Destroyers provided cover. The lead destroyer for the lead flotilla of minesweepers came from the first nation Hitler had overrun; it was Polish, named Slazak, commanded by Capt. Romuald Nalecz-Tyminski. Just behind Slazak was HMS Middleton. Next came the Norwegian destroyer Svenner. The minesweepers they were covering were British, Canadian, and American—a fine show of Allied unity. At 2315, June 5, the three destroyers entered channel no. 10, alongside the minesweepers that cleared the lane and marked it with dan buoys. At 0303 June 6 the job was done and the destroyers took up their patrol station opposite Ouistreham (Sword Beach).

BEHIND THE MINESWEEPERS came the LCT flotilla. Each LCT carried four DD tanks and four jeeps with trailers full of ammunition, plus their crews. For the 29th Division’s sector of Omaha (Easy Green, Dog Red, Dog White, and Dog Green), sixteen LCTs were bringing across the Channel sixty-four DD tanks. The plan was to launch the swimming tanks from five kilometers offshore. The timing had to be precise; the tanks were scheduled to climb onto the beach and commence firing at pillboxes at H-Hour minus five minutes, in order to provide cover for the first wave of infantry, which would land at H-Hour (0630, an hour after first light and an hour after dead low tide).

The LCTs were in the van because they were the slowest and most difficult to maneuver vessels in the fleet. LCTs were built from three sections bolted together to form the 110-foot craft, with the heavy machinery in the stern and the bow both high and light. They were flat-bottomed with no center board. In a strong wind or tidal current it was all but impossible to hold them on course.

Lt. Dean Rockwell commanded the LCT flotilla headed for Omaha. On June 5 he set off on his twenty-hour journey to the far shore. At Piccadilly Circus he had his first problem—LCT 713 was missing. There were ships, vessels, and boats of all types circling and trying to form up, some with a big “O” painted on the side (for Omaha), others with a “U” for Utah. Rockwell finally found LCT 713 with its “O” cruising “blithely along among ships with great big ‘U’s on them. I came alongside and told the captain to look around and see where he was. ‘Oh,’ he said, and I guided him back to where he belonged.”

Rockwell headed for France. The wind was strong, holding position was difficult, even staying afloat was a problem. Those Sherman tanks weighed thirty-two tons each, plus their ammo, food, fuel, and men. “So, combined with our weight, we had very little freeboard. In fact, the seas were running in over our decks.” Everyone was miserable, especially the tankers.³

At 0400 June 6, the LCTs reached the transport sector of Omaha. At 0415 they went from condition 1 to general quarters. At 0510 they went a kilometer closer to the beach, to their launch position five kilometers offshore. At 0522 the crews secured from general quarters to take up their beaching stations.

Although the strong westerly winds continued, they were now in the lee of the Cotentin Peninsula and the seas were relatively moderate.

BEHIND THE LCTS came the bombardment groups: battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. There were six battleships (three American, three British), twenty cruisers (three American, three French, the remainder British and Canadian), sixty-eight destroyers (thirty-one American, one Norwegian, one Polish, the others British and Canadian). The battleships were old; Nevada, with ten 14-inch guns, had been commissioned in 1916 and had been the only battleship to get under way at Pearl Harbor. Texas, mounting ten 14-inch guns, was two years older, while Arkansas (commissioned 1912, with twelve 12-inch guns) had been scheduled for disposal and had been saved only by the coming of the war. HMS Warspite was twenty-nine years old; she carried eight 15-inch guns, as did HMS Ramillies (commissioned 1917); HMS Rodney, with nine 16-inch guns, was the youngest of the battleships (commissioned 1927).

The “old ladies,” navy men called the battleships. They would be dueling the heavy German batteries. In the Utah Beach sector, the Germans had 110 guns ranging from 75mm up to 170mm. Inland, they had eighteen batteries, the largest consisting of four 210mm guns in casements near St.-Marcouf. The old ladies were expendable and it was expected that one or two of them at least would be lost, but they would make their contribution by drawing the huge shells away from the beach and onto them.

The main group of destroyers came behind the cruisers and battleships, ahead of the transports, LCIs, LCCs (landing craft, control, carried part of the way on LSTs before being lowered by davits to the sea), LCMs, and others. The entire fleet included 229 LSTs, 245 LCIs, 911 LCTs, 481 LCMs, all under their own power, and 1,089 LCVPs riding on LSTs to the transport area, plus various other transports, Coast Guard rescue boats, PT boats, blockships that would be sunk to create artificial harbors off Gold and Utah, and more.