The 146th and 299th Engineer Combat Battalions, as part of the V Corps Provisional Engineer Group, were tasked to go in during the first wave, cutting holes in barbed wire thickets and blowing up obstacles that could impede the movement of tanks and other vehicles, landing craft, and later waves of infantry. They were assisted in their endeavor by Navy personnel. An engineer demolition team consisted of the following;
A Naval Combat Demolition Unit of six sailors, reinforced by two to nine more sailors and five soldiers
An Army demolition group of twenty-five enlisted men, one or two medics, and an officer
The team was divided into two mine crews (to remove and defuse land mines on the tidal flat) and two demolition crews (the NCDU and sailors handling obstacles in the sea, and the Army personnel handling obstacles on land). They carried their explosives and other equipment in a rubber boat, itself placed aboard a Landing Craft, Mechanized (similar to an LCVP, but larger).
On the eastern end of Omaha Beach, (Easy Red, Fox Green, and Fox Red sectors) it was intended that the engineers of the 299th begin landing at H+3 minutes, after the DD tanks of Companies B and C of the 741st Tank Battalion had landed at H-10 minutes and Companies E, F, I, and L of the 16th Infantry Regiment with dozer tanks of Company A, 741st had landed at H-0. The dozer tanks were initially supposed to assist the engineers, chiefly by crushing wooden obstacles. Additional engineers and the command team would land at H+8 minutes. For the landing, the 299th consisted of Teams 10-16, and support teams E, F, G, and H:
Team 11: No infantry ahead of team. Casualties in group--over half.
Team 12: Craft came in with its machine gun blazing away at shore installations...As soon as ramp down, [enemy] machine guns opened up. First group got off. Ten men tried to get the pre-loaded rubber boat off the LCM but couldn't move it.
Team 13: Eight Navy men got off the LCM with the loaded rubber boat. Artillery shell exploded [the boat] and set off the primacord. Three later found dead. Many infantry unloaded just as the charges about to be blown. A tankdozer tried to haul out obstacles, [but] infantry took cover behind it and prevented it from maneuvering.
Team 14: Shell hit the LCM and blew up the loaded rubber boat. Naval demolition crew members killed. Infantry moving in, and its wounded, prevented blowing the charges.
Team 15: Mortar scored direct hit on the rubber boat loaded with explosives. Three men killed and several wounded.
Team 16: LCM blown up by direct hit just after men got out. Too many wounded in and behind obstacles to blow them.
| Unit | Killed | Wounded | Missing | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 299th Engineer Combat Battalion | 71 | c. 75 | 0 | c. 146^d |
The DD tanks assigned to the area had sunk in the heavy waves and the infantry who were supposed to have landed just before were blown off-course to the east by strong currents in their small landing craft, taking longer than expected to arrive. Technically, in some areas, the 299th Engineers were the first men on the eastern end of Omaha Beach.
Sources:
Balkoski, Joseph. Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2004.
Beck, Alfred M., Abe Bortz, Charles W. Lynch, Lida Mayo, Ralph F. Weld. United States Army in World War II, The Technical Services, The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany. Washington: United States Army Center of Military History, 1985.