Part 1

In terms of bloodshed the landing at Omaha Beach was a horror for most involved. This map- https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/maps/DDay4.jpg- shows the initial strongpoints along the bluffs as well as the advance inland; for our purposes the little upside-down U-shapes in red, with the shading inside them, are what are relevant. These represent the clusters of concrete defensive works that studded the shoreline- field fortifications such as trenches and rifle pits connected them and reinforced them further. The concrete fortifications were built to house everything from cannons meant to combat ships down to machine guns, including many anti-boat and anti-tank guns sighted to cover the beaches below. If you study the map you’ll see that they’re all positioned to cover gaps in the bluffs- these are the beach exits, four of which were capable of being traversed by vehicles and one that could be made traversable by engineers. These are the critical positions on Omaha Beach: if the German defenders can keep the Americans from securing the beach exits, then the Americans can’t move their supplies off the beach. If they can’t move their supplies off the beach, then this materiel can be destroyed by artillery fire, which in turn will prevent the forward combat elements of the two divisions that landed on D-Day from moving inland. In essence, being trapped on the beach means being stuck there, as had happened at Anzio in Italy for 90 days, or being withdrawn and the landing failing outright. The Germans, particularly Rommel, who had taken special interest in the Grandcamps sector upon arriving in France, were aware the importance of the exits and fortified them accordingly. Rommel had also specifically requested that the 352d Infantry Division be retained in the Grandcamps sector- he got his wish, with the result that on 6 June the division had several hundred men in the emplacements at Omaha Beach, doubling the garrison there, but more importantly had its field artillery battalions in position as well. This latter point is the more critical factor of the 352d ID’s involvement in the battle, because the invading Americans had figured out where the field artillery batteries of the 716th Infantry Division (the original defenders of the sector) were emplaced and had determined how they would neutralize them. In contrast, American planners had no idea that the 352d ID was in position overlooking the beach, placing them as far back as St. Lô (I believe; this is off the top of my head). That there were elements of the division in position overlooking the beach was not good; the fact that the entirety of the division’s field artillery was in position to fire on Omaha Beach was much, much worse, as vindicated by the later determination that the vast majority of wounds suffered by the US 1st and 29th Divisions on the beach were caused by shellfire.

The American assault plan designated two regimental combat teams (the 16th RCT of the 1st Division and the 116th RCT of the 29th Division, the latter temporarily attached to the 1st Division for the landing) to land abreast on Omaha Beach. Company C of the 2d Ranger Battalion was to come in on the right of 116th RCT in order to neutralize enemy fortifications atop the point in that sector. The assault wave was to derive its organic fire support from 96 M4 medium tanks of the 741st and 743d Tank Battalions: of these, 64 had been outfitted with canvas floats and duplex drives in order to allow them to be launched in deep water and swim to shore. The order of landing saw the DD tanks making landfall at H-5 minutes; the remaining 32 tanks making landfall from LCT’s at H-Hour proper; the 16th and 116th RCT’s and C/2d Rangers hitting the beach at H+1; and the Special Engineer Task Force coming in over five minutes between H+3 and H+8. This last landing party was a conglomerate of naval demolitions troops and army combat engineers, and their task was to blow 16 gaps in the beach obstacles in order to clear a path for the tanks to move up and assault the beach exits and for vehicles landing later to move off the beach. About 30 minutes after the engineer task force landed the reserve battalions of the 16th and 116th RCT’s would begin coming ashore along with attachments, while the 18th RCT was due to be committed at H+195 and the 115th RCT to be landed on orders from Major General Leonard Gerow, commander of V Corps, the immediate higher headquarters that the 1st and 29th Divisions answered to. This whole big thing was to preceded by an aerial bombardment by the 2d Bombardment Division of the Eighth Air Force (approximately 400 B-24 Liberator heavy bombers) as well as a 37-minute naval bombardment by two battleships, three cruisers, and eight destroyers. The naval bombardment would lift at H-3- two minutes before the DD tanks touched down.

Quite frankly, a lot went wrong at Omaha Beach both by design and by chance. In the former category we can place the ineffectiveness of the naval and part of the aerial bombardments; the naval bombardment was simply insufficient in both concentration and duration to neutralize the concrete fortifications, while the aerial bombardment missed entirely. A common misconception is that the aerial bombardment was meant to crater the beach to create cover for the assault waves, but this is wrong- in fact, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, commander of First Army, had specifically requested light bombs be utilized to avoid such a consequence, as cratering the beach would reduce vehicular movement off of it to a crawl. The aerial bombardment was supposed to shake up the German defenders and demolish the field fortifications connecting and surrounding the strongpoints as well as cut communications to these positions, but this didn’t happen because it missed. As it turned out anyway, the field fortifications connecting the strongpoints proved to be the weak spot in the armor regardless, so even if it had hit, who knows how much it would have materially changed things. After all, machine guns didn’t kill the advancing Americans, artillery emplaced behind the beach and guns emplaced in the concrete bunkers did. Into the latter category, that befuddled by chance, we can place the landing scheme, responsibility for the missing of the aerial bombardment, and the loss of a substantial number of the tanks. Heavy seas, a strong tide, and smoke from the bombardments caused incoming landing craft to get disoriented and land away from their designated areas, with the result that the entire assault wave was landed in drips and drabs along the beach. Some sectors saw heavy concentrations of troops landing, while others were nearly devoid of assault troops. Finally, the high seas played havoc on the flotation apparatus of the DD tanks, sinking nearly all of those assigned to come in in the 16th RCT sector. In the 116th RCT’s zone the decision was made to hold the DD tanks aboard their LCT’s due to the tide, but German fire did wipe out 8 tanks as the 743d Tank Battalion came in.