 |
| US infantry pinned on Omaha Beach |
S.L.A. Marshall hit Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. It was his second war having served in WWI as the Army's youngest lieutenant. He was promoted to officer at the age of eighteen, and he would go on to serve in Korea too. On D-Day he was a colonel with a special job: combat historian. He was required to keep field notes on the landing in the midst of bloody chaos. His notes describe a different picture from the official version of what occurred on that historic day. Normandy was an allied victory that sealed the fate of the Third Reich, but according to Marshall, who wrote an article for
The Atlantic in 1960 tilted
"First Wave at Omaha Beach", the landing was "an epic human tragedy which in the early hours bordered on total disaster." A sobering assessment compared to what the official history now says about D-Day; a variance that is surprising considering no other decisive battle in the war had ever been so thoroughly reported for the record. While fighting was still going on, field historians like Marshall took testimony about what happened from invasion survivors.
 |
| actual landing sites on Omaha |
Of the two divisions that landed troops, the 1st and 29th, only six rifle companies or about 1200 men, were effective as units. They did better than others because they had the fortune to land on a less deadly sections of beach. No unit save one landed where the plans said they should land. Three times that many companies were destroyed by German fire from entrenched positions above the beach. Some units did not contribute a single man to the capture of the high ground. There was no cover on Omaha and German fields of fire were interlocked and ranged in advanced. The only place riflemen could avoid the deadly machine gun fire were behind steel "dragons teeth" which prevented landing craft from getting in close, or submerge themselves in the cold surf of the Channel. Some men never touched the sand, but drowned in the sea when their boats were hit by mortar shells.
Marshall tells us that Able Company, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division was almost wiped out from the moment their boat ramps went down. The first men off were ripped apart by bullets. Even the lightly wounded drowned in the deep water, weighed down by their waterlogged equipment. Survivors of the hailstorm of bullets literally crawled in with the tide. Able was immediately leaderless and disorganized. By the end of ten minutes of action, all the sergeants were dead and only one Able Company officer remained alive and he was wounded twice. This debilitating death toll of officers and NCOs suggests the Germans were aiming for the invasion leadership from the bluffs above. Most of Able's personal equipment was discarded in the supreme effort just to survive. After fifteen minutes not an organized shot had been fired by Able. At the end of the first half hour at 7:00am, two-thirds of the company was dead. By that time a lucky few escaped to the bottom of the bluff and the relative safety of a narrow defilade. Only two privates from Able contributed to the day's fight by joining the 2nd Rangers assaulting fortified Point Du Hoc on Able's right flank
[map].
 |
| survivors helped ashore |
Baker Company followed Able into the beach at the same place, the intention being to support and reinforce Able. But Baker faired no better than Able. In fact the Baker Company commander had to wave his sidearm at the British coxswain to convince him to land the craft in the blood red water and smoky haze of intense defensive fire. The ramp dropped at seventy-five yards, a near impossible distance to cover under the circumstances. Baker's captain was killed within seconds, falling face first into the water. A private carrying the company radio tripped on the ramp and fell into the surf loosing the radio but saving his life. He stayed in the water partially submerged, coming in with the tide. It took him two hours to cover the distance to shore. He remained at the sea's edge behind a drift log with other survivors until nightfall. Only one other Baker Company boat tried to land straight into the beach and it foundered in the rough surf. Records do not reveal whether it was hit by enemy fire. Everybody aboard it, thirty infantrymen and the driver, were killed. The other boats disobeyed orders and veered away from Able's debacle. By doing so, their coxswains saved lives. One boatload of infantry came ashore in a less deadly zone and was able to use large beach boulders for cover. Only two men were killed crossing the open beach. The rest joined a company of Rangers fighting up Point Du Hoc and by sundown the platoon bivouacked at the first row of hedges behind the bluffs. Similar luck allowed the other diverted platoons of Baker to avoid elimination at the shoreline and move landward. The seaside village of Vierville-sur-Mer was taken early in small unit fighting. Troops were then able to move up the Vierville draw
[map, Exit 1] and get behind the enemy to secure the beachhead.
 |
| Omaha beach today |
The deadly, wide open strand was crossed by a relative handful of men in the first wave, who by dauntless personal initiative and heroic action "beyond common understanding", overcame the lethal disadvantages of a low-tide landing that quickly became disorganized, and in some ways was poorly planned. Omaha was known to be the most difficult of the Normandy beaches because of the well-fortified bluffs. There were no fewer than 85 machine gun nests strategically placed to cover the beach besides a myriad of heavier guns in concrete emplacements. Marshall calls them "the forty-seven immortals of Omaha" who at widely separated points on the beach prevented total stagnation and disaster. Commanding General Omar Bradley considered halting the landing of the second wave because of mounting casualties and no progress.
 |
| Omaha beach June, 1944 |
There was not nearly enough bombardment to effectively suppress or destroy some of the entrenched German troops. The naval bombardment was limited to only forty minutes. Likewise aerial bombardment, despite complete air superiority, was largely ineffective. Aerial bombs landed behind German emplacements. Close air support was not used even though the tactic was used successfully in the Pacific theater. Nor were
LVTs or "amtracks" such as the Marines rode into Pacific beaches used. Beach fortifications were largely intact when the soldiers began landing at 6:30am. The majority of the specially equipped Sherman tanks sank when they were unloaded five thousand yards offshore in rough seas. Only five reached the "Easy" beach sector. Later in the morning of the "longest day" at about 8:30am, when the infantry was in danger of being decimated where they huddled,
destroyers had to be ordered in close to the beach running the risk of grounding to support the infantry pinned down by gun emplacements. The 29th Division ended that day with about 60% of its strength.
The chaotic reality of war is hard to understand until you are immersed in it. People, some you know, die in horrifying ways all around you at a rapidity that is mind-numbing. Marshall's field notes give us a only a sense of the desperate struggle. The seventieth commemoration maybe the last one invasion veterans attend since the youngest then are in their nineties now. Nevertheless,
one of the vets still had the courage to take the American President by the hand and insist on speaking his mind. His message to the President was a reminder to keep America out of wars.