America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (18 page)

In the narrative of D-Day, Omaha Beach has become the best known part of the attacks among Americans, due to the various difficulties the Americans faced there before managing to succeed. But it’s essential to remember that each of the 5 beaches were their own story, and largely forgotten is the remarkable success of the the American landings at Utah Beach, which were easier in comparison to the other four landing zones. On Utah, the 4
^th
Infantry suffered only 197 casualties out of a total landing force of 23,000 men.

If the landings at Utah could be described as easy, those at Omaha were chronically bad. Due to the aforementioned failure to reinforce Omaha Beach, despite Rommel’s insistence, the U.S. Army encountered just two battalions, rather than the ten which should have been in position. Those two divisions, however, were more than enough to guarantee the U.S. Army one of its worst days in history.

Despite the fact the Germans had just two battalions in position, the landings at Omaha were a disaster. Some military operations are dogged by bad luck, and Omaha is certainly one of those. To begin with, the initial air bombardment completely missed its intended target, and the naval bombardment of just 20 minutes hardly damaged any German defenses. General Bradley had told his men, "You men should consider yourself lucky. You are going to have ringside seats for the greatest show on earth.” However, Rear Admiral John L. Hall, in reference to the lack of naval bombardment, countered, "It's a crime to send me on the biggest amphibious attack in history with such inadequate naval gunfire support.

Bradley

Things went wrong even before troops hit Omaha Beach, but inadequacies in naval and air bombardment weren’t the only problems. The invasion called for deploying inflatable tanks on the water that could provide cover for the infantry, but the officer in charge of releasing the amphibious tanks panicked and sent them into the deep swells of the Channel, causing 29 of the 34 tanks immediately sinking to the bottom. Finally, since the landing came at low tide, the troops were forced to move across 300 yards of water, followed by 100 yards of beach, steep dunes, and finally swamp, minefield and barbed wire. If a soldier had managed to run the gauntlet and survive, he then faced a climb up the cliffs to the high ground.

The result was, unsurprisingly, a slaughter. Much of the first wave of troops was gunned down before they could get out of the water. Machine gun and rifle fire pinned down those landing craft not destroyed by underwater mines, while those pinned down in the dunes, many gravely injured, were in no position to return any meaningful fire. After these first landing vehicles kept landing along a narrow strip unsheltered against the German defenders, similar landings were suspended during the morning hours of the operation.

Only the ingenuity of the on-looking destroyer captains, who risked beaching their craft to aid the unfortunate troops, provided some relief. Before sun had set on June 6, over 2,500 U.S. troops were dead, with some units incurring up to 95% casualties. Only thanks to the efforts of low ranking officers and NCOs did the U.S. avoid complete annihilation on Omaha. Pressing through the unimaginable fire, a few managed to begin clearing German defences.

Omaha Beach on the afternoon of D-Day

By the end of D-Day, troops on Omaha had only managed to grab two small beachheads, isolated from each other no less, making it the least successful landing spot among the five beaches. It would take a few more days for the Allies to firmly consolidate its hold on Omaha Beach and begin to push inland, after which a MULBERRY harbor was placed there. Somewhat fittingly, the harbor experienced the worst storms in the area in decades, and three days of storms irreparably wrecked the harbor on June 22.

Nevertheless, the preciously bought beach became the main supply zone for the invasion of France. Over the next three months, the Allies used Omaha Beach to land a million tons of supplies, 100,000 vehicles, and 600,000 men, while evacuating nearly 100,000 casualties.

Using Omaha Beach after D-Day

The aims of the British landings at Gold were to establish a link between the British and the U.S. forces at Omaha. Due in part to the heavy naval bombardment of Gold Beach, the British forces were able to overrun the German defences in most places, although they suffered heavy losses in attacks on German strong points such as Le Hamel. For the British it was a success, but certainly not a smooth, unopposed ride as the following quote shows: “We hit two mines going in…They didn’t stop us, although the ramp was damaged and an officer standing on it was killed. The first man off was a commando sergeant in full kit. He disappeared like a stone into six feet of water. The beach was strewn with wreckage, a blazing tank, bundles of blankets and kit, bodies and bits of bodies. One bloke near me was blown in half and his lower half collapsed in a bloody heap on the sand.”

Like other sectors, Gold Beach did not go entirely according to plan, mostly because the tidal waters that day left the water levels higher than planned. Engineers who were meant to remove some of the obstacles found that British ships were passing over them, which was helpful in some ways and harmful in others. As a contingency, the amphibious tanks had to be landed on the beach, providing necessary cover for the infantry. 

After about 3 hours, the British had successfully established a beachhead on Gold Beach. The British division was able to advance through the suburbs of the town of Bayeux after penetrating the German defences, one of the few Norman cities to fall without a fight. Of the 25,000 men who landed on Gold Beach, only about 400 became casualties. “Hobart’s Funnies”, which had been the subject of ridicule, proved invaluable at Gold Beach, with the different modified tanks clearing minefields, briding ditches, and creating trackways across the sands to facilitate movement on and off the beaches.

By the end of D-Day, the British soldiers who landed on Gold Beach were about 6 miles inland, allowing them to link up with the Canadians on Juno Beach. Moreover, the success at Gold was crucial to the embattled U.S. Army on Omaha, because it drew German fighters away from the struggling Americans.

The 3
^rd
Canadian Division landing at Juno Beach experienced much of the same success as the British, albeit with higher casualties. Due to the Canadians arriving late on the beach, the tide was high, ensuring Rommel’s underwater mines were able to inflict as much damage as possible. No fewer than 20 of the 24 lead landing craft were damaged or destroyed. The German army also managed to put up stern defenses around Juno.

Like the British however, the Canadians had the foresight to land their amphibious tanks on the beach when circumstances required it. With the help of these tanks providing cover, the Canadians were able to flank the German defenders, breaching the strong outer layer of German defenses relatively quickly in the northern section of the beach.

The Canadian soldiers landing in the south had it worse. As the 8th Brigade's reserve battalion, Le Régiment de la Chaudière, headed to shore, mines badly damaged their landing crafts, and the soldiers lost almost all of their supplies swimming to shore. With Canadian units pinned down in the south, reserves that landed less than an hour after the initial attacks found to their horror that the German strongholds defending their sector had not been reduced. The 400 man No. 48 (Royal Marine) Commando lost nearly 200 men within seconds of landing.

Despite suffering a total of about 1,000 casualties, the Canadians were able to pour through and push inland. German forces were unable to mount a counterattack until the brutal, murderous Waffen SS Hitlerjugend arrived the following day. By then, the Canadians were well positioned enough to absorb and survive the vicious counterattack. While they received heavy casualties, killed, wounded and captured, with many of the captured brutally murdered by the SS, the Canadians held their ground and pressed on towards the main provincial town of Caen.

The Sword landings were, in comparison to those at Juno, quite easy. Generally, the heavy naval bombardment quelled German resistance, except the heavily defended stronghold of La Breche, which held on for up to three hours. The men on Sword Beach were the only ones to face a determined German counterattack, which came from the 21
^st
Panzer division. But air superiority and effective defenses ensured that the German counterattack almost entirely fizzled out, and the Germans that made progress were eventually compelled to retreat by the end of the day anyway.

Still, two main problems confronted the British attackers. As British forces piled onto the beach, those at the front struggled to break through some German lines, creating a backlog on the beach that left some of the British wide open to indiscriminate German artillery, which inflicted significant loss of life and panic. The 3
^rd
British Division, after landing on Sword, was tasked with meeting up with the British Airborne, which had taken the strategically important Pegasus Bridge in one of the few airborne operations that was successful on D-Day. From there, the British units were to move south towards Caen, eventually linking up with the British and Canadians landing on Gold and Juno Beaches.

However, with British forces massing outside Caen, the plan began to go wrong. Due to the congestion on Sword Beach, the supporting armor was unable to reach the infantry further south. Further compounding the British problem, the heavily defended Hillman fortress stood directly in their path. A particularly bloody and drawn out battle ensued which lasted for most of the afternoon. As British troops pushed towards Caen they encountered elements of the 21
^st
Panzer Division, ensuring Caen would not fall until the middle of July. Considering the varying degrees of success on all the landing beaches, it is perhaps a blessing in disguise that the taking of Caen was delayed, as it allowed Allied forces to better coordinate their attack against the well defended city.

By the end of D-Day, the Allies had managed to successfully land 170,000 men: over 75,000 on the British and Canadian beaches, 57,000 on the American beaches, and over 24,000 airborne troops. Thanks to Allied deception, the German army had failed to react to prevent the Allies from making the most of their landings. Just one division, the Hitlerjugend, would arrive the following day. Despite a fearsome and bloody day, the majority of the Allied forces had held their nerve, and most importantly, achieved their objectives. This ensured
Operation Overlord
was ultimately successful, and victory in Europe would be achieved within less than a year.

Churchill was not overstating the achievements of
Operation Overlord
when he described the plan “the greatest thing we have ever attempted”. On D-Day, the greatest armada the world had ever seen had landed 170,000 soldiers on the heavily defended beaches of Normandy in just 24 hours. More remarkable was the fact that the operation was a success on every major level. Deception, tactical surprise and overwhelming force had contributed to the establishment of an adequate beachhead. Confusion and dissent had stopped the Germans massing for any great counterattack. The Atlantic Wall which Hitler had placed so much faith in had been breached, and the race to Paris was on.