I photographed the following 30 pictures during my visit.  Here you can see how the terrain rises. The Platform on the ridge of the hill is 200 feet above the beach and 700 yards from the water's edge. The Cemetery and the Platform are side by side.	Notice the woman walking down stairs.  There is a walkway directly in front of that Platform with a staircase on either side.  This curving walkway creates the white Semi-Circle that I used as a landmark in the Google Earth picture above.
As you stand on the Platform looking out to sea, this is the view to the left of the Platform (due west). That is Omaha Beach below.	This is the view to the east of the Platform.  You can see the steps that begin one side of the curving walkway below, i.e. the semi-circle.
This is the view directly in front of the Platform.  That little dot on the beach is a man walking half a mile away.  The mine fields and the barbed wire were down by the marsh area at the bottom of the hill.  The deadly machine gun nests were located about 100 yards from the shore.  On D-Day there was artillery mounted in the exact spot where the Platform is now positioned. As you can see, this area is beautiful.  I don't know if any German or American ghosts still linger here, but it is definitely a quiet, peaceful place today. The Platform had a very commanding view.  The slope on either side of the Platform is much steeper, creating a bowl of sorts. If you are standing on the beach, the easiest route to the top of the hill is the view in this picture. There is a secret about the Platform and Cemetery that no one told me about. While researching this article, I got goose bumps when I realized this exact spot was the site of the initial breakthrough on Omaha Beach.  When I took this picture, I was standing right where Spalding, Dawson, and Streczyk made their heroic penetration.
You are looking at two pictures of the same spot.  This is a picture of the exact trail that Spalding's men took on their way to the top.  As you can see, there isn't much up there to fear.  However, this picture was probably taken AFTER Spalding and Dawson's companies eliminated the German defense.	As I said earlier, I assumed there were massive fortifications atop the hill.  What I did not realize is that the Germans did not have the manpower to put guns everywhere.  They had to pick their spots.  So why was this area relatively undefended?

http://warchronicle.com/16th_infantry/historiantales_wwii/spalding.htm

http://www.ww2lhawebpages.com/THEFIRSTDIVISION/HISTORY_SPALDINGINTERVIEW.html

………….

The American victory at Omaha was achieved against tremendous odds.  Omaha Beach will go down in history as one of the most incredible acts of bravery and determination in American military history.

Some people, however, call Omaha a hollow victory when viewed against the heartbreaking loss of so many young American lives.

Over the years since D-Day, the battle of Omaha has generated a tremendous amount of criticism.  The leaders’ tactics have been called into question and the military value of sending men into such clearly prepared defenses has also come under fire.

As remarkable as the victory was, no one can overlook just how close the Americans came to one of the most depressing defeats in American history.  Was it worth it?

Let’s review the tactics first.  It is fairly obvious to everyone that whatever could have possibly gone wrong at Omaha did indeed go wrong. 

Eisenhower was warned that the weather was bad and that the seas were rough.  His counterpart Rommel read the same weather reports and believed no one would be foolish enough to invade in this weather.  Maybe Rommel was right.

• The weather was so bad that the assault teams lost the use of all their tanks till late in the day after the fighting over. 
• The rough weather created the most havoc with the landing vessels.  Some of the LSTs sunk due to the high waves.
• Other LSTs ran straight into the steel spiders based they were impossible to control. 
• For that matter, the rough waters forced practically every landing vessel to go far off track.  All day long, no one had a clue where they were. 
• The biggest disappointment of the day had to the complete failure of the aerial bombing and naval shelling to weaken the German defenses.  Again the weather was largely to blame.  Unable to see through the cloud layers, the pilots weren’t about to take a chance of dropping their bombs on their own men.  As a result, most of the bombs fell far behind the German defenses.

The truth of the matter is that the American victory that day can be chalked up to two things – amazing luck and amazing bravery.  No one incident illustrates this more clearly than the moment Sergeant Streczyk risked his life to blast a hole in the barbed wire with a hail of bullets.

No man epitomizes the combination of luck and bravery of the day more than Sergeant Streczyk.  A person has to ask, “What happens if Streczyk doesn’t blow a hole in the barbed wire?  What if he ran out of luck and got killed instead?”

Good question.  The answer is pretty simple – a lot more Americans would have died at Omaha Beach that day.   Yes, the men from the other four sectors would have eventually surrounded the bunkers and taken out the defenses above Omaha, but not before hundreds more men died needlessly on the kill zone beaches. 

Streczyk’s cold-blooded heroism at the barbed wire explains why his company commander later called him "the greatest unsung hero of World War II".  

Streczyk was also lucky.  Considering the number of bullets and mortar that barely missed hitting him, he was truly a charmed man.   His luck closely parallels all the other lucky breaks the Americans got that day.

Someone will surely ask, “How can anyone say the Americans were lucky when 2,500 men were slaughtered?”

Well, for one thing, they were slaughtered because someone sent them onto that beach without protection.  That’s not bad luck, that is highly questionable military tactics.

Or someone will ask, “What about all those tanks that sunk at the start of the battle?”

Again, that wasn’t bad luck, that was incompetence.  Curiously, those tanks operated fairly well at the other four beaches.  27 of 28 tanks landed at Utah Beach.  Unfortunately at Omaha, the place where they were needed the most, someone decided to launch the tanks much too far out at sea.  The men who designed them pleaded with the Americans to take them as close to shore as possible before releasing them, but someone didn’t listen.

In retrospect, the only real stroke of bad luck all day was running into the German 352^nd at Omaha.  Other than that misfortune, the Americans had luck on their side all day long. 

They were lucky that Rommel had left to go to a birthday party.  They were lucky that the Panzer division wasn’t released until it was too late.  And why not?  It seems no one had the nerve to awaken Herr Hitler from his sleep to get permission to release the tanks.   The Americans were lucky that their LSTs were blown so badly off course at Utah Beach that most of the men accidentally came ashore at a place where there were no guns at all.  The Americans were also lucky that the great long-distance guns of Pointe du Hoc had not yet been installed.  Like the movie The Guns of Navarone, those massive guns would have ripped the destroyers to shreds when they moved closer to shore. 

Yes, the Americans were brave at Omaha Beach.  Incredibly brave. 

Unfortunately, after reading all the stories, it doesn’t seem out of the question that our military leaders should be held responsible for the heavy casualties.  Someone decided we could just bludgeon the Germans into submission at Omaha Beach.  Consequently a lot of defenseless men died needlessly.   In retrospect, considering Omaha Beach was clearly the strongest defensive position of the five beaches, a direct paratroop assault from the rear would have been just as effective

Fortunately the Americans soldiers were brave enough to overcome the questionable tactics of their superiors.  Leadership can make a difference.  Look what Rommel accomplished.  Isn’t it a shame the Americans used Patton as a decoy?  Interestingly, the German 352nd was no match for relief forces of General George Patton's Third Army during the Battle of the Bulge.

It almost makes you wonder if the Germans were right – Patton should have been leading the invasion at D-Day.  

The Big Red monument erected to the 1st Division, stands on top of a bunker used to house a
searchlight, possibly 50 cm.
Like most of the Atlantic wall this strong point was not completed by D-day.
WN62 and its sister strong point WN61, just to the east played an devastating roll on D-day causing many of the American casualties on this sector of the beach.
Because of the failure to get the swimming tanks ashore (Duplex Drive) there was no
armour to support the Infantry for several hours. The 75 mm guns could pick off the landing craft and cause devastation to the troops trying to get a foothold on the beach.
Around lunchtime a British Frigate sailed along the beach and managed to put 3 inch
shells into the two casemates. Several did not explode and in the lower of the casemates you can still see the shells imbedded in the internal walls of the bunker.
The guns were finally silenced by a Sherman tank supported by Infantry.
 

Rommel believed that the invasion needed to be stopped on the beaches, von Rundstedt, along with Heinz Guderian disagreed. Hitler vacillated and placed them in the middle, far enough to be useless to Rommel, not far enough for von Rundstedt. As a result of this 21st Panzer was placed near Caen, in the area of the British landings. The SS units that were supposed to support the division could not be released as they were under Hitler's direct command.

 

I was the first one out. The seventh man was the next one to get across the beach without being hit. All the ones in-between were hit. Two were killed; three were injured. That’s how lucky you had to be.
Captain Richard Merrill, 2nd Ranger Battalion.

courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the ability to act in spite of fear

Captain Edward Wozenski
Commander, Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Division

In climbing the bluff later in the day, I met Sgt Streczyk coming down to me on the situation. He stepped directly on a teller mine righ in front of me nose. I asked what in the hell he was doing since we both saw the mine clearly.

Streczyk replied, "Well, it didn't go off when i stepped on it going up the bluff."

If Streczyk did not earn a Medal of Honor, no one ever did. Thousands of men were on the beach being killed like flies. To even lift your head over the shingle was to invite quick death. yet Streczyk led a small group up the bluffs, clearning out enemy pillboxes, released a flare indciating his breakthourgh, which and others followed.

by S. L. A. Marshall

First Wave at Omaha Beach

UNLIKE what happens to other great battles, the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.

This fluke of history is doubly ironic since no other decisive battle has ever been so thoroughly reported for the official record. While the troops were still fighting in Normandy, what had happened to each unit in the landing had become known through the eyewitness testimony of all survivors. It was this research by the field historians which first determined where each company had hit the beach and by what route it had moved inland. Owing to the fact that every unit save one had been mislanded, it took this work to show the troops where they had fought.

How they fought and what they suffered were also determined in detail during the field research. As published today, the map data showing where the troops came ashore check exactly with the work done in the field; but the accompanying narrative describing their ordeal is a sanitized version of the original field notes.

This happened because the Army historians who wrote the first official book about Omaha Beach, basing it on the field notes, did a calculated job of sifting and weighting the material. So saying does not imply that their judgment was wrong. Normandy was an American victory; it was their duty to trace the twists and turns of fortune by which success was won. But to follow that rule slights the story of Omaha as an epic human tragedy which in the early hours bordered on total disaster. On this two-division front landing, only six rifle companies were relatively effective as units. They did better than others mainly because they had the luck to touch down on a less deadly section of the beach. Three times that number were shattered or foundered before they could start to fight. Several contributed not a man or bullet to the battle for the high ground. But their ordeal has gone unmarked because its detail was largely ignored by history in the first place. The worst-fated companies were overlooked, the more wretched personal experiences were toned down, and disproportionate attention was paid to the little element of courageous success in a situation which was largely characterized by tragic failure.

The official accounts which came later took their cue from this secondary source instead of searching the original documents. Even such an otherwise splendid and popular book on the great adventure as Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day misses the essence of the Omaha story.
 

strongpoint WN64 was cleared around 1000 hours, although a lone pillbox at the head of the draw remained in German control until the evening

Perhaps Joe Dawson himself had the best word on the subject. The former G Company captain wrote to popular historian Stephen Ambrose fifty years after D-Day: "I feel, Dr. Ambrose, that all honor and tribute should be given to Lt. Spalding and his small group of men and to the men of G Company 16th Infantry, for they formed the spearhead that through luck, courage, and proficiency opened the one breach in the enemy's defenses that led to the winning of the battle of Omaha Beach."
 

Comments on Spalding's Movements

Widerstandsnestern 60

The German forces suffered relative light casualties from the pre-invasion aerial and naval bombardment. Though somewhat shell-shocked, they sprang to action quickly, and even the volunteer units from Eastern Europe fought reasonably well. As the result, most of the strongpoints were fiercely defended, forcing the Allies to seize just about every single one by force. As soon as Gerd von Rundstedt realized that the attack was a major Allied invasion attempt, he contacted Adolf Hitler for permission to release all tanks for a counter attack, but permission was slow in the coming as Berlin still considered the possibility that the invasion was merely a diversionary attack. Therefore, the only tanks available were those of Feuchtinger's 21st Panzer Division located south of Caen. By the time those tanks moved, it was already mid-morning, and Allied fighters and fighter-bombers had already established tight patrols in the air, making vehicular movement very difficult for the Germans.

 

VON RUNDSTEDT EXPLAINS


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"Had I been able to move the armored divisions which I had behind the coast, I am convinced that the invasion would not have succeeded."

Lack of air power, and interference from higher levels, played major roles in the defeat of the German Army after the Normandy invasion, according to Field Marshal von Rundstedt. But the former German commander-in-chief in the West has admitted that the Allied commanders outsmarted him several times to make the situation even worse.

Caught in the position of a boxer up against an opponent with both a good left hook and a good right cross, Von Rundstedt guessed incorrectly that the right cross—the invasion of the Cotentin Peninsula—was merely a feint to the landing of the left hook—an invasion of the Belgian or French coast farther north. By the time he and his successors discovered that the right cross was really the knockout blow, it was too late to save anything but remnants of the German Army in France.

A great deal of the interference from higher levels developed later during the Battle of Germany, Von Rundstedt declared, the worst instance being the Ardennes counteroffensive of December 1944 and January 1945.

"The Ardennes offensive bore my name quite wrongly," the former West Front commander protested. "I had nothing to do with it. It was ordered from above down to the smallest detail."

He thought, too, that interference from above had wrecked his earlier plans for the defense of France against the invasion. In the first place, he did not have enough troops to cover the areas in which the invasion might come, and higher officers interfered with the distribution of what he had. When it finally became necessary to shift troops around, it was too late—by that time Allied planes had such overwhelming air superiority that they blasted his reinforcements to bits, or stopped their movement by cutting communications facilities.

BASIC GERMAN WEAKNESSES

The situation immediately prior to the invasion of June 1944 was not good, Von Rundstedt said. He and his former Chief of Staff, General Blumentritt, recognized at least three basic weaknesses: their inadequate number of troops had to cover enormous stretches of coast line, some divisions as much as 35 to 40 miles; the Atlantic Wall was "anything but a wall, just a bit of cheap bluff"; and there was no counterattack reserve or so-called "Armee centrale," a strategic army under central command to counterattack where the invasion came.

Von Rundstedt, like many other German generals, said he did not control Germany's best troops. He complained that many of his best units were sent to Italy, and he asserted vigorously that it was "madness to continue the war in Italy that way."

After the collapse of Italy, "that frightful 'boot' of a country should have been evacuated. Mussolini should have been left where he was, and we should have held a decent front with a few divisions on the Alpine frontier. They should not have taken away the best divisions front me in the West in order to send them to Italy. That's my private view."

Whether he could have gotten more troops for the West, Von Rundstedt did not know. He did know that the High Command was hard pressed for troops on all sides, but nothing was ever done about it.

"It was only decent to do something" after Mussolini was reinstated, Von Rundstedt admitted, but he added, "of course it was absolutely a matter of politics and nothing else. I assume, though I have no positive knowledge, that the High Command was in favor of it."

"I thought that was nonsense, too," Von Rundstedt said of the occupation of Norway. "What was the point of occupying it?"

He termed the Norwegian operation "purely a naval affair" in which he had no interest. In fact, his major interest all along was to accumulate the proper armored divisions, mobile forces which could be quickly sent where they were needed.

HIGH COMMAND INTERFERED

"Had I been able to move the armored divisions which I had behind the coast, I am convinced that the invasion would not have succeeded." Von Rundstedt made this emphatic statement as he told of continued interference from higher levels with the disposition of his inadequate forces. "If I had been able to move the troops, then my air force would also have been in a position to attack hostile ships."

If he had had his way, Von Rundstedt indicated that the Allies would first of all have sustained prohibitive losses during landing operations. In addition, they would not have been able, "with relative impunity," to bring up battleships close to the coast to act as floating gun batteries.

"That is all a question of air force, air force, and again air force," he commented.

The Normandy invasion would have been "like Dieppe on a big scale"—Von Rundstedt believes—if he had been able to move his armored divisions as he desired. He summarized the situation with the statement:

"We would certainly have been better off if a good many things had been different as regards the distribution of forces."


Von Rundstedt claims that the Atlantic Wall was a "mere bluff," but admitted that the French coast was more heavily fortified from the Scheldt to the Seine. Pictured are German fortifications of the more imposing type.


ATLANTIC WALL MYTH EXPLODED

"The enemy probably knew more about it than we did ourselves," Von Rundstedt said in referring to the so-called Atlantic Wall as a "mere bluff." He confessed that such a wall did exist from the Scheldt to the Seine, "but further than that—one has only to look at it for one's self in Normandy to see what rubbish it was."

According to Von Rundstedt, the wall consisted of a few pillboxes in holes in the sand so far apart that "you needed field glasses to see the next one." The only good thing was the fortresses, such as Cherbourg and Brest, but they were all fortified only toward the sea. He described the wall as "a dreary situation" south of the Gironde toward the Spanish border because "there was really nothing at all there."

All the ballyhoo about the Atlantic Wall was simply propaganda, Von Rundstedt said, but he admitted that people believed it—"at least we believed it." He thinks, however, that it was no mystery to the Allies because their air photography probably revealed the bluff.

Although a lot of material went into the defenses, Von Rundstedt complained that the Navy got most of the concrete. He pictured the German Navy as building higher and thicker roofs on their U-boat shelters every time the Allies dropped a heavier bomb.

"It doesn't suffice to build a few pillboxes," Von Rundstedt pointed out. "One needs defense in depth. Moreover, the requisite forces were lacking—we couldn't have manned them, even if fortifications had been there."

ARTILLERY WEAKNESSES

The former German commander in the West really warmed up on the subject of coastal batteries and artillery. Admitting that he was not an artilleryman, Von Rundstedt nevertheless severely criticized the mounting of the coastal guns. They were mounted as on ships, and could fire only out to sea. They were of no use to land forces because they could not fire in all directions. To make things worse, the coastal batteries included many captured guns, thus hampering the supply situation.

As if things were not bad enough, Von Rundstedt complained, the last divisions he got were very weak in artillery, some of them having only three light batteries. A good division on land should have nine light batteries and at least three heavy batteries, in his view.

CAUGHT WITH PANZERS DOWN

Von Rundstedt confessed that the Allies caught him flatfooted with their thrust out of the Cotentin Peninsula. If he had been in the position of his enemy, intent on taking Paris and the interior of France, Von Rundstedt explained, he would have landed to the left and right of the Seine and taken the shortest route.


The Atlantic Wall, said Von Rundstedt, consisted of a few pillboxes in the sand (above) so far apart that "you needed field glasses to see the next one." The only good thing was the fortresses, such as Cherbourg and Brest (below), he explained, but they were all fortified only toward the sea.



He admitted that he was puzzled because he believed a landing on the Cotentin was aimed at securing a harbor. At the same time, he could see no point in getting a harbor there because the route to the interior of France was three times as long.

Believing the most powerful thrust would come through Belgium toward the Ruhr, Von Rundstedt considered the area northeast from the Seine to be the most dangerous. For that reason, the division sectors on that coast were shorter, and the fortifications there were constructed as strongly as possible.

Adding to Von Rundstedt's belief that the landing would come further north was the fact that the Navy believed a landing could be made on the Cotentin only at high tide. Even then the rocks and reefs below the water would wreck the ships, thus making a landing extremely hazardous. Here, too, the Allies fooled him by landing at low tide and using the rocks as cover against the fire from land.

"We probably didn't know about the floating harbors." he commented in explaining that he had not considered the Cotentin a likely landing area. "I, at least, didn't. Whether the Navy knew of them I don't know."

SECOND INVASION EXPECTED

Von Rundstedt said there were definite grounds for anticipating another invasion further north, primarily front tactical and strategic considerations. Projecting himself into the mind of the Allied high command, he reasoned: "I will land here, wait until the Germans have gathered all their forces to meet me, and then land at the other place."

An additional motive for a second landing was the fact that the launching ramps for the V-bombs were in the Belgian area—if the effect of these bombs was as unpleasant as German propagandists declared.


The German Navy believed an Allied landing would be made only at high tide, and would be extremely hazardous because of rocks and obstacles. Instead, the Allies landed at low tide and used the obstacles for cover.



"I can't believe it was." Von Rundstedt commented, "because so far I've seen no results of V-weapons here (in England). But it would have counted for something, perhaps, if they were as unpleasant for the English as they afterward were for us in the Eifel, when they all went back into our own lines.

"The V-weapons as such had nothing to do with us in the Army," he said. "The actual protection of them was undertaken by the Flak." He argued that he was afraid of an Allied thrust north from the Seine more because of the strategic importance of an attack toward the Ruhr and Lower Rhine than because of the V-bombs.

"A landing which for a long time we considered very likely before the invasion actually began was one to get rid of the U-boat bases—namely, Brest, St. Nazaire, and Lorient—from the rear," Von Rundstedt declared. "Then when the U-boat business collapsed so completely, we said that was no longer of interest and wouldn't come off. Attention was then concentrated more and more on the northern part."

GERMAN ARMORED SITUATION

Although Von Rundstedt could not remember his exact tank strength in France at the beginning of June 1944, he thinks he had approximately six or seven Panzer divisions, but they were spread out. Two were immediately available when the invasion came, and two others were able to come up on the first day. Another one came from Belgium, and then one came from southern France. He complained that one division never did make it from southern France because it had "some difficulties" with the Maquis.

"The defensive role played by the armored divisions near Caen during July and August was a great mistake." Von Rundstedt confessed, "but it was done on the orders of higher authority. We wanted to relieve the armored divisions by infantry, but it was impossible in the bulge in front of Caen where they were also under fire from ships' guns. You can't relieve any troops then."

Von Rundstedt's plan, which was turned down, was to withdraw the armored forces behind the Orne, form up the relieving infantry there, and then take away the tanks from in front and use them as mobile units to attack U.S. forces on the flanks. He was backed up by the senior tank commander, General Beyr von Schweppenburg, but to no avail. The armored divisions were left where they were "on the Führer's own orders."

"Whether similar orders were likewise responsible for the Avranches counterattack, I don't know," Von Rundstedt commented, "since I left on 1 July."

He said he had wanted to make a counterattack while German forces were still north of St. Lo. His plan was to thrust between the British and American landing troops, attacking the Americans and merely screening off the British, because the terrain was more favorable and the battle prospects were better.

AIR POWER AT WORK

Systematic preparations by the Allied air forces caused the general collapse of the German defense, Von Rundstedt said. He cited three important factors.

First, there was the smashing of the main lines of communication, particularly the railway junctions. Although Von Rundstedt had planned the defense so that reserves could be moved to the threatened areas, Allied planes knocked out railway lines and made the shifting of troops impossible.

The second factor was the attack on roads and on marching columns, individual vehicles, etc., so that it was impossible to move by day. This made it extremely difficult to bring up reserves, and it also created a supply problem because fuel and ammunition could not be brought up.

Carpet bombing constituted the third factor. In certain respects, Von Rundstedt said, it constituted an intensified artillery barrage and knocked out troops in pillboxes or dug in ahead of the front line. It also smashed reserves in the rear.

Although the GAF "did what it could," Von Rundstedt pointed out that he had practically no air reconnaissance. German planes which did take to the air were outnumbered 10 to 1, and any long-range reconnaissance was "absolutely nonexistent."

"Rommel's asparagus" (beach obstacles) was "well meant," according to Von Rundstedt, but it was not much of a success because in some places the sea simply turned the obstacles around and sanded them up or rolled them away.

In reinforcing German troops fighting in the Cotentin, men were immediately withdrawn from the southern front. Troops were held on the northern front, however, because the Germans were afraid of a landing on the Belgian or French coast. As explained by Von Rundstedt, the Germans believed that "Phase I is here, but Phase II will come there."

When it became apparent later on that the Normandy invasion was the real thing, the destruction of the Seine bridges "made itself felt very unpleasantly." The reserve troops had to be detoured around or brought over in ferry boats.

THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE

Turning to the Ardennes offensive, Von Rundstedt said that every protest on our part, including those from the late Field Marshal Model, was turned down."


"Rommel's asparagus" was "well meant" said Von Rundstedt, but it was not much of a success because in some places the sea simply turned the obstacles around and sanded them up or rolled them away.



When it became apparent later on that the Normandy invasion was the real thing, said Von Rundstedt, the destruction of the Seine bridges "made itself felt very unpleasantly." The reserve troops had to be detoured around or brought over in ferry boats.



According to Von Rundstedt, when it finally became necessary to shift troops around, it was too late—by that time Allied planes had such overwhelming air superiority that they blasted his reinforcements to bits.



If he had directed the attack, Von Rundstedt said, he would have confined himself to a smaller objective. His plan would have embraced an attack on the Aachen pocket from two sides in an attempt to destroy it.

"For a far-reaching operation such as the Ardennes offensive, aimed first at the Maas and possibly still further, the forces were much, much, much too weak. The possibility of driving inland with armored divisions, with no GAF, was purely visionary. Reinforcements and supplies, with their railheads back on the Rhine, took longer and longer to move, and it was impossible to get them up. That offensive was bound to fail. There was no other possibility."

Pointing to the German offensive in 1940 from Trier toward Luxembourg and Calais, Von Rundstedt explained that a vast number of troops were available simply to cover the flanks and protect the spearhead. The forces in the Ardennes offensive were far too weak for the exercise of a comparable function, he explained, using as examples the actions at Bastogne and near Stavelot-Malmedy.

"If I do anything like that, I must have large, very large forces." Von Rundstedt concluded, "but those suggestions were not heeded and things turned out as I'd expected. The root of the whole trouble was air power, air power!"


 

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/38609039/Fortress-D-Day-Fortifications-in-Normandy  useful info on spalding movements.

 

The first wave of landers consisted of 1,450 men in eight infantry companies. They reached the beach at 0631 hours. As soon as the ramps dropped, the landing craft were under intense machine gun and rifle fire. This gave light to the second mistake the Allies committed for the Omaha Beach operations. American did not think highly of British General Hobart's "funnies", which were modified tanks used for some of the other beaches on this day to provide additional cover, which were now realized as badly needed. The American did deploy tanks, in the form of duplex-drive tanks (DD tanks), but most of them were released too far out to sea that most of them sank in the choppy waters; only 5 out of the 32 DD tanks made it to land. The American soldiers on the beach could only find refuge behind German beach obstructions such as concrete cones and welded steel rails; they were promised craters made by aerial bombs immediately before the landing, but the bomber crews, fearful that they would hit friendly ships, delayed the bomb release by 30 seconds, so their bombs fell far inland (hitting American paratroopers in few instances), leaving the beach crater-less and coverless.

As one gazes at photographs of Omaha today (like the one of the beach in front of Vierville above), one invariably looks at the wide, flat, and now serene and unobstructed beach, extending as far as the eyes can see, and perhaps cannot feel but awed by the mental vision of the satanic maelstrom those soldiers had traversed to reach the foot of the now quiet bluffs. The thought that men could perform such an incredible feat is mind boggling and profoundly humbling.

They came from the sea, in little steel boats through swarms of drowning men and floating dead bodies, through a nightmarish storm of destructive forces seeking their annihilation. No words can even begin to honor their grim determination.
 

The Americans Strike Back

About two hours after the disastrous beach landings, many soldiers decided the time had come to quit feeling sorry for themselves.  Part of their decision came from leadership, part from within.  One by one, various soldiers chose to leave the protective cover of the seawall and head up the hill.  They knew they were facing terrible danger.

No one's company still existed.  Most of their officers were dead or incapacitated.  Out of necessity, the man banded together with strangers and formed new teams.  The survivors of the morning began improvised penetrations designed to take out the German guns above.  So far, the German defense of Omaha Beach had been ruthlessly effective, but the men who began to scale the bluffs between the most heavily defended points were going to do something about that.

It wasn’t easy though.  There were all sorts of problems climbing the bluffs.  The ground was heavily mined.  There was barbed wire everywhere.  Plus hidden snipers posed a serious threat to anyone trying to climb.   

On the other hand, there were finally some advantages.  The machine gun nests above did not have a good angle or visibility to shoot down on the men.  As long as the men stayed in small groups, they were hard to detect from the ridge above.  Second, in some places there was shrubbery on the hillside that could be used to offer camouflage.  This allowed the men the time to move cautiously while looking for the mines.  In addition, there were grass fires everywhere that gave much-needed smoke concealment. 

Another major factor in the coming turnaround must be credited to the Navy.  At 0830 hours, a Navy beachmaster on Omaha signaled the fleet that no more landing craft were to come ashore.  There were so many ruined craft at the water’s edge that any further incoming vessels would be unable to get close enough to the beach to unload any men.  Furthermore, there appeared to be no safe landing points from gunfire.  Why put more men on the deadly beach until it was safe?

General Omar Bradley was commander of the U.S. First Army.  He was watching the battle from a battleship 11 miles off shore.  The information that reached him made him grimace.  The day had been a complete disaster. Now he had to make a decision.

The assault by U.S. troops over on Utah had landed against little enemy opposition. He quickly ordered all remaining soldiers bound for Omaha to be sent to Utah beach instead.   But what about the troops at Omaha?  They could not be evacuated.  There would be no reinforcements.  Unless there was a break in the deadlock, all of the troops already on Omaha would eventually be killed or taken prisoner. 

General Bradley had an idea.  He called on the big guns of the navy.  Seeing the infantry being subjected to continual pounding, Bradley ordered the Navy to bring their firepower as close as possible to shore for point blank shots against enemy targets.  To do so would risk making the ships vulnerable to the powerful German cannons on shore.  That was a risk he was willing to take.

Immediately a flotilla of destroyers moved close to shore and began hammering German positions at close range.  Soon German pillboxes and trenches were being swept away by the accuracy of the Navy’s guns.  That made a huge difference.  Many of the pinned-down American infantrymen were pinned down no longer.  The destroyers had made a big difference.  The tide of the battle began to turn.

There were many heroes at the D-Day.   One of the most famous stories of the day belonged to Sergeant Frank Strojny. 

Landing early in the day, Strojny's assault boat went in as far as possible.  Like all the other LST landings, half the men were immediately killed or wounded upon disembarking.   Strojney was the first one out; miraculously nothing hit him.  The next five men were dropped on the spot.  Two were killed; three were injured.  The seventh man managed to make it out unharmed.  That's how tough it was.

Strojny was one of the few fortunate to still be living.  He crawled ashore through the shallow water and was pinned down on the beach by the same mortar and machine-gun fire which had wiped out hundreds of officers and men.  Seeing men die around him right and left, Strojney decided to stay in the water and play dead.  With his face turned up to breathe, he slowly inched forward on his back.  Strojny made sure to advance at the same rate as the tide so that his body always stayed under water.

Strojny eventually reached the side of a dead comrade and turned over on his belly to look around.  Strojney didn’t see any of his men.  But what he did see disgusted him.  Wherever he looked, he saw men who were dead and men who were in so much pain they wanted to be dead. 

Strojny noticed a group of men huddled at the sea wall about third yards away.  Strojny wondered to himself how those men had made it that far.  Should he make a run for it?

Just then another bullet whizzed by him. Strojny had gotten this far by being patient.  There were just too many people getting shot right now.  He had no choice but to continue to play dead.  He hoped anyone looking down from above would ignore him.  

Strojny did make one change.  Now that he was out of the water, he preferred to keep his nose in the sand.  If death was headed his way, he didn't want to see it coming.

About ten minutes passed before Strojny sensed his nemesis somewhere above had finally turned his gun somewhere else.  When he felt no bullets for a while, Strojny began to crawl again face down in the sand.  Strojny was certain it was just a matter of time before a stray bullet found him, so it took all his discipline not to panic and suddenly make a last ditch run to safety. 

Strojny was about ten yards when one of the men at the sea wall told him to make a run for it.  Strojny was startled by the voice.  Strojney was about to get up and sprint when he remembered he had no equipment; Strojny had thrown his equipment away in his haste to make it to shore.  At a point when the bullets seemed to be going elsewhere, Strojny stood up, grabbed a dead man's Browning automatic rifle off the beach and raced the final ten yards to the sea wall and safety.  He collapsed from exhaustion.

Completely separated from his outfit – most of them had been killed or wounded in the landing – Strojny decided to tag along with the outfit of the man who had told him to get up and run.  Using wire cutters, they snipped a hole through the heavy barbed wire.   This did not go unnoticed from above.  Suddenly men dropped on all sides as a German mortar team dropped a shell on them from the hillside.  The shell didn't miss by much.

Shells proceeded to rain down upon them.  The men were completely pinned down.  One of the men had a radio.  He called out some coordinates to a command post.  The men waited.  A warning came back over the radio... get down and stay down... a destroyer had been signaled to shell the hillside. 

"It was amazing.  That destroyer rode almost up on the beach to zero in on the hillside," said Strojny.  "That Captain had plenty of guts.  After the bombardment, one of the men rose cautiously to see if someone would shoot at him.  He immediately ducked back down.  When nothing happened, we got braver and went looking in the direction of the mortar fire. 

At this point, due to his rank, Strojny assumed command of the climb.  He led his men up the bluffs until they reached a marshy area.  One of the men, Private First Class Frank Jefferson, whispered this could be a mine field.  That comment froze everyone.  No one dared move.  All the men looked for another way.  Unfortunately, there wasn't an easy way around this mud patch. 

After several minutes of paralysis, Jefferson volunteered to test the mud patch.  He seemed to have some experience with mines.  Jefferson got down on his belly and began to inch his way through the mud.  Jefferson pulled out his hunting knife and began to probe carefully for mines.  What else could he do?   Almost immediately his knife struck the side of something metallic.  Sure enough, this area was mined.  

Someone handed  Jefferson a stick.  He stuck it in the mud to mark the location of the mine.  Then he poked in every other possible direction until he was sure there was no other hidden mine nearby.   Jefferson began to crawl in a new direction.  Meanwhile the other men flattened themselves out on the ground to avoid detection and for safety in case a mine blew.  The tension was unbearable.  They were almost certain  Jefferson was going to blow himself up and take them all with him.   

Progress was slow due to the danger.  Finally  Jefferson found a safe path through.  He had found four mines and marked each of them.  As long as the men were careful where they stepped.  One at a time, each man crossed the ditch while the others held their breath.   When they had all reached safety, Strojny told the men to stay back.  He picked up a rock and threw it at one of the sticks.  Nothing happened.  So he threw another rock, a big one, and hit the deck.  This time the mine exploded.  For the next five minutes, the men made a game out of blowing up the mines.  When they finished, Strojny crossed two large sticks in the mud to indicate danger for the next man up this path.

The men were very worried about sniper fire and more mines.  Crawling up through the hill single file, they took turns with the unnerving job of leading.  Every twenty yards, they rotated point man.  If one man made it through an area unharmed, the others would follow directly in his path.  It took forty-five minutes to make the climb, but finally they drew closer to some bunkers.  But they couldn't see any mortar gun.  

Strojny recalled, "Nearby the bunker, one of the men spotted a tunnel.  We had not seen any sign of German activity. They had to be somewhere.  After waiting for any kind of sound, we decided to go in.  We were scared out of our minds.  It was so damn dark in there if anything moved, I think every one of us would have started shooting.  After a walk of ten yards we saw some daylight and followed it. We discovered a German mortar crew on the other side.  We took them out for shooting our buddies.  Then we went back inside and followed a another tunnel going somewhere else.  It was rugged going."   

Strojny described the hillside as honeycombed with connecting tunnels.  These tunnels were well made.  Every one of them was reinforced with steel.  As they explored, they found invisible mortars that were dug into the hill.  Using stealth, they eliminated two more mortar positions. 

Strojny recalled marveling at the German ingenuity.  No one could see the mortar nest because only the end of the firing tube protruded.   No one could see a man go to the mortar station because he reached it through an underground tunnel.  Furthermore, beside each mortar station was a photograph of the section of the beach that each mortar was expected to cover.  The Germans had measured exactly where every shell would land.  Strojny let out a low whistle. They were very good at killing the enemy.

"Those Jerry's were damn smart," said Strojny. "They had a bomb or bullet for every spot on the beach.  To this day, I still don't know how any of us got off that beach and lived to tell about it."

Once his men discovered it was possible to move undetected through the tunnels, their fear gave way to an overpowering anger.  One tunnel reached the top.

Up top, the men spotted two pillboxes buried in the side of the bluff behind the beach.  The men watched in horror as the 88 mm guns poured deadly fire into the oncoming assault boats below.  Something had to be done – but quick – to remedy the slaughterhouse below. 

At that moment, the Germans spotted them and began shooting with small arms.  Several men were hit on the spot.  Sizing up the situation, Strojny picked up a Bazooka from a wounded soldier nearby.  Strojny knew the Bazooka had been pierced by shrapnel. In that condition it should not have been fired. 

Strojney decided to take a chance.  With complete disregard for his safety, Strojny tucked the Bazooka under his arm, gathered some rockets and hunched across a series of craters formed by the earlier battleship bombardment to a vantage point closer to the pillboxes.   He had one more obstacle – a mine field strewn with American corpses.  Strojny was surprised other men had made it this far.

Ignoring the obvious danger, Strojny made a practical albeit gruesome decision.  He decided the safest and quickest route across the deadly mine field was to use the corpses as stepping stones.  To his grim satisfaction, this strategy worked.  This was certainly not the first time the dead had continued to contribute today nor would it be the last.

Now in position some 250 yards from the first pillbox, Strojny let fly with several rockets which ripped the big concrete emplacement wide open, but did not knock it out.  

Alarmed, the Germans concentrated heavy machine-gun fire on Strojny's position.  Only a miracle saved Strojney from being cut to ribbons. One bullet went through the front of his helmet, circled his head and tore out through the side near his left ear.  

Shocked to still be alive, Strojny retraced his way back across the bodies in the mine field to get more rockets for the bazooka, then crossed the mine field for a second try.  Once he was in position, Strojny finished off the first pillbox.  Then he used the cover of the first burning pillbox to get into position to blast the second pillbox into flames as well.

Strojny was screaming at the top of his lungs the entire time as he fired.  His men were wide-eyed at his fury.  After taking out the second pillbox, Strojny put down the bazooka and took a long deep breath.  When he turned to the men, he saw their looks of disbelief.  Strojny grinned sheepishly, “I guess I just got a little mad”.  

For his amazing accomplishments, Raymond Strojny was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by Eisenhower.

Early in the war Allied planners realized the value of scouts for reconnoitering enemy-held beaches. From this need the Scouts and Raiders were born. Originally a joint Navy-Army unit, by 1944 the outfit was all Navy and all volunteer. Scouts and Raiders were trained in long-distance swimming, small-boat handling, and the use of weapons and explosives. They used rubber boats and a type of kayak-like craft called a Folboat to sneak onto the shore without being seen.
In the weeks just prior to D-Day, Scouts and Raiders visited many Normandy beaches, checking on such things as the type of sand—to see if it would hold up a tank—or the placement of steel obstacles and teller mines on wooden poles. They also verified water depths and the speed of currents, then slipped back to sea, sometimes swimming miles to their moored Folboats before paddling quietly and swiftly to waiting motorboats for return to their base in England.

The Scouts and Raiders trained closely with other special teams such as the naval combat demolition units (NCDUs), whose specialty was demolition of beach obstacles: welded-steel hedgehogs, Belgian gates, and other impediments to landing craft. The Navy recruited civilian experts from coal mines and quarries to train the NDCU teams in handling explosives.

As landing craft approached Omaha and Utah Beaches on June 6, 1944, they were guided by Scouts and Raiders in several LCC—Landing Craft, Control. One of the boat captains off Omaha Beach was Lt. Phil Bucklew, who saw that sea conditions were too dangerous for launching amphibious duplex drive (DD) tanks from landing craft several miles at sea. Unfortunately, his radio report was ignored. Most of the DD tanks that were launched toward Omaha Beach sank, some taking crewmen to the floor of the shallow but deadly Bay of the Seine.

Other Scouts and Raiders teams were close to the beaches in LCS—Landing Craft, Support—armed with twin .50-caliber machine guns, .30-caliber machine guns, and rockets mounted in racks. Their job was to give covering fire for landing craft as they approached the beaches.

In the water near the tide line on Omaha Beach, NCDUs worked with Army teams from the 146th and 299th Engineer Combat Battalions, placing charges against steel obstacles and blasting eight clearings through to the beach. They had trained together before the invasion and were combined for this operation to form part of the Special Engineer Task Force, arriving on the beach five minutes after the first landing craft came to shore. The NCDUs accomplished their task at a heavy cost to themselves and were sometimes hampered by soldiers who tried to use the obstacles as shelter while under heavy fire from German machine guns. The NCDUs on Omaha Beach lost 31 men and suffered 60 wounded out of a total of 180 men. They later received a presidential unit citation.

On Utah Beach, where the firefight was much less intense than on Omaha Beach, the NCDUs lost only 6 men, and 11 were wounded. There, Navy teams worked with Army demolition men from the 237th and 299th Engineer Combat Battalions and cleared the beach of all steel and concrete obstacles—by day's end they could claim 1,600 yards (1,463 meters) of cleared beach available for safe landings. It was an invaluable accomplishment, allowing the Navy to unload 20,000 troops and 1,700 vehicles onto Utah Beach by the end of the day.

The Navy's use of Scouts and Raiders, NCDUs, and other special operations groups including underwater demolition teams (UDTs) in World War II eventually led to the creation of a dedicated unit that handles many secret tasks that involve the sea and land. Called SEALs (for Sea, Air, Land), they are one of the elite forces in the United States military today. As their command historian, Don Crawford, says, they are "busier than ever answering '911 calls' from around the globe."

 

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes. I went into a small gift shop to kill time. In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked.

As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make or God was taking care of America . Which do you think it was?" Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?"

Nimitz explained. Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.
Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow everyone of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America . And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.
Mistake number three: every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America .
I've never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredricksburg , Texas --he was a born optimist. But anyway you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.
President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.
 

fall of wn 62

http://www.war44.com/omaha-beach/310-bloody-omaha.html

 

 

story of harley reynolds, another wire blaster, E-1 gap

Colonel S.B. Mason was Chief of Staff for the 1st Infantry Division during the Normandy invasion. Below is a letter he sent to the Eleventh Amphibious Force, which assisted the infantry in the landings at Omaha Beach.

Headquarters 1st US Infantry Division
APO #1, U.S. Army
8 July 1944
Rear Admiral John L. Hall, Commander
Eleventh Amphibious Force
United States Navy
Dear Admiral Hall,
Col. Gibb (G-3) and I made an inspection trip of the OMAHA beaches on the afternoon of July 6 with the intention of studying the defenses the Germans had there. Needless to say, on that date, it looked far different than it did on June 6. That was undoubtedly a strong defensive position. Manned as it was it should have been impregnable. But there was one element of the attack which they could not parry. Of course it is my own opinion, for what it is worth, but I am now firmly convinced that our supporting Naval fires got us in; that without that gun fire we positively would not have crossed those beaches.
In Oran we fortunately did not need Naval fires. In Gela we needed and received same, especially to keep us on position in the face of a counter-attack which came in prior to our assembling our fire power on shore. This Normandy beach was different in that we were met on the beach. I looked over the destruction of German pillboxes, fortified houses and gun positions, and in all cases it was apparent that Naval guns had worked on them.
I still think “One” and “One One” make a good team. More than ever I am in a position to appreciate your support, and if we ever have to do another of these jobs, we will all hope for the good fortune of being teamed with 11th Amphib for planning and execution.
General Huebner concurs in the above and joins me in best regards to you and your staff.
Respectfully,
S.B. Mason
Chief of Staff

The Spalding Interview

(Rick Archer's Note: Unfortunately, there were several contradictions on what happened with Spalding's group during the assault on the hill.  One contradiction involved who got to the top first.  Was it Spalding or Dawson?  Another contradiction involved the heroic effort to cut through the barbed wire, an act of bravery straight out of a WW II movie.  Did Phillip Streczyk cut the wire with snippers or did Curtis Colwell blow a hole in it with a bangalore torpedo?   I was unable to answer either question.

My point is simple - I have to rely on other people's report to tell the story as best I can.  However I cannot promise complete accuracy.  Plus I intend to paraphrase some of the details to make it easier to read.  If that is okay with the reader, then here comes a great story. 

http://www.warchronicle.com/16th_infantry/historiantales_wwii/Till_Victory.htm

US Army MH: 

US Army Military History:  Elements of three companies shared in the assault on the bluffs between the E-1 and E-3 draws (gaps btw the hills). At this part of Easy Red between the strong points, the beach shelf above the shingle embankment is more than a hundred yards wide, with areas of swamp along the inland edge of the flat.

US Army MH:  One hundred and thirty feet high on this sector, the bluff is reached by traveling 200 yards of moderate slope, patched with heavy bush.

Five hundred yards west of E-3, a small draw led up at a slight angle to the west, forming a possible corridor for advance to the bluff crest (spalding/dawson rte).

Below the draw on the flat was a ruined house. The 1st Section of Company E, 16th Infantry, and two of the scattered sections of E, 116th, had come to shore here in the first wave.

The 16th's unit, led by 2d Lt. John Spalding, blew a gap in the wire above the shingle, made its way past the house, and then was held up by minefields in the marshy ground at the foot of the slopes.

On the beach, intense small-arms fire came from an emplacement to the left, in the E-3 strongpoint (WN 62). Spalding's men landed (0645) and found a way past the mines.  Now they began to work up the slope, using the visual protection afforded by the small draw (the viewing hollow). To the west, and out of contact, the two sections from the 116th had cut the wire and dashed across the flat, but mines stopped them near the start of the hillside and they took shelter in a ditch. A soldier who went ahead to clear a path by use of a bangalore was killed by an antipersonnel mine. Their progress was delayed.

Meanwhile Company G (Dawson) of the 16th RCT had landed (0700) and had reached the embankment in good order. G Company's machine guns, set up behind the shingle, found no targets until landing craft of the 1st Battalion, coming toward the beach (about 0730), drew enemy fire from 8 or 10 small emplacements along the half mile of bluff. While the heavy weapons built up a volume of supporting fire, a few men from each section blew gaps in the extensive double-apron and concertina wire beyond the shingle. Their work was made more difficult by anti-personnel mines set to detonate by trip wires.

Four bangalores were required to cut one lane. Engineers of Company A, 1st Engineer Combat Battalion and Company C, 37th Engineer Combat Battalion helped in clearing and marking the lanes. When G Company's men reached the slopes they came in contact with Lieutenant Spalding's section of E and two other sections of the 116th.

In an effort to coordinate the advance, an arrangement was made with these units to operate on Company G's right.

The mined areas, in which a part of the mines were faked, slowed up every unit that crossed the beach, then and for some time. Company G found one route through the mines by going over the dead bodies of two soldiers who had been caught there earlier. While the company was making its way across the flat, bothered more by the minefields than enemy fire, Capt. Joseph T. Dawson and one man went on ahead.

When they were halfway up the hill, an enemy machine gun at the head of the small draw forced Dawson into cover. He sent his companion back to bring up the company and crawled on from one patch of brush to another. By the time he was 75 yards from the gun, the enemy lost sight of him.  Circling to his left, he came to the military crest a little beyond the machine gun, and got within 30 feet before the Germans spotted him and swung their weapon around. Dawson threw a fragmentation grenade which killed the crew.

This action opened the way up the little draw, but it took some time to get the company up as a result of disorganization suffered in crossing the beach flat. The 5th Section, first to arrive, knocked out two more machine guns and took a prisoner. On the whole, enemy opposition had not been heavy, and cover on the slopes allowed Company G to make the crest with few casualties.

Their movement forward, from embankment to the bluff top, had taken place between 0730 and 0830. Enemy fire died away as the troops emerged on the fields of the upland, reorganized, and started south in column of sections. Their principal concern was with the frequent indications of mined areas just beyond the bluff top.

To their right, Lieutenant Spalding's section of Company E, 16th RCT, was getting up about the same time, helped by covering fire from Dawson's Company G, and effecting a useful extension of the front of penetration. The section now numbered 3 men, having lost 3 at the beach and 3 more getting past an enemy machine gun on the bluff side.

The gun was operated by a lone soldier who was captured and found to be Polish. He informed Spalding that there were 16 enemy in trenches to his rear. The Company E section got to the trenches, sprayed them with fire and found the Germans had withdrawn.

Spalding turned west along the bluff crest, losing contact with Company G as that unit headed south. Moving through hedgerow fields and wooded areas, the Company E group came up on the rear of the strongpoint guarding E-1 draw (WN64). The Germans were manning trenches overlooking the beach, and attack from the high ground caught them by surprise.  In two hours of confused fighting, Spalding's men got through the outworks of this strongpoint and overcame opposition by close-in work with grenades and rifles.

Naval fire hitting in the parts of the strong-point below the bluff top also helped to demoralize the resistance. Twenty-one prisoners were taken, and several enemy killed, without any loss to the attackers. Although the fortified area was too extensive to be thoroughly cleaned out by Spalding's small force, WN 64, the strongpoint east of E-1 had been effectively neutralized by midmorning, just when important reinforcements for the assault were beginning to land in front of the draw. At about 1100, Spalding's section was joined by some other elements of Company E, which had come up from further east. They brought word from battalion to head south for Colleville.

The area opened up by Company G became a funnel for movement off the beach during the rest of the morning.    USAMH

D-Day: Afternoon on Omaha Beach

What Hitler Did Wrong

Converted for the Web from "D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II" by Stephen E. Ambrose

Jump to: Afternoon on Omaha Beach | Landing on Omaha Beach
Correspondent Ernest Hemingway | What Hitler Did Wrong | What Eisenhower Did Right

There was no German counterattack. Rommel's plans for fighting the D-Day battle were never put into motion. There were many reasons.

First, German surprise was complete. The Fortitude operation had fixed German attention on the Pas-de-Calais. They were certain it would be the site of the battle, and they had placed the bulk of their panzer divisions north and east of the Seine River, where they were unavailable for counterattack in Normandy.

Second, German confusion was extensive. Without air reconnaissance, with Allied airborne troops dropping here, there, everywhere, with their telephone lines cut by the Resistance, with their army, corps, division, and some regimental commanders at the war game in Rennes, the Germans were all but blind and leaderless. The commander who was most missed was Rommel, who spent the day on the road driving to La Roche-Guyonan -- another price the Germans paid for having lost control of the air; Rommel dared not fly.

Third, the German command structure was a disaster. Hitler's mistrust of his generals and the generals' mistrust of Hitler were worth a king's ransom to the Allies. So were Hitler's sleeping habits, as well as his Wolkenkuckucksheim ideas.

The only high-command officer who responded correctly to the crisis at hand was Field Marshal Rundstedt, the old man who was there for window dressing and who was so scorned by Hitler and OKW. Two hours before the seaborne landings began, he ordered the two reserve panzer divisions available for counterattack in Normandy, the 12th SS Panzer and Panzer Lehr, to move immediately toward Caen. He did so on the basis of an intuitive judgment that the airborne landings were on such a large scale that they could not be a mere deception maneuver (as some of his staff argued) and would have to be reinforced from the sea. The only place such landings could come in lower Normandy were on the Calvados and Cotentin coasts. He wanted armor there to meet the attack.

Rundstedt's reasoning was sound, his action decisive, his orders clear. But the panzer divisions were not under his command. They were in OKW reserve. To save precious time, Rundstedt had first ordered them to move out, then requested OKW approval. OKW did not approve. At 0730 Jodi informed Rundstedt that the two divisions could not be committed until Hitler gave the order, and Hitler was still sleeping. Rundstedt had to countermand the move-out order. Hitler slept until noon.

The two panzer divisions spent the morning waiting. There was a heavy overcast; they could have moved out free from serious interference from Allied aircraft. It was 1600 when Hitler at last gave his approval. By then the clouds had broken up and Allied fighters and bombers ranged the skies over Normandy, smashing anything that moved. The panzers had to crawl into roadside woods and wait under cover for darkness before continuing their march to the sound of the guns.

"The news couldn't be better," Hitler said when he was first informed that D-Day was here. "As long as they were in Britain we couldn't get at them. Now we have them where we can destroy them." He had an appointment for a reception near Salzburg for the new Hungarian prime minister; other guests included diplomats from Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. They were there to be browbeaten by Hitler into doing even more for the German war economy. When he entered the reception room, his face was radiant. He exclaimed, "It's begun at last." After the meeting he spread a map of France and told Goering, "They are landing here -- and here: just where we expected them!" Goering did not correct this palpable lie.

Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels had been told of the Allied airborne landings at 0400. "Thank God, at last," he said. "This is the final round."

Goebbels's and Hitler's thinking was explained by one of Goebbels's aides, who had pointed out in an April 10, 1944, diary entry: "The question whether the Allied invasion in the West is coming or not dominates all political and military discussion here.

"Goebbels is afraid that the Allies dare not make the attempt yet. If so, that would mean for us many months of endless, weary waiting which would test our strength beyond endurance. Our war potential cannot now be increased, it can only decline. Every new air raid makes the petrol position worse." It had been galling to the Nazis that the Allies had been able to build their strength in England, untouchable by the Luftwaffe or the Wehrmacht. Now they had come within range of German guns.

But Hitler was more eager to hit London than to fight a defensive war. He had a weapon to do it with, the V-1. It had first been flown successfully on Christmas Eve, 1943; by June 1944, it was almost ready to go to work. The V-1 was a jet-powered plane carrying a one-ton warhead. It was wildly inaccurate (of the 8,000 launched against London, only 20 percent even hit that huge target), but it had a range of 250 kilometers and flew at 700 kilometers per hour, too fast for Allied aircraft or antiaircraft to shoot down.

On the afternoon of June 6, Hitler ordered the V-1 attacks on London to begin. As was so often the case, he was giving an order that could not be carried out. It took six days to bring the heavy steel catapult rigs from their camouflaged dumps to the Channel coast. The attack did not begin until June 12, and when it did it was a fiasco: of ten V-1s launched, four crashed at once, two vanished without a trace, one demolished a railway bridge in London, and three hit open fields.

Still, the potential was there. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler had picked the wrong target. Haphazard bombing of London could cause sleepless nights and induce terror, but it could not have a direct military effect. Had Hitler sent the V-1s against the beaches and artifical harbors of Normandy, by June 12 jammed with men, machines, and ships, the vengeance weapons (Goebbels picked the name, which was on the mark -- they could sate Hitler's lust for revenge but they could not effect the war so long as they were directed against London) might have made a difference.

http://www.worldwar2history.info/D-Day/Hitler.html

PICTURES COMPARING THEN AND NOW

Rick, these should fit right in to your blog and your studies.   ~Jim

 

These a amazing photos. Someone really did they homework planning these
 out. Very hard to believe the course of time.

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/d-day-landing-sites-then-now-normandy-beaches-1944-70-years-later-1450286

.D-Day nearly scrapped   exercise tiger
The deadly ambush left Allied commanders rattled. Ten U.S. officers with detailed knowledge of the looming Normandy invasion were missing and the possibility that any of them been taken prisoner on the German E-boats was a major concern. Scrapping "Operation Overlord," the name given to the D-Day landings, was discussed at the highest levels.

But the emergency ended when all ten bodies were eventually recovered. The German crews had no idea they had stumbled upon a secret test run for the Normandy invasion.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30977039/ns/world_news-d_day_65_years_later/t/disaster-may-have-saved-d-day/

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