Many things went wrong at Omaha Beach.
1) They had planned to fire on the beach from the naval ships for as long as it took. General Bradley decided to limit the firing to only 10 minutes. He did not share this decision with the landing commanders. So the landing party was shocked when the firing stopped after 10 minutes. (Elwood has a very low opinion of General Bradley.)
2) Some of the guns were set with the wrong range, so instead of hitting the Germans on the beach, they fell in the water in front of the landing craft.
3) The intelligence said that there were 800 Germans defending the beach. They were dug in and had over 100 huge machine guns in place. The guns fired 13 rounds per second, with the rounds being about the size of my thumb. The allies knew this would be tough resistance, but since there were 18,000 allies, they thought they could survive. In truth, there had been reinforcements sent in for the Germans, and the count was more like 8,000.
4) The seas were rough. The tides push the landing craft to the east.
5) An airborne strike was executed. They encountered clouds, so flew above the clouds and could not see the ground. They feared that if they were late, or if the landing was ahead of schedule, then they would be dropping bombs on the allies. So the pilots decided to add 30 seconds to the timing of their bomb rum. This meant that their bombs fell 3 mile inland and did nothing to the German defenses.
6) Because of the heavy fire, the landing craft let the solders off the boat farther out at sea than had been planned. This left the soldier even more exposed.
7) It was low tide, so the beach was longer to traverse.
8) Bradley did not want to use the English tanks that could operate under water. He used American tanks instead, which could not operate in deep water. When the troops we let out too far from shore, the tanks were let off here also. They sank and most of the tank crews drowned.
9) There was a strong easterly current from the tides. This meant that about half of the landing craft was pushed eastward away from the intended landing site.
The landing was in 7 waves of 40-50 landing craft in each wave. This was about 2,000 soldiers per wave. The initial waves were sitting ducks. The casualty rate of the first wave was 85%, and of the second wave was 65%.
One wonders why the slaughter ended. One result from the tide was that more soldiers hit the beach eastward from this deadliest western end of Omaha Beach, so they were successful in landing. The German defenders at western Omaha could see the explosions of the German gun nests to their east, so they knew that fairly soon they would be attacked from the rear. Further, as waves 4 and 5 hit the beach, the allies finally got some senior officers on the beach to get some order into the attack. (Think of the Robert Mitchem character from the movie “The Longest Day” who said: “there are two types of people on this beach today…those already dead and those about to die, get up and let’s start moving.”)
Elwood talked to a German survivor who had been on one of the guns in Omaha, and asked him about why the German’s were eventually beaten at Omaha given how the situation started as a shooting gallery. The German said that they were incredulous that the Americans just kept coming despite the obvious certain death. The Germans could look out at the waves of landing craft that simply could not stop once the invasion had been launched. They could look to their east and see that they would eventually be encircled. And they could look at their ammo and see that they would run out of ammo before they ran out of Americans to kill. (I have to imagine that killing that many truly helpless people, regardless that they were your adversaries, had to have been a factor also.)
Photos:
These photos are from Omaha Beach today. It seems a bit wrong that there are some houses here now. (Elwood has considered knocking the houses down with his tank. He feels quite passionate about this being hollowed grounds.)
1) They had planned to fire on the beach from the naval ships for as long as it took. General Bradley decided to limit the firing to only 10 minutes. He did not share this decision with the landing commanders. So the landing party was shocked when the firing stopped after 10 minutes. (Elwood has a very low opinion of General Bradley.)
2) Some of the guns were set with the wrong range, so instead of hitting the Germans on the beach, they fell in the water in front of the landing craft.
3) The intelligence said that there were 800 Germans defending the beach. They were dug in and had over 100 huge machine guns in place. The guns fired 13 rounds per second, with the rounds being about the size of my thumb. The allies knew this would be tough resistance, but since there were 18,000 allies, they thought they could survive. In truth, there had been reinforcements sent in for the Germans, and the count was more like 8,000.
4) The seas were rough. The tides push the landing craft to the east.
5) An airborne strike was executed. They encountered clouds, so flew above the clouds and could not see the ground. They feared that if they were late, or if the landing was ahead of schedule, then they would be dropping bombs on the allies. So the pilots decided to add 30 seconds to the timing of their bomb rum. This meant that their bombs fell 3 mile inland and did nothing to the German defenses.
6) Because of the heavy fire, the landing craft let the solders off the boat farther out at sea than had been planned. This left the soldier even more exposed.
7) It was low tide, so the beach was longer to traverse.
8) Bradley did not want to use the English tanks that could operate under water. He used American tanks instead, which could not operate in deep water. When the troops we let out too far from shore, the tanks were let off here also. They sank and most of the tank crews drowned.
9) There was a strong easterly current from the tides. This meant that about half of the landing craft was pushed eastward away from the intended landing site.
The landing was in 7 waves of 40-50 landing craft in each wave. This was about 2,000 soldiers per wave. The initial waves were sitting ducks. The casualty rate of the first wave was 85%, and of the second wave was 65%.
One wonders why the slaughter ended. One result from the tide was that more soldiers hit the beach eastward from this deadliest western end of Omaha Beach, so they were successful in landing. The German defenders at western Omaha could see the explosions of the German gun nests to their east, so they knew that fairly soon they would be attacked from the rear. Further, as waves 4 and 5 hit the beach, the allies finally got some senior officers on the beach to get some order into the attack. (Think of the Robert Mitchem character from the movie “The Longest Day” who said: “there are two types of people on this beach today…those already dead and those about to die, get up and let’s start moving.”)
Elwood talked to a German survivor who had been on one of the guns in Omaha, and asked him about why the German’s were eventually beaten at Omaha given how the situation started as a shooting gallery. The German said that they were incredulous that the Americans just kept coming despite the obvious certain death. The Germans could look out at the waves of landing craft that simply could not stop once the invasion had been launched. They could look to their east and see that they would eventually be encircled. And they could look at their ammo and see that they would run out of ammo before they ran out of Americans to kill. (I have to imagine that killing that many truly helpless people, regardless that they were your adversaries, had to have been a factor also.)
Photos:
These photos are from Omaha Beach today. It seems a bit wrong that there are some houses here now. (Elwood has considered knocking the houses down with his tank. He feels quite passionate about this being hollowed grounds.)
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