Omaha beach is a place where in a few hours, over 2,000 US soldiers died during World War II.

The invasion/liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny began on the 6th June 1944 under the codename of Operation Overlord. 

The invasion took place on the Normandy coastline in France.

The United States, Canadian and British forces made up the Allied invasion force and they each had their own specific landing zones on the Normandy beaches. They were split up into five designated areas. The American sectors were chosen by General Dwight. D. Eisenhower.

Omaha and Utah beach (USA) Sword and Gold beach (British) and Juno beach (Canadian)

It is the landings at Omaha beach that this page is attributed as it was the most notorious and was responsible for the greatest lost of life out of all the landing zones.

Omaha beach was assaulted by men of the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division and 116th Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division and two Battalions of the US Rangers.

Omaha was the largest assault area out of the five. It covered a stretch of over 6 miles from Port-en-Bessin on the East to the Vire river on the West. A third of the beach was defended by a 10 foot high seawall and was over-looked by cliffs that were 170 foot high in places.

Omaha beach was divided up into eight different sectors codenamed :

Charlie, Dog Green, Dog White, Dog Red, Easy Green, Easy Red, Fox Green and Fox Red.

It was known that Calais was the most heavily defended area of France and was one of the reasons that the invasion took place in Normandy but that is not to say that Normandy was not heavily defended, it was, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had seen to that when he had been in charge of coastal defenses on the behest of Hitler.

The seafront had a formidable line of defenses and fortifications that included mines, traps and obstacles. Most of these defenses it must be said were designed to be hidden under high tide. The landings actually took place at low tide hence most of the traps etc could be seen sitting on the surface of the beach as the landing craft closed in. A small mercy perhaps !

There were a total of twelve strong points along the Omaha sector called  ' Widerstandsnester ' or resistance nests. These were all placed strategically with foresight being applied to the possibility of an invasion in these areas, regardless of how remote that possibility was.

These strong points were basically fortified fighting positions that covered large sections of beach head and gave a good arc of fire over these areas. The much revered high rate of fire and highly accurate MG42 machine gun was installed into these points to spray the entire beach area from the cliff tops. The defenses were strong to say the least.

The MG42 fired 1200 rounds of 7.92mm ammunition per minute. It had a range of 2500 meters.

There were also eight huge reinforced concrete casements which contained guns up to 88mm surrounded with thirty-five MG42 machine gun pillboxes. Thankfully there were no coastal guns in place at Omaha.

  Three German battalions of the Elite 352nd Infantry Division including the 5th Company of the 916th were manning these areas at the time of the landing. They were seasoned soldiers many had seen action on the Eastern Front. 

"...We had a bad break tactically because the German 352nd Infantry Division was on a counter-attack training exercise at Omaha Beach. So instead of a fortress battalion you know, with kind of second rate troops, we had a whole damned infantry division in front of us. We hit the sand behind the bodies of the amphibious engineers and tried to advance a bit, but there was a large German bunker in front of us, and its machine gun fire hit us every time we tried to move. We didn’t have any communication with the American destroyer behind us because the naval officer had been killed, his driver too, and the radio set destroyed, so we planned an assault. But before we could get organized, there were huge demolitions around the bunker. Thank God we hadn’t moved out yet, an American destroyer had moved in and was firing direct with 4-inch guns into the bunker..."

Capt Edward McGregor, US 1st Infantry Division

"...Assault units disintegrating. Very heavy losses. Enemy fire prevents crossing of the beach line. Landing units bunching up in a very confined area. Engineers unable to clear paths through minefields and cannot destroy beach obstacles. Elements of the 352nd Infantry Division identified..."

Battle Report, US 5th Corps Omaha Beach, 08:30a.m. June 6, 1944

The first wave of 200 landing craft approached the beaches from 12 miles out at approx 06:30 hrs. It was soon realised that the naval pre-bombardment of the shore had not damaged the German defenses as much as was hoped and they were relatively still intact.

The 16th Regiment landed on the eastern sectors of the beach Easy Red and Fox Green with the 116th Regiment on its right. The Rangers, were assigned to take the bluffs on the west end of the 116th's sector. Three companies of this Ranger force assaulted the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, three miles west of Omaha Beach. Their basic duty was to destroy the artillery guns atop the point. They met with heavy resistance.

Omaha was a disaster from the start, special 'DD' Duplex Drive Sherman tanks nicknamed 'Donald Ducks' by the Americans were tanks that were fitted with big canvas floatation screens and propellers that allowed them to sail like a boat. They had a top speed of 4 knots. Twenty-Nine of them were released out of the landing craft into choppy seas and all bar two of them sank minutes later as they tried to negotiate the heavy waves and ended up getting swamped. Most of the tank crews managed to get out before they sank. The two surviving tanks that made it ashore were ineffectual and within a few minutes of making it to the beach were destroyed by accurate German Artillery.

On the Utah beach, it has to be said that these swimming tanks worked very well with most if not all of them getting ashore to support the infantry. 

The propellers can be seen in the photo above/left on this DD going through trials before the invasion.

The 1st Infantry Division attempted to utilize amphibious self propelled DUKW's to carry men, arms, ammunition, sandbags, general supplies and 105mm Howitzers for deployment on the beach head. Twelve of the Thirteen deployed DUKW's sank due to being overloaded, rough seas and other causes taking Eleven Howitzer cannons to the bottom of the Channel.

The condition of the initial assault was going so bad that Lt General Omar Bradley US 1st Commander aboard the USS Augusta contemplated canceling the landing at Omaha and finding somewhere else along the coast instead where resistance may have been lighter.

Out of a total of 200 landing craft carrying the first wave of troops, ten were hit by direct German gunfire instantly killing most of the men aboard. None of the 200 landing craft were actually sunk but all received damage under the heavy fire. Some came ashore ablaze  whilst others took hits in the engines and blew up as a result.

Strong winds and strong currents were responsible for throwing many landing craft off course and making progress difficult. Many of the troops became seasick. The landing craft were fired upon by the German positions as they closed in on the beach, the troops could hear the bullets smacking into the landing craft ramp doors and whizzing over their heads before they were opened. 

As the landing craft closed in and the doors eventually opened to allow the soldiers to disembark the German MG42s sprayed them with accurate fire, sadly in many instances everyone aboard was cut down and killed. Like shooting turkeys in a barrel ! This fate befell many of them as they came ashore, as correctly depicted in the big box office film 'Saving Private Ryan' with Tom Hanks.

Casualties in the first 15 minutes of those who first hit the beach was 66%. As Winston Churchill had said afterwards " instead of a wildcat being landed ashore they we left with a beached whale "

Many soldiers left landing craft either through the ramp doors or throwing themselves over the side to find themselves in water about 20 foot deep, they sank straight away with the weight of their kit pulling them down. The majority drowned.

Soldiers took cover behind many of the beach obstacles and stayed there pinned down until they were finally shot by MG42 fire. Of course several groups of men did manage to get to the shingles at the end of the beach but were in a hapless condition when they got there being wounded or without a lot of their kit. It was a terrible struggle to gain any ground moving from obstacle to obstacle dodging bullets and bombs.

Many that managed to get out of the more fortunate landing craft and make some headway up the beach were picked off by snipers and various small arms fire in a constant barrage of hell. The sea was red as was the beach with the blood of over 2,400 men killed or wounded.

Colonel George Taylor, 16th Regimental commander, saw men bunched up taking casualties from artillery and mortar fire. He told his troops: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die. Now, let's get the hell out of here." Slowly, small groups of troops began to move and force their way up the bluff. Company G, 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry, led the way off beach sector Easy Red, up a mine field to the bluffs beyond. And with bang Lora torpedo explosives they blasted a way through the barb wire defenses and after this had been achieved they could invade the inner sanctuary of the German reinforcements.

The US Army kept advancing as best they could and as stated earlier with courage, valour and initiative, small groups of men managed to gain control over the heights and beach exits with close quarter fighting. The German defenses were actually taken from the rear. The US Navy got their ships in very close to the shoreline practically scraping the bottom of their hulls in doing so to fire point blank at the German defenses.

By mid-day the beachhead was generally secured.

The US actually ended up landing 34,000 troops. The Germans lost 1,200 men dead or wounded which was about 20% of their strength with no reserves coming in to replace them and dwindling ammunition supplies the battle to maintain the beachhead was eventually lost.

Below the photo depicts the secured beach head with men of the 29th, 1st infantry and US Rangers coming ashore in their droves.

It was not the end of the beginning it was the beginning of the end of the evil Nazi regime that had strangled Europe for eleven years. In eleven months time, Hitler would be dead after committing suicide in his bunker as the Allies closed in, and the war in Europe would be over.

• Utah Beach............23,250 troops were landed.

• Omaha Beach........34,250 troops were landed.

• Gold Beach............24,970 troops were landed.

• Juno Beach............21,400 troops were landed.

• Sword Beach..........28,845 troops were landed.

• By the 12th.of June, 326,000 troops were on the beaches, plus 54,000 vehicles.

• By the 2nd.July, another 929,000 men and 177,000 vehicles were put ashore.

• The ship armada at Normandy totaled 6,939 vessels of all kinds.

• In the first ten days after D-day (June 6 to June 16) a total of 5,287 Allied soldiers were killed.

• From D-Day till the end of the war, British casualties were 30,280 dead and 96,670 wounded.

The Americans launched their landing craft too far out at twelve miles. They should have sent the armored forces in first from a shorter distance, like the British successfully did at Gold beach. The German defenses should have been wiped out or at least decimated before embarking. The tragic waste of life could have been minimized had some or all of the above been taken into consideration. 

Maybe it was just a mixture of bad luck, bad timing and bad weather.

On a personal note I would like to say thanks to all of the brave men and women who fought with so much valor in Word War II. Thank you for the sacrifice you made to give us the freedom that we so much enjoy and take for granted today.

Vince Lewis. Thursday13th June 2002.