D-Day 6June 1944 Omaha Beach

[Parche]

My stepdad was on Omaha Beach 63years ago today, LCTA2339 he landed that craft twice on the
beach and the second time saved a LT's life.
He is still with us today.
He will always be a hero of mine.



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"As the first men jumped, they crumpled and flopped into the water. Then order was lost. It seemed to the men that the only way to get ashore was to dive head first in and swim clear of the fire that was striking the boats. But, as they hit the water, their heavy equipment dragged them down and soon they were struggling to keep afloat. Some were hit in the water and wounded. Some drowned then and there... But some moved safely through the bullet fire to the sand and the, finding they could not hold there, went back in to the water and used it as cover, only their heads sticking out. Those who survived kept moving with the tide, sheltering at times behind underwater obstacles and in this way they finally made their landings.

Within ten minutes of the ramps being lowered, Company A had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and Sergeant had been killed or wounded... It had become a struggle for survival and rescue. The men in the water pushed wounded men ashore, and those who had reached the sands crawled back into the water pulling others to land to save them from drowning, in many cases only to see the rescued men wounded again or to be hit themselves. Within twenty minutes of striking the beach Company A had ceased to be an assault company and had become a forlorn little rescue party bent upon survival and the saving of lives."

Official Unit Report, Company A, 116th Infantry, 29th Division.

What happened at Omaha Beach on 6th June 1944 has been immortalised in recent films and books, most notably the epic opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. That Omaha was a bloodbath is certain; that it could have been avoided is a matter of debate, and one that we shall not enter into here.

Unlike most of the Allied landing beaches on D Day, Omaha differed in that it was dominated by a series of high bluffs that looked down onto the beach. This gave the defenders high ground to dominate the battlefield, and the Germans placed a large number of concrete bunkers on these bluffs, containing machine guns and artillery pieces. Again unlike some of the other D Day beaches, this sector was defended by an experienced, albeit under strength, division, the 352nd. This had been formed from a cadre of Russian front veterans, some of whom had years of combat experience. They had begun anti-invasion maneuvers on the eve of D Day, and so were in a state of high alert when the invasion started.

The two American assault units selected to land here on D Day were the 1st Division ('Big Red One') and 29th Division. The former was a veteran formation, that had been in action since 1943. The latter was a National Guard unit, with little or no combat experience. In addition there would be support from the 2nd Ranger Battalion, as well as tank units utilising the special Duplex Drive Shermans capable of wading ashore. However, other specialist armour developed by the British (the so-called 'Funnies') had been shunned by the Americans and were not available for this beach.

The main beach was subdivided into sections, with the 1st Division landing in the east, and 29th in the west. The American forces lacked landing craft for D Day, and much of the transport was supplied by the Royal Navy. AB John Marketis, serving on one of them, later recalled,

" As we went in the Yanks said to me, 'Don't worry Limey, the war's over now - we're here.' But as we got nearer shells were exploding in the water, and as the ramp came down just short of the shoreline, machine gun fire cut them to pieces. Most never got more than a few yards from the ramp. Our landing craft was hit, and I was thrown into the water."

Meanwhile, the DD tanks had been launched two to three miles out from the shore. Poor weather in the channel accounted for most of them, and of the thirty-two attached to 1st Division, twenty-seven were sunk. This meant that few reached the beach, and as a consequence there was little fire support available to the infantry.





101st Airborne Easy Company..............."Curahee"
To Dick Winters and the other soldiers of Easy Company, you are also my hero's

[BOSSHOG]

1. My father in law also hit Omaha Beach

He survived the landing and marched south Towards Paris but was hit by enemy fire on 12 August just 60 miles from the Beach and lost his left Arm. He was with us until 2004. My hero always.

He was a lifelong democrat and said he wouldn't waste his spit on a republican. God Bless Him and his fellow Soldiers. And God Bless your StepDaddy.

Big todo at the WWII Museum today. Ya gotta see it, its awesome, bring the hankies.

[Raskolnik]

2. Slate has some good photos today

http://todayspictures.slate.com/20070606/

[HereSince1628]

3. My father and my SO's father, too.

Neither talked about it. My SO's father was a medic, it's hard to imagine what he had to deal with.

[rasputin1952]

4. The men who landed that day, and on subsequent days, my

dad, deceased 4Ju65, and my step-dad, deceased 22Aug00 were there and participated in the liberation of France and took our presence into Germany, were all heroes.

Fear is a given in battle, but to face what these men faced goes far beyond the normal battlefield fear that so many have faced in the past and the present. Covering 100+ yards of open beach with brilliantly positioned interlocking fire is a feat that stands right there with the Spartans at Thermopalye.

The fate of Europe rested upon the shoulders of Privates, NCOs and Junior Officers. Every American, Brit, Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, Free Pole, Free French and every other individual from a nation involved in the invasion should feel a great amount of pride, and we owe them a debt that can never be repaid.

The sea ran red with blood...the blood of men who knew they had a job to do, and through perseverance and courage, they accomplished what others would have fled from. The top Brass in Germany knew, that if the Allies got a foothold, and advanced into France, the war was lost. They could not force these men back into the sea, and because of that, the horror that was Nazi Germany was in collapse.

:patriot:

[Sadie4629]

6. Great post!

We owe those heroes so much.

[rasputin1952]

8. It is debt that can never be repaid, and the men fighting in

the Pacific Theater, in Asia, those that had fought in Africa, bombed Ploesti, and fought at Anzio are all men who believed they were ridding the earth of tyranny...sadly, that was not to be the outcome.

Those who call for war on Right Wing are cowards, they would not have fought in any war if they could have avoided it, and if they could not avoid it, they would be like Reagan, sitting in Hollywood, imagining he was a hero while making Training Films for the Army Signal Corps about VD.

The sailors that delivered those men to the beaches are as heroic as any one on the beach that day, and are often forgotten in history. They delivered the living to their fate, and removed the dead that met fate.

I posted in another thread of a destroyer Capt that took his ship to within inches of grounding, and the 5" gunners, through remarkable gunnery, placed their shells into the machinegun ports of pillboxes. They saved innumerable lives, and the Capt was brought up on charges, (quickly overridden by higher brass and FDR), for endangering his ship.

There were acts of heroism that were never recorded, know but to the men who who were involved. They looked not for glory, nor medals, nor ideals...they looked for survival of themselves and their fellow soldiers...only later, when the beaches of Normandy were secure, did people realize what had been done...Europe was on the road to freedom...because brave men took the initaitive to move forward against great odds...

:patriot:

[Javaman]

5. I look at those pictures and I think if my uncles and cousins...

men in their mid and late twenties. With families and children.

Rushing off the wood and metal ramp of the higgins boat into cold water and raining foggy weather. While all the time, being shot at.

Friends dying beside them, fellow soldiers vanishing from site in the flash of an explosion. Bodies never making it to land floating with the tide.

The noise, the small, the taste the feel and the site of war etched permanently into their brains.

70,80,90 year old men still wake at night with night terrors. Still scream at some deep memory only known to them. Flailing, clutching at air that only their dreams can define and to which they will stay silent.

The horror of war.

Just looking at the photos makes my stomach turn into a knot. I haven't the slightest idea what it must be like for the men that had to experience such living hell on earth.

You the soldiers of WWII, left so much of yourself overseas, and brought back such memories.

[bpj1962]

7. 29th division

The 29th division suffered the most combat losses of any units that landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6,1944. They were a National Guard Unit from Southwest Virginia. The National D-Day Memorial is located in Bedford Virginia which is where the 29th was formed. It is a very moving monument and anyone who is in the Lynchburg/Roanoke area of Virginia should take the time to go and see it.

One of the little known facts of D-Day is that most of the combat footage of the American landings was lost at sea during a transfer from a higgins boat to one of the ships stationed off shore. I have always felt that the men who fought in WWII are some of the greatest hero's that this nation has ever known. So many pass away each day and we lose a piece if history with each passing. My best friends father was a navigator on a B-24 with the 15th air force out of Italy and to this day he does not like to talk about his experiences.