Top left, the fi rst wave hits the French coast. Bottom left , from Coast Guard landing barges (LCVPs ), Americanjighting men wade ashore on Omaha Beach under heavy fi re from German machine gun nests.
An Am.erican soldier lies dead alongside a beach obstruction on Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944, bottom right. He is one of some 1,000 American trooops landed on Omaha that did not see the successful conclusion of D-Day.
A major turning point on Omaha began when Navy destroyers , seeing the slaughter, maneuvered in so close they were in danger of going aground, and started giving close in counterbattery support. COURTES Y OF US NA VA L INST IT UT E
COURT ES Y OF US NAVA L INST ITUTE
repel the invas ion wou ld largely depend on ho w 4uickly the reserve forces could reach the beachhead. At 05 30 the firs t thunderous salvoes from the British warships announced the beginning of a two hour naval bombardment of Gold , Juno and Sword . Twenty minutes later, at 0550, the American fleet opened fire, the ir dead ly proj ecti les archin g to ward the beaches over the landin g craft whi ch had already beg un their run in at0415 . Although Allied destroyers and air cover had co mpletely suppressed the U-B oat threat to the invasion fl eet, a small squadron of hi gh speed E-Boats managed to get into the protecti ve smoke screen and sink a Norwegian destroyer. As the naval barrage continued , thousands of Allied fi ghters and bombers began attacking the beaches. Flying over 14
the incoming landing craft in wave after wave, the drone of the " heavies" and the explosions on the shore greatl y encouraged the assault troops. Although many of the targets on Utah were effectively bombarded , overcast skies at the other beaches , particul arly Omaha , fo rced the bombardiers to drop their loads thro ugh the cloud cover by in struments. Not wanting to hit the landing craft already on the way in , the aircraft delayed their release. Consequently , most of the bombs destined fo r Omaha fe ll miles inland. At about0625 , when the landing craft were within a few hundred yards of the American beaches , the naval bombardment was lifted . As the German gunners climbed from the ir shelters to man the defenses , specially equipped LCTs sent up a baffage of several thousand rocketpropelled projectil es arching over the
COU RTES Y NAVA L HISTORICAL CENT ER
incoming assaul t troops and onto the beach defenses. And then, at 0630 , the first ten landin g craft lowered their ramps. The landings had begun . Because of the poor visibility and lateral currents on the run in , the fir st twenty landing craft came ashore at the southern end of Utah . By luck, thi s area was less heav il y defended than the sector they had been ass igned and the follow up troops were ordered to jo in the first assault where they had landed . Engineers cleared the obstacles within an hour and po ints of resistance were qui ckly overcome. Although Utah suffe red some traffic jams due to the limited beach ex its , casualties were light , with less than two hundred killed and 60 missing . By the end of the day 23 ,000 men, 1,742 vehicles and 1,695 tons of equipment had been landed . SEA HISTORY 69 , SPRING 1994