hole firing at the attackers trying to expand their foothold in your defenses. It would be a chaotic mess with no one knowing what was going on and mixed up units trying to keep things together as more and more enemy troops were landed and penetrated your defenses, forcing you back and eliminated defensive positions keeping their forces at bay on the beaches. You be trying to bail out water of a sinking ship as the holes got bigger and bigger in your boat (the defensive lines) until it just became too great and you'd have to fall back by that evening and you'd be in a constant retreat, fighting delaying actions as you and your surviving comrades pulled back into the bocage.

Interview from vets from both sides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jkQeus3uQ

Myrdin76

Why is everything deleted?

codytownshend

Since nobody else has mentioned it, I frequently hear about conscripted forces being used to man the defenses at Normandy. Is this true? What is the ratio of conscripted to german troops?

ChoochMMM

A little more than the OP ask for, but two books that I thought were good if you wanted to check out are: The Second World War by John Keegan, and Crusade in Europe by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Not so much from the German perspective, but good reads about the entire history, military history and sentiments during the war.