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.
The most unwieldy craft, even worse than the LCTs, were the Rhino ferries, barges hooked together carrying trucks, jeeps, bulldozers, and other heavy equipment, towed by LSTs across the Channel, with outboard motors to provide their own propulsion for the run-in to the beach.4
On USS Bayfield, an attack transport that served as headquarters for Maj. Gen. Raymond O. Barton, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, the decks were jammed with troops and sailors. Barton’s deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, moved among the men, speaking softly and soothingly. Countless members of the 4th Division recall the words of reassurance that Roosevelt, the oldest man going ashore that day, said to them. They remember, too, that he began singing and urged them to join in. Lt. John Robert Lewis described the scene: “During the cruise across, we all assembled on the deck of the Bayfield and sang ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ and ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ This was a very sobering time to sing the words, ‘As God died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.’ ”5
Seaman Joseph Donlan, a radio operator on Bayfield, remembered thinking that at that moment his high-school class was holding graduation exercises. Had he not joined the Navy, he would have been there.6 On LST 530, Seaman Gene Sizemore reported to Capt. Anthony Duke. Just before departing England, Sizemore had told Duke, “I’m only fifteen, Captain, and I don’t want to go on this trip.” (He had lied about his age when he enlisted.) Duke had replied, “Well, Sizemore, you are going anyway.”
“Well, Captain, I am scared,” Sizemore rejoined, “and I want to get off, NOW.”
Duke said he felt sorry for him, but the best he could do was order Sizemore to report to the bridge every hour: “That way, I’ll be able to see how you’re doing and you’ll be able to see how I’m doing.” So Sizemore reported, and he was doing fine.
LST 530 was headed to Gold Beach, the second LST in a column of twelve. One of the first things Duke did was order the barrage balloon cut loose. The cables were snapping in the wind and were a danger to the crew. Other LST skippers did the same.
Looking around, Duke recalled, “By God, I’ll never forget the feeling of power—power about to be unleashed—that welled up in me as I viewed the long, endless columns of ships headed toward Normandy.”7
In spite of the wind and rough sea, the crowded movement of the thousands of Allied ships and small craft ran off close to schedule, with some minor bumping but no major collisions. This remarkable feat, according to Admiral Morison, was incredible enough to “suggest divine guidance.”8
Against this host, the Germans could put into action a handful of gunboats, a few submarines, a small fleet of E-boats, and nothing more. In World War I, Germany had challenged Britain for control of the seas; by 1944 the Germans had only three ships larger than destroyers still afloat—the cruisers Prinz Eugen, Nürnberg, and Emden—and they were in port on D-Day.
At 2300, Nevada, followed by cruisers Quincy, Tuscaloosa, and HMS Black Prince, Piccadilly Circus to head south-southeast for Utah. At 0230, Nevada reached her position, eleven miles off the coast. “As we neared our position in the Bay of the Seine,” Lt. Ross Olsen recalled, “we felt like we were sneaking up on the enemy and even talked in whispers, thinking that we might be heard by the Germans on the beach, which of course was impossible. But when we cut loose the anchor, it made a tremendous noise as the anchor chain went through the hawsepipe.” Olsen was sure the Germans had to have heard it.9 Quickly the rattle of other chains running through hawsepipes filled the air, off Utah and the other four beaches.
• •
The Germans heard nothing, saw nothing. Although there had been a steady stream of ships coming from Piccadilly Circus since well before midnight, lined up so close in their columns as to practically form a bridge from the Isle of Wight to Normandy, and although the first ships reached the transport areas around 0200, German search radar failed to pick up anything. This was partly due to German inefficiency, more to the effectiveness of preinvasion air bombardment, when the bombers had made radar sites on the coast primary targets, destroying some and damaging many more. Further, the Allied aircraft were throwing down “windows,” foil strips that caused hundreds of echoes on the German radars. Admiral Krancke had canceled the usual E-boat parrols because of the foul weather, so the boats were still in port in Le Havre, Ouistreham, and Cherbourg.
At 0309, German radar finally spotted the fleet. Krancke promptly issued orders to the shore batteries to prepare to repel an invasion. He sent the E-boat flotillas and two armed trawlers into battle; they were under way by 0348.
• •
In the American transports, the cooks fed the soldiers Spam sandwiches and coffee. On the British LSTs, the men got a friedegg breakfast (swimming in grease) and a tot of rum. Lt. Cmdr. B. T. Whinney (RN), the beachmaster for Gold, was astonished when at 0200 in the officers mess on Empire Arquebus sharply uniformed stewards wearing white gloves proffered menus.10
Between 0100 and 0400, depending on when the men were due to arrive at the beach, the bos’ns’ whistles sounded on the LSTs: “Now hear this! All Navy hands man your battle stations.” The sailors scurried to their posts. The bos’ns’ whistles sounded again: “Now hear this! All assault troops report to your debarkation areas.” The men climbed into their LCVPs and other craft; when the whistle sounded again, followed by the order “Away all boats!” the heavily loaded craft were swung by the davits over the side and slowly lowered into the water.
On Empire Javelin, a British transport carrying the 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry, 29th Division, off Omaha Beach, the davit lowering one craft got stuck for half an hour halfway down the ship’s side, directly beneath the scupper. “During this half-hour, the bowels of the ship’s company made the most of an opportunity that Englishmen have sought since 1776,” recalled Maj. Tom Dallas, the battalion executive officer. “Yells from the boat were unavailing. Streams, colored everything from canary yellow to sienna brown and olive green, continued to flush into the command group, decorating every man aboard. We cursed, we cried, and we laughed, but it kept coming. When we started for shore, we were all covered with shit.”11
The landing craft that had made the crossing hanging on booms over the sides of the LSTs were lowered into the water with only their coxswains aboard. As the coxswains of the LCVPs (mostly Coast Guard, almost all young, many still teenagers) brought their engines to life and began circling, the LSTs and other transports dropped their rope nets over the side.
The men descending to their Higgins boats on those scramble nets provide one of the most enduring images of D-Day. Like the paratroopers who had dropped into France during the night, the infantry and combat engineers were grossly overloaded with weapons, ammunition, and rations. Their impregnated clothing and heavy boots added to their cumbersome, awkward feeling. It was dark and the Channel swells raised and lowered the little landing craft by ten feet and more.
As the coxswains brought them alongside, officers on deck instructed their men to time their jumps off the nets into the boats—jump as the landing craft reached the top of a swell so as to shorten the distance. Many failed: there were more than two dozen broken legs in the first hour alone. A few got caught between the ship and the landing craft: at least three men were squashed to death, others badly injured.
Seaman Ronald Seaborne, a naval telegraphist going into Gold as a forward observer, was carrying his haversack, a radio, a telescopic aerial, a revolver, and an assortment of pouches. Everything was on his back, which made him top-heavy, except the aerial, which he carried in one hand, leaving only one hand free to scramble down the net. “For me, that scramble was the most difficult part of the entire Normandy operation. But for a lucky wave which almost washed the craft back onto the boat deck of the LST, and thus reduced the distance of my inevitable fall to a small one, I doubt very much whether I would have made the transit.”12 Overall, considering the difficulties, the loading went well.
On the Higgins boats, assault platoons of thirty men and two officers, carrying bangalore torpedoes, mortars, BARs, rifles, and other weapons, jammed together. They had to stand; there was insufficient room for anyone to sit. The tops of the gunwales were just about at eye level. When the boats were loaded, the coxswains pulled away from the mother ship and began to circle. The circles grew ever larger.
The boats bobbed up and down—and almost immediately most of the Spam, or eggs and rum, consumed earlier ended up on the decks, which made the decks exceedingly slippery. On Seaman Seaborne’s LCM, a Royal Marine brigadier “sat majestically on the seat of a jeep, whilst the rest of us huddled miserably between the jeep and the sides of the craft trying to avoid the vast quantity of cold sea spray coming over the gunwales.” Men began throwing up; the wind flung the vomit back on the jeep and the brigadier. “He shouted to all on board that anyone feeling sick was to go to the other side of the craft and within seconds the portside was full of green-faced men.”
As the LCM circled, the wind came in off the port, throwing another wave of vomit on the brigadier and his jeep. “Fortunately, the brigadier then succumbed to the motion and was past caring about the dreadful state he and his jeep got into.”13
Lt. John Ricker commanded the LCC designated as primary control vessel for Tare Green Beach, Utah. Lt. Howard Vander Beek, commanding LCC 60, set off for the coast, astern of Ricker’s PC 1176. Along with the boats carrying underwater demolition teams from the Navy and the LCTs, the LCCs were in the van.
Waiting for the LCVPs and other craft to join up for the run into the beach, Vander Beek said, “We felt naked, defenseless. Although hundreds of friendly guns on U.S. battleships, cruisers, and destroyers behind us were poised and silent, ready to begin their onslaught, there were Wehrmacht batteries ahead, waiting for enough light to fire.”14
• •
It was a cool night and the spray hitting the men in the face was cold, but the soldiers and sailors gathered off the Normandy coast were sweating. Tension, fear, and anticipation were the dominant emotions. The drone of the engines of the landing craft began to be overwhelmed by the drone of the first waves of bombers. Behind the forward naval elements the ten swept channels were jammed bow to stern with follow-up forces. The sailors manning the 5-, 10-, 12-, and 14-inch guns on the warships were at their battle stations, ready to commence firing.
What the airborne troops had started the seaborne armada was about to continue. What Hitler had sown he was now to reap. The free peoples of the world were sending the best of their young men and the products of their industry to liberate Western Europe and crush him and his Nazi Party.
Shortly after 0520 the light began to come up in the east. Bombers began to drop their loads, German antiaircraft gunners to shoot at them. But in the transport and bombardment areas, it was ominously quiet. No German batteries opened fire; the Allied warships were not due to commence firing until 0550 (H-Hour minus forty minutes) unless they were fired upon.
On the destroyer USS McCook off Omaha, Lt. Jerry Clancy shook his head. “What I can’t understand is why they don’t fire on us,” he told reporter Martin Sommers, standing beside him. “None of us could understand it,” Sommers wrote later, “and we all wished they would start firing, so we could start firing back. That would be much better than waiting.” As the air bombardment increased in intensity, “a reverent chorus of Ah’s ran through the ship. . . . Thunderous explosions rolled along the shore, followed by high bursts of multicolored flak, and then a geyser of flame here, another there. . . . The blasts were coming so fast that they merged into one roar. The shoreline became a broken necklace of flame.”
Sommers and Clancy tried to make conversation but could scarcely hear each other. “I guess this is about the longest hour in history,” Clancy commented.15
At 0535, the German batteries commenced firing on the fleet. Off Utah, Lieutenant Olsen on Nevada saw shells hitting all around. It seemed to him that every German gun in France was concentrated on Nevada. “We learned later that we were straddled twenty-seven times by shells and never hit. We had been shelled for what seemed like ages,” he said, “before we saw our main battery of 14-inch guns being trained and ready to open fire.”16
When the battleships opened fire, it was as if Zeus were hurling thunderbolts at Normandy. The noise, the concussion, the great belches of fire from the muzzles, made an unforgettable impression on every man present. Soldiers in Higgins boats could see the huge shells as they passed overhead. Seaman James O’Neal, on an LCI off Juno Beach, noted that each time the battleships let go a salvo, “they would be pushed sideways by the force of their guns, making fairly large waves, and as these waves came in toward the beach they would pass us and rock our craft.”17
Holdbrook Bradley was a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun on an LST off Omaha. Six years later, he was a correspondent in Korea; twenty-five years later he covered Vietnam. As he put it in his oral history, “The sound of battle is something I’m used to. But this [the opening bombardment on D-Day] was the loudest thing I have ever heard. There was more firepower than I’ve ever heard in my life and most of us felt that this was the moment of our life, the crux of it, the most outstanding.”
To Bradley, the initial salvo from the warships was one huge explosion, “A hell of an explosion. I never heard anything like it in my life.”18
On the Bayfield, ship’s stores officer Lt. Cyrus Aydlett hurried on deck to observe. “It was like the fireworks display of a thousand Fourth of Julys rolled into one,” he wrote in his diary. “The heavens seemed to open, spilling a million stars on the coastline before us, each one spattering luminous, tentacle-like branches of flame in every direction. Never before has there been any more perfect coordination of firepower than that unloosed by our air and naval forces on this so-called impregnable coastline which ‘Herr Schickelgruber’ had so painstakingly fortified with every obstacle man is capable of conceiving. Pillows of smoke and flame shot skyward with great force—the resounding blasts even at our distance were terrifying—concussion gremlins gave involuntary, sporadic jerks on your trouser legs—the ship shrugged and quivered as if she knew what was occurring.”
One of the men watching with Aydlett shouted in his ear, “I’ll bet there are a lot of dirty drawers on this ship right now.”19 There were a lot more among the Germans in the casements taking the pounding.
• •
The Allied airborne troopers witnessed the bombardment from the receiving end, some shells falling between them and the beach, others passing overhead. John Howard at Pegasus Bridge described it this way: “The barrage coming in was quite terrific. You could feel the whole ground shaking toward the coast. Soon they lifted the barrage farther inland. They sounded so big, and being poor bloody infantry, we had never been under naval fire before and these damn great shells came sailing over, such a size that you automatically ducked, even in the pillbox, as one went over, and my radio operator was standing next to me, very perturbed about this, and finally he said, ‘Blimey, sir, they’re firing jeeps.’ ”20
In Vierville, the tiny village atop the bluff at the west end of Omaha, the air bombardment had awakened the populace. When the bombers passed, “a strange calm succeeded.” Pierre and Jacqueline Piprel hurried to the home of M. Clement Marie because they knew he had, despite stern German orders, a pair of binoculars. “From a window in the attic the three of us in turn were able to contemplate the formidable armada, getting bigger and bigger as it closed in. We could not see the sea anymore, only ships all over.”
Then came the first salvo. Naval shells descended on Vierville. Within minutes, “there was not a single glass left on the windows.” One shell exploded in the upstairs bedroom “and everything fell in the dining room below.” Another shell whistled through the house, coming in one window and going out another. A shell exploded in the baker’s bakehouse, killing the maid and the baker’s baby she was holding in her arms.21
Every gun in the Allied fleet was blazing away. USS Harding, a destroyer, Comdr. George G. Palmer commanding, opened fire at 0537 on Omaha Beach. The target was a battery east of Port-en-Bessin, range 4,800 yards. Harding sent forty-four rounds of 5-inch shells toward the German guns, temporarily neutralizing them. Meanwhile, near misses from the Germans sent geysers up all around Harding; the nearest miss was seventy-five yards over.
At 0547 Harding shifted her fire to three pillboxes some 3,000 yards distant, in the Colleville draw. She expended 100 rounds before smoke completely obscured the target. By then the entire shore had disappeared in clouds of smoke, dust, and debris. Commander Palmer could not see his landmarks and began to navigate by radar.
When the wind made intermittent observation possible, Harding opened fire on a house in the draw; twenty rounds destroyed the place. At 0610 Harding shifted fire to another fortified house and destroyed it after expending forty rounds. Spotting an enemy fieldpiece on Omaha Beach, with a crew preparing to fire at incoming landing craft, at 0615 Harding closed the shore to 1,700 yards and fired six salvos at the German gun. The shelling did not destroy the gun but it did send the German personnel scattering back into the bluffs.22
All the while German guns ashore blasted back. The men on Harding could hear the whine and scream of the shells as they passed overhead and astern. Lt. William Gentry remembered that the Germans were shooting at the battleships and cruisers seaward of Harding, “but their trajectories were so flat that shells were whizzing by at the level of our stacks. Some members of the crew were sure a couple of shells went between our stacks.”
At 0620, as the landing craft approached Omaha Beach, the gunnery officer reported “mission completed” and Commander Palmer ordered “Cease fire.”23
There were sixty-eight Allied destroyers off the five beaches; each of them participated in the prelanding bombardment in a manner similar to Harding, pounding their prearranged targets—mainly pillboxes and other fortified positions, or the spires of the church steeples—and then shifting to targets of opportunity before lifting fire to allow the landing craft to get in.
Two of the destroyers had bad luck. The Norwegian destroyer Svenner was on the far left flank, nearest Le Havre. At 0537 the half dozen E-boats from Le Havre, ordered into action by Admiral Krancke, dashed in as close to the fleet as they dared and unleashed a volley of torpedoes. The only hit was on Svenner, just off the port bow of Slazak. Captain Nalecz-Tyminski described the result: “A flash of explosion occurred amidships, followed by the sound of detonation and then the burst of fire and smoke that shot high into the air. Svenner broke amidship and sank.”24 Capt. Kenneth Wright, a commando, wrote his parents five days later: “It was rather appalling. The ship just cracked in half, and the two ends folded together as if it were a pocketknife closing.”25
Svenner was the only Allied ship sunk by the German navy that day. Even as the E-boats fired their torpedoes, HMS Warspite attacked them. The battleship sank one and the remainder did a quick about-face and returned to the relative safety of Le Havre. Thus ended the sole serious attempt by the Kriegsmarine to interfere with the landings.
• •
Off Utah Beach, planes laying a smoke screen between the Germans and the bombardment fleet appeared at 0610 to do their job, but the plane which should have hidden USS Corry, a destroyer, was shot down by flak. For a few moments, therefore, Corry was the only Allied ship the German gunners could see. They concentrated a heavy fire on her. Corry began to maneuver rapidly, firing all the while. She was taking a great risk, as only a relatively small area had been swept of mines.
Machinist Mate Grant Gullickson was down in the forward engine room. The pipes were dripping wet, the turbines hissing steam. “Our job was to give the skipper [Lieutenant Commander Hoffman] whatever he asked for, full speed ahead, emergency astern. Overhead the guns roared.
“All of a sudden, the ship literally jumped out of the water! As the floor grates came loose, the lights went out and steam filled the space.” Corry had struck a mine amidships.
“It was total darkness with steam severely hot and choking,” Gullickson said. He was in what must be one of the most terrifying situations known to man, caught in the engine room with bursting turbines, boilers, and pipes in a sinking ship. The water was rising; within minutes it was up to his waist.
“At this time, there was another rumble from underneath the ship.” Corry had struck another mine and was all but cut in two. Hoffman headed out for sea by hand-steering his ship, but within minutes Corry lost all power and began to settle. At 0641 Hoffman ordered abandon ship.
Down in the forward engine room, “we grappled to open the hatch, which we did and began to evacuate,” Gullickson recounted. “By the time we got up on deck, the main deck was awash and ruptured clean across. It was obvious the Corry was dead.
“I noticed at this time that my life belt and shirt were missing. They had been ripped from my body by the explosion. I abandoned ship on the starboard side about midship. We didn’t jump off, we literally floated off because the ship was underwater.” Two hours later, he and others were picked up by USS Fitch, given coffee laced with the ship’s torpedo alcohol, and eventually transferred to a transport and taken back to a hospital in England.
“On this ship was Chief Ravinsky, the chief of the forward fire room. He had steam burns over 99 percent of his body. We tended to him and he could talk a little but the burns were too much; he passed away the next day.”26
Seaman Joseph Dolan was stationed in the combat information center (CIC) of the Bayfield. “I still remember the urgent message that I copied from the Corry. It said Corry was hit and was sinking, and they had many casualties and needed help quickly. Most messages were coded, but this one was in the clear because of the urgency of the situation.”27
Seaman A. R. Beyer of the Fitch was launched in a whaleboat to pick up survivors. He remembered that Corry’s stern stayed up to the last. He saw a man clinging to the top blade of the Corry’s propeller, but there were a great number of survivors clinging to debris or rafts and he picked them up first. By the time he turned back to Corry, the man on the propeller was gone. Fitch took 223 survivors on board in the course of the morning.28
Ens. Doug Birch was on a subchaser off Utah Beach. When the Corry hit the mine, “many people were blown into the water and I had the experience of finding a sailor who had B-positive blood and helping him on a direct transfusion on our deck, after he was hauled aboard. When the pharmacist mate said, ‘He’s dead,’ I wasn’t sure if it was him or me.”29
• •
The mines were playing hell with the Allied vessels off Utah. PC 1261 struck a mine at 0542 and sank in four minutes. At 0547, LCT 597, directly astern of PC 1176, struck a mine. Lt. Vander Beek in LCC 60 saw her lifted out of the water by the powerful force of the mine. “We were but a few yards away and felt the explosion’s potent shock waves course through our craft.” LCT 597 went down instantly, taking the cargo of four DD tanks with her.
At about the same time, Vander Beek learned that his sister craft, LCC 80, had fouled her screw on a dan buoy and was out of commission. That left only Vander Beek’s LCC 60 as a guide for the LCTs and first wave of LCVPs at Omaha. It was an impossible task for one boat to do the work of three, made even worse by the offshore wind and strong tidal current. As Vander Beek guided the LCTs and LCVPs in to shore, he drifted to his left, so that when he signaled them to go on in, they were 500 to 1,000 meters southeast of their intended landing site. This proved to be fortuitous.30
By 0600, the remaining LCTs had launched their DD tanks. As the tanks swam ashore they were hampered by the head wind and tidal current. The Higgins boats comprising the first and second waves passed through them, headed for shore.
• •
As the landing craft moved in, the battleships and cruisers continued to fire. As they belted away they raised a continuous wall of sound, so immense it could be felt as well as heard. German batteries and the drumming of the engines of the bombers overhead added to it.
Nevada was anchored off Utah. Texas and Arkansas were off Omaha. They were at anchor because the swept area was too narrow to allow maneuvering, meaning the Navy regarded the mines as more dangerous than the German batteries. The transports were behind them, the destroyers and landing craft in front, headed toward shore in columns of Higgins boats, DUKWs, LCIs, and LCTs. Supporting the battleships were the cruisers.
For Nevada, the initial targets for her 14-inch guns were German batteries. Her smaller guns were drenching the beach with shells. At 0620 Nevada turned her 14-inchers onto the beach as well; General Collins had requested this action, saying he had great confidence in the accuracy of the big guns and wanted them to knock gaps in the concrete seawall. The guns were firing point-blank, almost on the horizontal; as the great shells passed over, men on the Higgins boats swore that the vacuums created by the passing shells caused the boats to actually lift out of the water.
At Omaha, Texas blasted away at the battery on Pointe-du-Hoc, where the rangers were shortly scheduled to land. By 0550 it was light enough for spotter planes to direct the fire. The huge naval shells dug numerous craters in Pointe-du-Hoc, tumbled great chunks of cliff into the sea, and apparently destroyed the casemates holding the guns.
Wing Comdr. L. C. Glover was an RAF spotter for HMS Warspite, which was pounding away at the Villerville battery to the east of Sword Beach. He was flying midway between the ship and the shore. “I called out the order ‘fire’ and turned slowly broadside on to the shore to wait for the fall of shot. Suddenly, in the clear sky my aircraft experienced a most violent bump which practically shook me out of my wits. At the same moment, I saw two enormous objects moving rapidly away from me toward the shore and immediately realized that I had flown at right angles through the slipstream of Warspite’s two ranging 15-inch ‘bricks.’ Awestruck, I followed the shells down quite easily with my eyes during the rest of their curved flight and saw one of them actually hit the gun emplacement we were engaging!” Less happily, Glover reported that at least two Allied planes were hit and destroyed by shells that day.31
At 0615, Texas turned her 14-inch guns on the exit road at the western end of Omaha. That road led up a ravine to the village of Vierville. As Admiral Morison put it, “The volume and accuracy of naval fire would largely determine how tough a time the 1st Battalion 116th Regiment [29th Division] would have to secure this exit after H-Hour.”32
The Germans were firing back from their batteries at Port-en-Bessin. Nick Carbone, a sailor from Brooklyn on Texas, watched a great German shell skip in the water just between Texas and a British cruiser. Imitating a famous American voice, Carbone said, “I hate war. Eleanor hates war.”33
On the western end of Omaha, Arkansas turned her guns on a battery at Les Moulins, while the cruisers and destroyers pounded away at German casemates and pillboxes situated along the bluff (where the cemetery stands today). Off the British and Canadian beaches, a bombardment just as intense was hurled at the enemy.
• •
In short, a tremendous tonnage of shells hit the beaches and batteries. The results, for the most part, were terribly disappointing. As anyone who has visited the Normandy beaches will attest, this was not because of inaccurate fire, but rather the result of German skill in fortification building. Seaman Ian Michie, on HMS Orion, a cruiser, was right when he said, “Our shooting was very good and direct hits were soon being recorded. We scored thirteen direct hits on the battery before shifting target.”34 But at Longuessur-Mer, Pointe-du-Hoc, Port-en-Bessin, St.-Marcouf, Azeville, and the other batteries, the casemates stand today, battered but unbroken. They took many direct hits, dozens in some cases, but even the 14-inch shells failed to penetrate. The shells made pock marks, they knocked away some concrete, they exposed the steel reinforcing rods, but they did not penetrate.
Many of the German gunners inside were rendered deaf or knocked out by concussions. An official report from the Royal Navy admitted that “no serious damage either to the concrete structures or the guns in the strong points” was achieved, but pointed out that the shelling “effectively neutralized the positions by terrifying the enemy personnel in them and by preventing them from manning their weapons and firing on the troops during the landings.”35
That was wishful thinking. Between the lifting of the naval bombardment and the landing of the first waves, many Germans managed to man their guns and commence firing. Inaccurately, it should be added: they had no spotter planes, and the forward observation posts on the edge of the cliffs were blinded by the smoke, so although they dueled with the battleships and cruisers, sitting at anchor, they scored no hits.
The smaller batteries, pillboxes, and Tobruks, the ones right on the beach or in the bluff above Omaha, also took a pounding and survived. Those on the beach had embrasures opening to the sides, not out to sea, so as to deliver enfilading fire parallel to the shoreline while being fully protected from fire from the warships. As the first wave hit, they came to life, delivering a withering fire at the tanks and infantry.
From the point of view of the soldiers going ashore, the great naval bombardment was as ineffective as the great air bombardment. According to Admiral Morison, the reason was “not enough time was allowed,” and the fault was the Army’s, not the Navy’s, because the Army did not wish the bombardment to start before daylight. In Morison’s opinion, H-Hour should have been postponed to 0730 “to give naval gunfire more time to play on beach defenses.”36
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As the warships lifted their fire and took on targets inland, LCT(R)s went into action. Lt. Eugene Bernstein was in command of the lead LCT(R) at Omaha, with thirteen other craft following him. At 3,500 meters the LCT(R)s spread out into a line abreast with 100 meters between the craft. Bernstein recalled being amazed that he was right on target and right on time.37
Medic W. N. Solkin was in LCT(R) 450. He remembered that each member of the crew was armed “with a fire extinguisher. Our skipper was in the conning tower with his finger on a button. We held our breath, hanging onto anything that was stationary. We fired our rockets and hell broke loose.
“The ship seemed to explode. We listed sharply and I remember being buried under arms and legs. Now the fire extinguishers came into play. Small fires broke out and smoke rose up through the bulkheads. The heat and noise were terrific. Everyone was cursing and screaming and fighting the flames that threatened to envelop the entire craft.
“I can’t describe the sound of a thousand rockets being released in less than a minute. I remember a shipmate describing it as the rush of a hurricane. The craft shuddered, was thrust backward, and momentarily lost steerage.”38
The rockets—14,000 of them—whooshed over the Higgins boats in the first wave, arching their way to the beach. As Joseph Balkoski, historian of the 29th Division, put it, “Their roar was like the final crescendo of a great symphony.”39
To the men on the Higgins boats, it seemed that no man could possibly live through such a bombardment. Unfortunately, many of the rockets fell harmlessly into the surf. A few hit at the lower edge of the bluff and in the level areas between the bluff and the beach. The rockets set off grass fires, which provided some smoke, and caused land mines to explode—but they killed few if any German defenders.
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There was one final bombardment from the sea. It came from Sherman tanks aboard LCTs approaching the shoreline. Under the circumstances—rough water, smoke and haze, extreme excitement—it was wildly inaccurate. But that those Shermans were close enough to the beach to fire was itself a near miracle, made possible by the courage and common sense of one man, Lieutenant Rockwell, who had just made what was perhaps the single most important command decision of any junior officer on D-Day.
The LCTs approaching Omaha were supposed to launch their DD tanks five kilometers offshore. They had split into two groups. The eight LCTs to the left of Rockwell’s flotilla launched as planned, and all but three of the thirty-two tanks sank. The swells were too high, the tanks too low, the skirts insufficient. There was a certain gallantry involved, as tank after tank drove across the lowered ramp and into the water despite seeing the tank in front go down.
There was also a certain stubbornness and blind stupidity involved. The tank commanders could see the tank in front of them get hit by a wave, the canvas collapse, the tank disappear—but they had been given the order to launch, so launch they did. The skippers of the LCTs watched helplessly, rendered immobile by fright, unwilling to take charge. It was a pitiful sight.
Only the skipper of LCT 600, Ens. H. P. Sullivan, was brave enough to take command. When he saw the first tank in his group of four sink he ordered the crew to pull up the ramp and then drove on into shore. Those three tanks were the only ones from his flotilla of LCTs to make it; they provided suppressing fire at Easy Green.I
Lieutenant Rockwell, off Dog White and Dog Green, made his own decision. He got on a tank radio, despite orders not to use the radio, to call Captain Elder of the 743rd Tank Battalion in a nearby LCT. Rockwell was prepared to argue, as he assumed Elder would want to follow orders. (With regard to using the radio, Rockwell later said, “At this stage of the game I was willing to take a chance, because it was necessary to get on with the invasion, is what it amounted to.”)
To Rockwell’s relief, Elder agreed with him. “I don’t think we can make it,” he said. “Can you take us right in?”
That was exactly what Rockwell wanted to hear. Using flags and Morse code, he ordered the seven other skippers of his LCT flotilla to keep their ramps up and drive into the beach. As they approached, the eager tank crews opened fire against the bluff, shooting over the bow.40
Rockwell’s flotilla went in line abreast. On LCT 607, the skipper failed to act. Ens. Sam Grundfast, second in command (who had been a Boy Scout and could read the Morse code faster than his signalman), put it bluntly: “He froze. So the signalman looked at me, I looked at him, and I then took over the command of the boat. I gave the signal that we were obeying the order to go ashore.”
As LCT 607 drove in, it hit a mine. “It literally blew us sky high. The skipper was killed. All the men were killed except two and myself. The four tanks were lost and all of the Navy personnel. I wound up in a hospital for several months, requiring extensive surgery.”41
Seaman Martin Waarvick was on Rockwell’s boat, LCT 535. “I was at my post in the forward port locker room near the bow, warming up the small Briggs & Stratton engine that we used to lower the ramp.”42 Timing was now critical. If that ramp dropped too soon, the water would be too deep; if it dropped too late, the tanks would not be able to do the job and the 116th Infantry would not have the help of the tanks at the moment the infantry most needed it.
The noise was deafening. The battleships and cruisers were shooting over the LCTs from behind. On each side of the lane reserved for the landing craft, the destroyers were banging away. Aircraft engines droned overhead. As Rockwell got close, the LCT(R)s let loose. On his LCT, the tank crews started up their engines.
Speaking was impossible, thinking nearly so. Further, the smoke obscured Rockwell’s landmarks. But a shift of wind rolled back the smoke for a moment and Rockwell saw he was being set to the east by the tide. He changed course to starboard and increased speed; the other skippers saw this move and did the same. At the moment the naval barrage lifted, Rockwell’s little group was exactly opposite Dog White and Dog Green, the tanks firing furiously.
This was the moment Rockwell had been preparing for over the past two years. This was the reason LCTs existed. But to Rockwell’s amazement, what he had anticipated was not happening. He had always assumed the enemy would be firing at his LCT as it came in, but so far no German gun had done so.
At 0629 Rockwell gave the signal to Waarvick, who dropped the ramp. LCT 535 was the first ship of the first wave to launch equipment in the Omaha area. Waarvick remembered that the tanks “started out down the ramp, clanking and grinding. They sure made a racket on that steel deck.” They were in about three feet of water.
The first tank lurched forward, dipped its nose to the slope, crawled ahead through the breakers to the sand fifty yards away, the water washing over its back and pouring off again. It began firing—and at that instant, so did the Germans. An 88mm gun was enfilading the beach from an emplacement to the right. Rockwell watched as 88 shells hit three of the landing craft on his right in quick succession. He expected the next shell to hit his LCT, which was lying still and broadside to the gun—a can’t-miss target—when the last of his tanks went into the water. As it cleared the ramp, Waarvick raised it. The German gunners turned their fire from the LCTs onto the tanks.
And then, Rockwell recalled, “We pulled that famous naval maneuver, known through naval history as getting the hell out of there.” He used his anchor to retract; he had dropped it going in, it had a separate engine to winch off, and it worked.43
As Rockwell backed off, the tanks he had been responsible enough and courageous enough to put on the beach were blasting away with their 75mm cannon and .50-caliber machine guns. As LCT 535 retracted, Higgins boats carrying the 116th Regiment began moving in. It was 0630 at Omaha beach, H-Hour.
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At Widerstandsnest 62 above the Colleville draw, Pvt. Franz Gockel had just been through the most shocking hour of his life. At 0400 he had been ordered to take his firing position behind his machine gun, but at first “nothing moved. Was it another false alarm? The minutes slowly tocked by. Was it going to be real this time? We stood at our weapons and shivered in the thin summer uniforms. The cook prepared hot red wine. An NCO appeared and checked our readiness, saying ‘When they come, don’t shoot too soon.’ ”
At first light the bombers were overhead and an incredible number of ships began to appear on the horizon. Small craft, small ships, big ships, all apparently coming right at WN 62. “An endless fleet. Heavy warships cruised along as if passing for review.” Gockel tried to concentrate on his machine gun, checking it again and again, “to take my mind away from impending events.”
The naval guns opened fire. “Salvo after salvo fell into our positions. Debris and clouds of smoke enveloped us. The earth shook. Eyes and ears were filled with dust. Sand ground between teeth. There was no hope for help.”
The bombardment increased in its fury. “The morning dawn over the approaching landing fleet showed for us our approaching doom.” Gockel was amazed that the Allies were coming at low tide. During an inspection in May, Rommel had assured the lieutenant in command of WN 62 that the Allies would come at high tide.
Gockel was even more amazed when the naval bombardment lifted and he discovered no one in his platoon had been killed, only a few wounded. “We crouched small and helpless behind our weapons. I prayed for survival.”
Then, “the sea came alive. Assault boats and landing craft were rapidly approaching the beach. A comrade stumbled out of the smoke and dust into my position and screamed, ‘Franz, watch out! They’re coming!’ ”
The 75mm cannon at WN 62 fired on one of the American tanks. The tank fired back. The shell exploded inside the casemate and put the German gun out of commission.44 It was 0630 at Omaha Beach.
I. In an after-action report dated September 22, 1944, Rear Adm. John L. Hall, commanding Assault Force “O,” commented: “Because of the vulnerability of its flotation equipment and the general unseaworthiness of the entire vehicle the DD tank is not a practicable weapon for use in assault landings on open beaches.” Copy in EC. Hall’s conclusion was sound, but it was three months late.