Omaha Beach was the codename for one of the principal landing points of the 
Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 
6, 1944, during World War II. The beach was located on the northern coast of 
France, facing the English Channel, and was 5 miles (8 km) long, from east of 
Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to west of Vierville-sur-Mer. Taking Omaha was to 
be the responsibility of United States Army troops, with sea transport provided 
courtesy of the U.S. Navy and elements of the Royal Navy.


On D-Day, the untested 29th Infantry Division, joined by 8 companies of U.S. 
Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, was to assault the western half of the 
beach. The battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern half. 
The primary objective at Omaha was to secure a beachhead between Port-en-Bessin 
and the Vire River, before pushing southward toward Saint-Lô.



Omaha became a tragedy for the U.S. troops. At dawn almost all the landing craft 
missed their targets, and troops took heavy casualties crossing the beach. The 
heavily defended exits off the beach could not be taken, causing congestion and 
delaying later landings. Small footholds were not won until midday, when random 
groups of survivors succeeded in improvised assaults up the bluffs between the 
exits.



Bounded at either end by rocky cliffs, the Omaha Beach crescent presented a gently 
sloping tidal area averaging 300 yards (275 m) between low and highwater marks. 
Above the tide line was a bank of shingle 8 feet (2.4 m) high and up to 15 yards 
(14 m) wide in some places. At the western end the shingle bank rested against a 
stone (further east becoming wood) constructed sea wall which ranged from 4-12 
feet (1.5-4 m) in height. For the remaining two thirds of the beach after the 
seawall ended the shingle lay against a low sand embankment. Behind the sand 
embankment and sea wall lay a level shelf of sand, narrow at either end and extending 
up to 200 yards (180 m) inland in the center. Steep escarpments or bluffs then 
rose 100-170 feet (30-50 m), dominating the whole beach and cut into by small 
wooded valleys or draws at five points along the beach, codenamed west to east 
D-1, D-3, E-1, E-3 and F-1.



The German defensive preparations and the lack of any defense in depth indicated that their plan 

was to stop the invasion at the beaches. Three lines of obstacles were constructed in the water. 

The first, 250 yards (230 m) out from the highwater line, consisted of Belgian Gates with mines 

lashed to the uprights. Some 25 yards (23 m) behind these were logs driven into the sand pointing 

seaward and also capped with mines whilst hedgehogs completed the obstacle belt 130 yards 

(120 m) from the shoreline. The area between the shingle bank and the bluffs was both wired and 

mined with the latter also scattered on the bluff slopes.



The main troop deployments were concentrated mostly at 12 strong points called Widerstandsnester 

located primarily around the entrances to the draws and protected by minefields and wire. Positions 

within each strong point were interconnected by trenches and tunnels. As well as the basic 

weaponry of rifles and machine guns a total of over 60 light artillery pieces were deployed at these 

strong points. The heaviest pieces were located in eight gun casemates and four open positions 

whilst the lighter guns were housed in 35 pillboxes. A further 18 anti-tank guns completed the 

disposition of artillery targeting the beach. Areas between the strong points were less lightly 

manned with occasional trenches, rifle pits and a further 85 machinegun emplacements. No 

area of the beach was left uncovered, and the disposition of weapons meant that flanking fire could 

be brought to bear anywhere along the beach.



Allied intelligence identified the coastal defenses as being manned by a reinforced battalion 

(800 – 1000 men) of the 716th Division. This was a static defensive division estimated to comprise 

up to 50% of non-Germanic troops, mostly Russian volunteers and German Volksdeutsche. The 

more experienced and offensively capable 352nd Division was indentified as being located 20 miles 

(30 km) inland at St. Lo and was regarded as the most likely force to be committed to a counter 

attack. In March 1944 however Rommel had ordered the 352nd forward to bolster the coastal 

defenses, reinforcing the coastal defenses with an additional two battalions that the Allied 

planners had not expected. Post action reports still accepted the original estimate and assumed 

that the 352nd had been deployed to the coastal defences by chance only a few days previously as 

part of an anti-invasion exercise



Omaha was divided into ten sectors codenamed, from west to east: Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog 

Green, Dog White, Dog Red, Easy Green, Easy Red, Fox Green, and Fox Red. The initial assault 

was to be made by two Regimental Combat Teams (RCT), supported by two tank battalions and 

with two battalions of Rangers attached. The infantry regiments were organized into three battalions 

each of around 1,000 men. These battalions were organized as three rifle companies each of up to 

240 men and a support company up to 190 men. Infantry companies A through D belonged to 

the 1st battalion of a regiment, E through H to the 2nd, I through M (excluding ‘J’) to the 3rd. 

(Individual companies will be referred to by company and regiment, e.g. Company A of the 116th 

RCT will be A/116). In addition each battalion had a headquarters company of up to 180 men. The 

tank battalions consisted of three companies, A through C, each of 16 tanks whilst the Ranger 

battalions were organized into six companies, A through F, of around 65 men per company.



The 116th RCT of the 29th Infantry Division was to land two battalions in the western four sectors, 

to be followed 30 minutes later by the third battalion. Their landings were to be supported by the 

tanks of the 743rd tank battalion; two companies swimming ashore in DD tanks and the remaining 

company landing directly onto the beach from assault craft. To the left of the 116th RCT the 16th 

RCT of the 1st Infantry Division was also to land two battalions with the third following 30 minutes 

after, on Easy Red and Fox Green at the eastern end of Omaha. Their tank support was to be 

provided by the 741st tank battalion, again two companies swimming ashore and the third landed 

conventionally.



Three companies of the 2nd Rangers were to take a fortified battery at Pointe du Hoc, three miles 

(5 km) to the west of Omaha. Meanwhile C company 2nd Rangers was to land on the right of the 

116th RCT and take the positions at Pointe de la Percee. The remaining companies of 2nd Rangers 

and the 5th Ranger battalion were to follow up at Pointe du Hoc if that action proved to be 

successful, otherwise they were to follow the 116th into Dog Green and proceed to Pointe du Hoc 

overland.



The landings were scheduled to start at 06:30, "H-Hour", on a flooding tide, preceded by a 40 minute 

naval and 30 minute aerial bombardment of the beach defenses, with the DD tanks arriving five 

minutes before H-Hour. The infantry were organized into sections, 32 men strong, one section to a 

landing craft, with each section assigned specific objectives in reducing the beach defenses.



Immediately behind the first landings the Special Engineer Task Force was to land with the mission 

of clearing and marking lanes through the beach obstacles. This would allow the larger ships of the

follow up landings to get through safely at high tide. The landing of artillery support was scheduled 

to start at H+90 minutes whilst the main build up of vehicles was to start at H+180 minutes.



At H+195 minutes two further Regimental Combat Teams, the 115th of the 29th Infantry Division 

and the 18th of the 1st Infantry Division were to land, with the 26th RCT of the 1st Infantry Division 

to be landed on the orders of the V Corps commander.



The objective was for the beach defenses to be cleared by H+2 hours whereupon the assault 

sections were to reorganize into and continue the battle as battalion formations. The draws were to 

be opened to allow traffic to exit the beach by H+3 hours. By the end of the day the forces at Omaha 

were to have established a bridgehead five miles (8 km) deep, linked up with the British XXX Corps 

landed at Gold beach to the east and be in position to move on Isigny the next day and link up 

with the American VII Corps landed at Utah beach to the west.



To execute this plan the Omaha assault force totaled 34,000 men and 3,300 vehicles with naval 

support provided by 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, 12 destroyers and 105 other ships. The 16th RCT 

(swollen by 3,502 men and 295 vehicles attached only for landing at the beach) numbered 9,828 

personnel, 919 vehicles and 48 tanks. To move this force required 2 transport ships, 6 Landing Ship, 

Tank (LST), 53 LCT's, 5 Landing Craft Infantry (Large) LCI(L), 81 LCVP's, 18 LCA's, 13 other 

landing craft, and about 64 DUKW’s



During the initial assault, nothing went according to plan. Ten landing craft were lost before they 

reached the beach, swamped by the rough seas, and seasickness was prevalent amongst the 

troops. On the 16th RCT front the boats passed men struggling in life preservers and on rafts, 

survivors of the DD tanks which had sunk. For the assault craft, navigation was made difficult by 

smoke and mist obscuring the landmarks they were using to guide themselves in, whilst a heavy 

current served to push them to the east.



As the boats came to within a few hundred yards of the shore the ineffectiveness of the pre-landing 

bombardments became clear when the landing craft came under increasingly heavy fire from 

automatic weapons and artillery. Forced by the weather to delay the dropping of bombs in order to 

avoid hitting the landing craft as they ran in, the aerial bombardment fell too far inland to have any 

real effect on the coastal defenses.



Concluding that the sea condition was too rough, the DD tanks of the 743rd battalion on the 116th 

RCT front were carried all the way to the beach. Coming in opposite the heavily defended Vierville 

draw, company B of the 743rd tank battalion (B/743) lost all but one of its officers and half of its 

tanks. The other two companies landed to the left of B/743 without initial loss. On the 16th RCT 

front, the two DD tanks that survived the swim ashore were joined by three others that had to be 

landed directly onto the beach when their LCT suffered damage to its ramp. The remaining tank 

company managed to land 14 of its 16 tanks, although three of these were quickly knocked out.



Of the nine companies landing in the first wave only Company A of the 116th RCT (A/116) at Dog 

Green and the Rangers to their right landed where they were supposed to. E/116, aiming for Easy 

Green, ended up scattered across the two sectors of the 16th RCT beach. G/116, aiming for Dog 

White, opened up a 1,000 yard gap between themselves and A/116 to their right when they landed 

at Easy Green. I/16 drifted so far east it did not land for another hour and a half.



As infantry disembarked from the landing craft, they found themselves almost everywhere on 

sandbars 50 to 100 yards out. Before they could even reach the beach they had to wade through 

water sometimes neck deep, and they still had a 200 yard or more journey to go when they did 

reach the shore. Those that made it to the shingle did so by floating in with the tide, then crawling 

while dragging their equipment behind them. Most sections had to brave the full weight of fire from 

small arms, mortars, artillery and the heavy interlocking fields of machine gun fire. Where the naval 

bombardment had set grass fires burning, as it had at Dog Red opposite the Les Moulins strong 

point, the resulting smoke obscured the landing troops and prevented effective fire from being laid 

down on them. Some sections of G/116 and F/116 were able to reach the shingle bank relatively 

unscathed, though the latter became disorganized after the loss of their officers. G/116 was able 

to retain some cohesion, but this was soon lost as it made its way westwards under fire along the 

shingle in an attempt to reach its assigned objectives. The scattering of the boats was most 

evident on the 16th RCT front where some sections of E/16, F/16 and E/116 became intermingled. 

This made it difficult for sections to come together to improvize company assaults that might have 

retrieved the situation caused by the mis-landings. Those scattered sections of E/116 landing at 

Easy Red were also able to escape heavy casualties, though having encountered a deep runnel 

after being landed on a sandbank they were forced to discard most of their weapons in order to 

be able to swim ashore.



Casualties were heaviest amongst the troops landing at either end of Omaha. In the east at Fox 

Green and the adjacent stretch of Easy Red scattered elements of three companies were reduced 

to half strength by the time they gained the relative safety of the shingle, many of them having 

crawled the 300 yards of beach just ahead of the incoming tide. Within 15 minutes of landing at 

Dog Green on the western end of the beach, A/116 had been cut to pieces, the leaders amongst 

the 120 or so casualties, the survivors reduced to seeking cover at the water's 

edge or behind obstacles. The smaller Ranger company to their right fared a little better, having 

made the shelter of the bluffs, but already down to half strength.



L/16 eventually landed 30 minutes late to the left of Fox Green, taking casualties as the boats ran 

in and more as they crossed the 200 yards of beach. The terrain at the very eastern end of Omaha 

however gave them enough protection to allow the 125 survivors to organize and begin an assault 

of the bluffs, the only company in the first wave able to operate as a unit. All the other companies 

were at best disorganized, mostly leaderless and pinned down behind the shingle with no hope of 

carrying out their assault missions. At worst they simply ceased to exist as a fighting unit. Nearly 

all had landed at least a few hundred yards off target, and in an intricately planned operation where 

each boat section had been assigned a specific task this was enough to throw the whole plan out.



Pushed off their targets just as the infantry were, only 5 of the 16 engineer teams arrived at their 

assigned locations. Three teams came in where there were no infantry or armor to cover them. 

Working under heavy fire the engineers set about their task of clearing gaps through the beach 

obstacles, their work made more difficult by loss of equipment and infantry passing through or 

taking cover behind the obstacles they were trying to blow. They suffered grievous casualties when 

enemy fire set off the explosives they were working with. Eight men of one team were dragging 

their pre-loaded rubber boat off the LCM when it was hit by artillery fire. The explosives on their 

boat were detonated; one man survived. Another team had just finished laying their explosives 

when the area was struck by mortar fire. The premature explosion of their charges killed or 

wounded 19 engineers as well as some infantry nearby. The engineers nevertheless succeeded in 

clearing six gaps; one each at Dog White and Easy Green on the 116th RCT front, the other four 

at Easy Red on the 16th RCT front. It cost them over 40% casualties.



With the initial assault missions unaccomplished the second, larger wave of assault landings, 

designed to bring in reinforcements, support weapons and headquarter elements, started coming 

ashore at 07:00 to similar conditions experienced by the first. Some relief against the largely 

unsuppressed defensive fire was gained simply by virtue of the fact that with more troops landing 

the concentration of fire was spread more about the many targets available. The survivors amongst 

the initial forces were not however able to give much covering fire, and the landing troops still 

suffered in places the same high casualty rates as those in the first wave. The failure to clear 

sufficient paths through the beach obstacles added to the difficulties of the second wave now 

that the tide was beginning to cover those obstacles. The loss of landing craft as they hit these 

defenses before they reached the shore began to feature in the rate of attrition. As in the initial 

landings, difficulties in navigation and the consequent mis-landings proved most disruptive, 

serving to scatter the infantry and to separate headquarters elements from their units.



The remainder of the 1st battalion 116th RCT; B/116, C/116 and D/116, were due to land in support 

of A/116 at Dog Green. Three boats carrying the battalion’s headquarters elements and Dog Green 

beach master group landed too far west, under the cliffs. There are no exact details of the casualties 

they took getting across the beach, but the one-third to one-half that did make it spent the rest of 

day pinned down by snipers. Dog Green remained a lethal sector. Not all sections of the badly 

scattered B/116 landed there, but those that did quickly joined the survivors of A/116 in their fight 

for survival at the water’s edge. Two companies of 2nd Rangers coming in later on the edge of Dog 

Green did manage to reach the sea wall, but it cost them half their strength to do so.



To the left of Dog Green the Dog White sector sitting between the Vierville and Les Moulins strong 

points (defending the draws codenamed D-1 and D-3 respectively) was a different story. As a result 

of earlier mis-landings and now because of their own mis-landing, the troops of C/116 found 

themselves alone there, only a handful of tanks from the first wave in sight. The smoke from the 

grass fires covered their advance up the beach, and they gained the sea wall with few casualties 

and in better shape than any unit on the 116th RCT front so far. Whilst the 1st battalion was 

effectively disarmed of its heavy weapons when D/116 suffered a disastrous landing, the build up 

at Dog White continued when C/116 was joined by the 5th Ranger battalion pretty much in its 

entirety. The Ranger commander, recognizing the situation at Dog Green on the run in, ordered 

the assault craft to divert into Dog White (the 2nd Rangers still got caught out on the right flank 

of the Ranger landing). This was also the sector where the 116th RCT regimental command 

group, including the 29th Division assistant commander Brigadier General Norman Cota was 

able to land relatively unscathed.



Further east a similar picture of the effectiveness of the strong point defenses emerges. On the Dog 

Red/Easy Green boundary the defenses around the Les Moulins strong point took a heavy toll as 

the remainder of the 2nd battalion; H/116 and headquarters elements, struggled ashore there. The 

survivors joined the remnants of F/116 behind the shingle where the battalion commander was able

to organize 50 men in an improvized advance across the shingle. A further advance up the bluffs 

just east of Les Moulins was too weak to have any effect and was forced back down. To their left, 

mainly between the draws on the Easy Green/Easy Red boundary, the 116th RCT support 

battalion landed without too much loss, though in the process becoming scattered and too 

disorganized to play any immediate part in an assault against the bluffs. 



On the 16th RCT front, the eastern end of Easy Red was another area between strong points that 

allowed G/16 and the support battalion to escape destruction in the advance up the beach. 

Nevertheless, most of G/16’s 63 casualties for the day were suffered before this company reached 

the shingle. The other 2nd battalion company landing in the second wave; H/16 came in a few 

hundred yards to the left opposite the E-3 draw and suffered for it, being put out of action for the 

next few hours.



The situation on the eastern most beach (Fox Green) where elements of five different companies 

had become mixed up was little improved by the equally disorganized landings of the second wave. 

Two more companies of the third battalion joined the melee, and I/16, part of the first wave that had 

drifted east, finally made a traumatic landing there at 08:00. A captain from this company found 

himself senior officer in charge of the badly out of shape 3rd battalion. 



Infantry were not the only troops to be landed in the second wave. Supporting arms began to arrive 

and experienced the same chaos and destruction as the rifle companies. Combat engineers tasked 

with clearing the exits and marking beaches landed without their equipment and a long way from 

their targets. The half tracks, jeeps and trucks that did not founder in deep water became jammed 

up on the narrowing beach, easy targets for artillery and mortar. The loss of the majority of radios 

made the task of organizing the scattered and dispirited troops even more difficult, and those 

command groups that did make the shore were limited in their effect to their immediate locality. 

With the exception of a few surviving tanks or a heavy weapons squad here or there the assault

troops had only their personal weapons, and these invariably required cleaning first after having 

been dragged through surf and sand.



The survivors at the shingle, the first time in combat for many, were relatively well protected from 

small arms fire but still exposed to artillery and mortars. To their front lay exposed and mined flats 

and the bluffs still active with enemy fire. Morale was a problem. Many groups were without 

leaders and were able to witness the fate of neighboring troops and the landings coming in behind 

them. Wounded men out on the beach were being drowned as the tide came in, and out to sea 

landing craft were being pounded and set ablaze.



As late as 13:35 the German 352nd division was reporting that the assault had been hurled back 

into the sea. From their vantage point at Pointe de la Percee overlooking the whole of the 

beach from the western end the German perception was that the assault had been stopped at the 

beach. An officer there noted that troops were seeking cover behind obstacles and counted ten 

tanks burning. Casualties amongst the defenders however were mounting, chiefly as a result of 

naval fire. At the same time that the 916th regiment, defending the centre of the 352nd zone, was 

reporting that the landings had been frustrated, it was also requesting reinforcement. The request 

could not be met because the situation elsewhere in Normandy was becoming more urgent for the

defenders. The reserve regiment, the 915th of the 352nd division, which had earlier been ordered 

against the American airborne landings to the west of Omaha, was diverted to the Gold beach 

zone east of Omaha when the defenses there crumbled.



One key feature of the landings was to influence the next phase of the battle. The draws, as 

natural conduits off the beaches, were the main targets in the initial assault plan. The strong 

defenses concentrated around these however meant that the troops landing near them quickly 

ended up in no shape to carry the assault against them. It was only in the intervals between the 

draws, at the bluffs, where units were able to land in greater strength and defenses were weaker, 

that advances could be made.



The other key aspect of the next few hours was leadership. The original plan was in tatters, units 

were mis-landed, disorganized and scattered, commanders had mostly fallen or were absent, and 

there were few means of communication more than the shouted command available to those that 

were left. In places small groups of men sometimes scratched together from different companies, 

in some cases from different divisions, were "…inspired, encouraged or bullied…"from the 

relative safety of the shingle to start the task of reducing the defenses at the top of the bluffs.



As early as 07:30 survivors of C company 2nd Rangers, who had landed 45 minutes earlier on the 

right flank of Omaha in the first wave, had scaled the cliffs near Dog White and the Vierville draw. 

Joined later by a mis-landed section from B/116 this group spent the better part of the day tying up 

and eventually taking the western most strong point defending draw D-1 at Vierville.



At 07:50 C/116 led the way off Dog White, forcing gaps in the wire with a Bangalore torpedo and 

wire cutters. More gaps were blown by 5th Rangers when they joined the advance 20 minutes later. 

The command party established themselves at the top of the bluff where elements of G/116 and

H/116 joined them following their lateral move along the beach earlier, and the narrow front was 

widened to the east before 09:00 when small parties from F/116 and B/116 crested just east of 

Dog White. The right flank of this penetration was covered by the survivors of the 2nd Rangers’ 

A and B companies who had fought their way to the top independently between 08:00 and 08:30 

before joining the 5th Rangers for the move inland.



The 3rd battalion 116th RCT forced its way across the flats and up the bluff between draws D-3 

and E-1 in individual groups, supported by the heavy weapons of M/116 who were held at the 

base of the bluff. Progress was slowed by mines on the bluff slopes but elements of all three rifle 

companies, as well as a stray section of G/116, gained the top by 09:00.



Between 07:30 and 08:30 elements of G/16, E/16, and E/116 came together and climbed the 

bluffs at Easy Red between the E-1 and E-3 draws. Hampered more by minefields than enemy 

fire they reached the top where G/16 continued south whilst E/16, led by Lieutenant Spalding 

engaged in a two hour battle against the eastern strong point defending the E-1 draw. His small 

group of just three men effectively neutralized this point by mid morning, just in time to prevent it 

from engaging fresh landings below. On the beach below the 16th RCT commander, Colonel 

George Taylor had landed at 08:15. With the words "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." he started to 

organize groups of men regardless of their unit, putting them under the command of the nearest 

noncommissioned officer and sending them through the area opened up by G/16. By 09:30 the 

regimental command post was set up just below the bluff crest, and the 1st and 2nd battalions 

of the 16th RCT reaching the crest were being sent inland.



On Fox Green, at the eastern end of Omaha, four sections of L/16 had survived their landing intact 

and they now led elements of I/16, K/16 and E/116 up the slopes. With supporting fire from the 

heavy weapons of M/16, tanks and destroyers, this force eliminated the strong point defending 

the draw at F-1 by 09:00, and the 3rd battalion 16th RCT commenced its move inland.



The only artillery support available to the troops in making these tentative advances came from the 

navy. With no naval shore parties in action, targets difficult to spot, and despite the trepidation 

caused by fear of hitting their own troops, the big guns of the battleships and cruisers concentrated 

on targets at the flanks of Omaha. The destroyers, however, were able to get in close, as near as 

1,000 yards (900 m) or less, occasionally scraping bottom while doing so. Watching the carnage 

unfold, some of them gathered under their own initiative and at 09:50, with the order "Get on them, 

men! Get on them! They are raising hell with the men on the beach, and we can’t have anymore 

of that! We must stop it!", every destroyer responded. An engineer landed in the first wave at Fox 

Red watched the Frankford steaming in to shore, thinking she had been hit and was being 

subsequently beached. Instead, she turned parallel to the beach and cruised westwards, guns 

blazing at targets of opportunity. Thinking she was going to turn back out to sea, the engineer 

realized that she had started to back up, still firing. At one point the gunners aboard the Frankford 

observed a disabled tank at the water’s edge, its firing capacity still active. They watched its fall 

of shot and followed it up with a salvo of their own. For the next few minutes the tank acted in 

this manner as the ship’s fire control party.



Whilst the coastal defenses had not succeeded in fully halting the invasion at the beach they did 

have the effect of breaking up and weakening the assault formations as they struggled through 

them. The German emphasis on devoting resources to this Main Line of Resistance (MLR) meant 

that defenses further inland were significantly weaker and based on small pockets of prepared 

positions less than company sized in strength. This tactic was however enough to disrupt American 

advances inland, causing difficulties even in reaching assembly areas, let alone achieving D-Day 

objectives. As an example of the effectiveness of this defense despite its weakness in 

numbers, the 5th Ranger battalion was halted in its advance inland by a single machine gun 

position hidden in a hedgerow. The attempt by one platoon to outflank the position ran into 

another machine gun position to the left of the first. A second platoon dispatched to take this 

new position on ran into a third machine gun position, and attempts to deal with this ran into fire 

from a fourth position. The success of the MLR in blocking the movement of heavy weapons off 

the beach meant that after four hours the Rangers were forced to give up on their attempts to 

move any further inland



Despite penetrations inland the key beach objectives had not been achieved. The draws necessary 

for the movement of vehicles off the beach had not been opened, and the strong points defending 

these were still putting up a spirited resistance. The failure to significantly clear the beach 

obstacles tended to force subsequent landings to concentrate in the Easy Green and Easy 

Red sectors.



Where vehicles were landing they found only a narrow strip of beach with no shelter from enemy 

fire, and around 08:30 the decision was taken to suspend all such landings. The closure of the 

beach to vehicles resulted in a jam of landing craft out to sea. The DUKW’s had a particularly hard 

time of it in the rough conditions. The experiences of the 111th Field Artillery battalion of the 116th 

RCT are indicative of the general situation these craft faced. Of the 13 DUKW’s being used to carry 

this unit in, five were swamped soon after disembarking from the LCT, four were lost as they 

circled in the rendezvous area waiting to land, and one capsized as they turned for the beach. 

Two were destroyed by enemy fire as they approached the beach, and the lone survivor managed 

to offload its howitzer to a passing craft before it also succumbed to the sea. This one gun 

eventually landed in the afternoon. 



The official record of Omaha reports that "…the tanks were leading a hard life…". According to the 

commander of the 2nd battalion 116th RCT the tanks "…saved the day. They shot the hell out of 

the Germans, and got the hell shot out of them." As the morning progressed the beach 

defenses were gradually being reduced, often by tanks. Scattered along the length of the beach, 

trapped between the sea and the impassable shingle embankment and with no operating radios 

amongst the commanders, tanks had to be controlled individually. This was perilous work; the 

commanding officer of the 111th Field Artillery who had landed ahead of his unit was killed as he

tried to direct the fire of one tank, the command group of the 741st tank battalion lost three out 

their group of five in their efforts and the commander of the 743rd tank battalion became a casualty 

as he approached one of his tanks with orders. When naval gunfire was brought to bear against 

the strong points defending the E-3 draw, a decision was made to try to force this exit with tanks. 

Colonel Taylor ordered all available tanks into action against this point at 11:00. Only three were 

able to reach the rallying point, and two were knocked out as they attempted to go up the draw, 

forcing the remaining tank to back off.



Reinforcement regiments were due to land by battalion, beginning with the 18th RCT at 09:30 on 

Easy Red. The first battalion; 2/18, arrived at the E-1 draw 30 minutes late after a difficult passage 

through the congestion off shore. Casualties were light, though despite the existence of a narrow 

channel through the beach obstacles the ramps and mines there accounted for the loss 22 LCVP’s, 

2 LCI(L)’s and 4 LCT’s. Supported by tank and subsequently naval fire the newly arrived troops took 

the surrender at 11:30 of the last strong point defending the entrance to the E-1 draw. Although a 

usable exit was finally opened, congestion prevented an early exploitation inland. The three 

battalions of the 115th RCT, scheduled to land from 10:30 on Dog Red and Easy Green came in 

together and on top of the 18th RCT landings at Easy Red. The confusion prevented the remaining 

two battalions of the 18th RCT from landing until 13:00 and delayed the move off the beach of all 

but 2/18, which had exited the beach further east before noon, until 14:00. Even then, this 

movement was hampered by mines and enemy positions still in action further up the draw.



By early afternoon the strong point guarding the D-1 draw at Vierville was silenced by the navy, 

but without enough force on the ground to mop up the remaining defenders the exit could not be 

opened. Traffic was eventually able to use this route by nightfall, and the surviving tanks of the 

743rd tank battalion spent the night near Vierville.



The advance of the 18th RCT cleared away the last remnants of the force defending the E-1 draw. 

When engineers cut a road up the western side of this draw, it became the main route inland off the 

beaches. With the congestion on the beaches thus relieved, they were re-opened for the landing of 

vehicles by 14:00. Further congestion on this route caused by continued resistance just inland at 

St. Laurent was bypassed with a new route, and at 17:00 the surviving tanks of the 741st tank 

battalion were ordered inland via the E-1 draw.



The F-1 draw, initially considered too steep for use, was also eventually opened when engineers 

laid down a new road. In the absence of any real progress opening the D-3 and E-3 draws landing 

schedules were revised to take advantage of this route, and a company of tanks from the 745th 

tank battalion were able to reach the high ground by 20:00.



Approaches to the exits were also cleared, with minefields lifted and holes blown in the embankment 

to permit the passage of vehicles. As the tide receded, engineers were also able to resume their 

work of clearing the beach obstacles, and by the end of the evening, 13 gaps were opened and 

marked.



Observing the build up of shipping off the beach and in an attempt to contain what was regarded as 

minor penetrations at Omaha, a battalion was detached from the 915th regiment being deployed 

against the British to the east. Along with an anti-tank company, this force was attached to the 

916th regiment and committed to a counter attack in the Coleville area in the early afternoon. It 

was stopped by "firm American resistance" and reported heavy losses The strategic situation 

in Normandy precluded the reinforcement of the weakened 352nd division. The main threat was 

perceived by the Germans to be the British beachheads to the east of Omaha, and these received 

the most attention from the German mobile reserves in the immediate area of Normandy. 

Preparations were made to bring up units stationed for the defense of Brittany, southwest of 

Normandy, but these would not arrive quickly and would be subject to losses inflicted in transit 

by overwhelming Allied air superiority. The last reserve of the 352nd division, an engineer battalion, 

was attached to the 916th regiment in the evening. It was deployed to defend against the expected 

attempt to breakout of the Colleville-St. Laurent beachhead established on the 16th RCT front. At 

midnight Gen. Dietrich Kraiss, commander of the 352nd division, reporting the total loss of men 

and equipment in the coastal positions, advised that he had sufficient forces to contain the 

Americans on D+1 but that he would need reinforcements thereafter, only to be told that there were 

no more reserves available.



Following the penetrations inland, confused hard fought individual actions pushed the foothold out 

barely a mile and a half (2.5 km) deep in the Coleville area to the east, less than that west of St. 

Laurent. Pockets of enemy resistance still fought on behind the American front line, and the whole 

beachhead remained under artillery fire. At 21:00 the landing of the 26th RCT completed the planned 

landing of infantry, but losses in equipment were high, including 26 artillery pieces, over 50 tanks, 

about 50 landing craft and 10 larger vessels. Of the 2,400 tons of supplies scheduled to be landed 

on D-Day, only 100 tons was actually landed. Casualties for V Corps were estimated at 3,000 killed, 

wounded and missing. The heaviest casualties were taken by the infantry, tanks and engineers in 

the first landings. The 16th and 116th RCT’s lost about 1,000 men each. Only five tanks of the 

741st tank battalion were ready for action the next day. The German 352nd division suffered 1,200 

killed, wounded and missing; about 20% of its strength. Its deployment at the beach caused 

such problems that General Bradley, commander of the U.S. First Army, at one stage considered 

evacuating Omaha and diverting V Corps forces to other beaches. The defeat of the 352nd at the 

beach, however, meant that this comparatively capable division was in no position to launch an 

effective counterattack. On D+1, the engineers constructed the first airfield to be built after D-Day, 

on the cliff near St. Laurent, and this was used by the Ninth Air Force to support the ground troops 

as, over the next two days, they accomplished the original D-Day objectives.




Photos generously submitted by: Jérôme Andre









A viewing of Omaha beach from the cemetery (viewing this, you can't imagine all the bloody fights...)









A little part of the memorial at Colleville cemetery









A very little part of headstones




The following are pictures of the cemetery and of Omaha Beach as well as the Memorial.
























































































































































































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