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The Longest Day
Fire Blazing, hearts racing, limbs missing, soldiers yelling out in agonizing pain, are some scenes than can be replicated by movies or books. But the reality of what happened on June 6, 144, known as D-Day, the longest day in history can never be and never will be portrayed accurately, especially what happened on Omaha Beach. There are countless details that happened on D-Day that few and far between have any clue of. The landing on Omaha Beach was different from any other day during WWII. It was the first major involvement from the U.S. and first real account at the reality of war.
It was on June 6, 144, that Operation Overlord, the long anticipated invasion of Nazi- held Europe went into action. General Dwight David Eisenhower was in command of the invasion, which was code-named Operation Overlord. The first of the beaches to be landed on was Omaha Beach, which was the most restricted and heavily defended of the beaches. The terrain was difficult backed by 10 feet high sea walls and overlooking cliffs which was immediately recognizable from the sea.( The Valour )
Before even setting foot on beach sands, rangers were already feeling the affects of war. The American forces in there LCVP landing crafts were fighting through rough seas, the cold air, and sporadic rain (Ambrose, 445).There were people chewing tobacco,
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praying, thinking to themselves pensively, singing, anything to prepare themselves from
what was about to happen. When one person vomited from either sea sickness or apprehensiveness, it was followed by an uncontrollable chain reaction. As landing crafts came nearer and nearer to Omaha Beach, sounds of machine guns and explosions rang out in the minds of the rangers. They knew they were about to engage with the images they pensively had in mind (Saving Private).
As landing crafts came closer, a convoy guide yelled, “ we’re going to drop this ramp and as soon as we do, we’re going to back out, so you guys better be ready!” One private retold what happened. “When we hit the sand, the ramp went down and Lieutenant Anderson was the first off the boat with Private Dominguez. In the next few seconds, I went off, and I saw Dominguez had already been shot and was lying in the water and sand” (Meyer).
Colonel George A. Taylor, who lead his troops against a German machine gun emplacement, said, Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are about to die (The Valour). As soon as the doors lifted from the landing crafts, Omaha Beach was a slaughter, It was a complete foul up. Some didn’t even have a chance. One private said, “the nearer I got to the beach line, the more certain I was that the landing was a disaster.” Opposition was unstoppable. Bullets were flying everywhere straight into the helmets of the rangers. Chaotically they jumped into the water hoping to dodge the bullets, their equipment so heavy that it weighed them down. Heavy seas added problems to the already difficult assault on the well defended territory. Many men, including most of the much needed demolition crews, drowned before reaching land.
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Some didn’t die from combat, but from drowning because equipment was too heavy or
rope got caught around their necks under water. Bullets hit the water hissing through the flesh of the rangers killing them before even reaching the surface (Freeman).
Making it onto shore was the hardest part. The ones that actually made it to shore was out of luck. Every inch of the beach was pre-sited (Saving Private).There was little or no firing from the troops. On the other hand, German machine guns, mortars, and 88s were laying down some of the heaviest fire. Within ten minutes of landing every officer and sergeant of the 16th Regiment was dead or wounded (Ambrose, 440).
Rangers that made it to shore had obstacles ahead to over come. There were mines randomly set up everywhere. The battle of Omaha Beach was the first deadly enemy fire on an exposed beach where total fire control favored the defender. The whole beach was an obstacle course of 7 feet Belgium gates, log posts, log ramps, 5 feet hedgehogs made of crossed steel beams, and sea walls, some affixed with mines (Ambrose, 44).
Throughout the landing, German gunners poured deadly fire into the ranks of the invading Americans. Destroyed craft and vehicles littered the waters edge and beach.
Bodies lay on the beach or floated in the water (Meyer). People’s lives were taken brutally away from them. There were many close calls with sighs of relief. “Thank you Jesus!” And then a second later their life taken away from a single bullet. Chaos was everywhere and there were people just firing anywhere because they didn’t know where to fire at. Men sought refuge behind beach obstacles, pondering the deadly sprint across the beach to the seawall, which offered some safety at the base of the cliff (Saving Private).The sight was horrendous and brutal. Rangers were risking life and limb. Mines placed in random areas
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blew off limbs making a sight for gruesomeness (Goldstein). They were disoriented by the chaos around them and the inaudible noises. All the images around them played in slow motion. A ranger with his arm blown off clumsily searched for his missing limb on the ground. The agonizing screams, “mama!” range out from rangers (Saving Private).
Medics stuck in the cross-fire did everything they could with what they had. There were men, wounded, living, dead huddled together as tightly as a box of cigars. Mortars were blowing around them, artillery pieces blowing beside them. Many were in need of rapid evacuation, but was not provided so many died. There was little that could be done for the wounded except bandaging, splinting, giving morphine, and plasma (Ambrose, 47). Patience ran dry when what they thought could be a saved case was interrupted by a bullet through the head. One was heard saying, “we stopped the bleeding! We stopped the bleeding!” A split second later, a bullet went through the head killing him instantly (Saving Private).
One of the biggest problems was not only the restricted terrain and the dug in pillboxes, but the fact that allied intelligence had overlooked the 5nd Infantry Division right behind the beaches. This unit, like others in Normandy, was spread out, but was an experienced unit that served in Russia. It more than doubled the effectiveness of the coastal defenses, thus resulting in excessive U.S. losses. The defending forces consisted of three battalions of the veteran 5nd Infantry Division. Their weapons were fixed to cover the beach with grazing enfilade fire as well as plunging fire from the cliffs. Omaha
was a killing zone (Keegan, 6).
The troops on the beach were left on their own and realized that the exits were not
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the way off. Slowly, and in small groups, they scaled the cliffs. Rangers that managed to crawl through the German obstacles to the sea wall found themselves assaulting German casemates. They were the most massive defensive structures at the beaches. Their thick
concrete walls could withstand the heaviest bombardments (Meyer).
By early afternoon a majority of the German pillboxes on the beach and bluff had been put out of action by destroyers, tanks, and infantry, suppressing if not entirely eliminating machine-gun fire on the beach. Sniper fire, however, continued. The Germans made use of the maze of communication trenches and tunnels to reoccupy positions earlier abandoned and resumed firing. The Americans started coming in and taking down the Germans slowly but surely. They spotted a German machine gunner with a rifleman firing down on the beach from the dugout. The gunner was shot in the back; the rifleman surrendered (Ambrose, 44).
By the end of the day, when German fire basically died down, more Americans were coming in. Wreckage on the beach and in the water was greater than anything anyone could imagine. Tanks were strewn along the beach, some half submerged. Their minds had already been made up to the fact that a horrible sight would greet them, and it was a good thing that they prepared themselves because the number of casualties was appalling (The Valour).
By nightfall, German fire was noticeably decreased as the defensive positions were taken from the rear. Then one by one the exits were opened. The Americans
suffered ,400 casualties at Omaha on June 6, but by the end of the day they had landed
4,000 troops. The German 5nd Division lost 0 percent of its strength, with 1,00
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casualties, but it had no reserves coming to continue the fight. From the sea wall, the whole beach with its destruction could be seen. It was simply stated when a ranger said, “that’s quite a view” (Saving Private).
The resistance expected by the allies was not great. 4 things gave allies the notion that they could succeed in this assault. First, allied intelligence thought that the position was covered by the German 716th Infantry Division, a low-quality unit. They thought there was probably only a battalion of about 800 men. nd, the B-17s assigned to bomb the area before the attack were believed to be able to knock out much of the fight from these men. And their bombs would create giant craters to gain better cover for the Americans as they moved over the beach. rd, the naval bombardment would surely finish off anything left alive after the B-17s attacked. The 4th reason for confidence was that over 40,000 men were standard to land on D-Day at this one beach. Quite a number of men against the suspected 800 defenders. Of course e everything went wrong. “Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero” (Ambrose, 46)
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