Area Nine
HISTORICAL SECTION
O MAHA Beach has arguably become the most iconic of the D-Day landing areas. From its early portrayal in films like The Longest Day to a point where it achieved almost legendary status in Saving Private Ryan the fighting here has attracted much interest, and, to a degree, much controversy. OMAHA Beach was where D-Day went seriously wrong, where casualties were at their highest – more men died on OMAHA than all the Commonwealth beaches put together – but where the bravery and tenacity of individuals overcame adversity. Bloody OMAHA it was, tragic its losses certainly were, but for the American Second World War generation it came to symbolise all that USA gave in the war.
Major General Leonard T. Gerow commanded US V Corps.
The 29th Division Landings on OMAHA Beach. National Archives
OMAHA Beach covers a wide area from Vierville-sur-Mer in the west across to Colleville-sur-Mer to the east, a distance of nearly 4½ miles. The beach was unlike all other D-Day locations in that it did not immediately lead to an urbanised area with good roads. Instead, the beach was dominated by a high bluff, and on the eastern flanks, sheer rocks. The only way off the beach was via four ‘draws’ – minor roads set in a gully that led up off the beach area to a lateral inland road. Once the beach was in Allied hands, the plan was to improve the road exits to allow the huge amount of men and traffic that would follow to exploit the advance inland. While far from ideal, OMAHA had been selected because it offered the only landing area between the Cotentin peninsula where the rest of the American forces would land and GOLD Beach, the right flank of the British landings. It also provided a suitable location to build a second Mulberry harbour, so that American troops could be properly resupplied post-D-Day.
Aerial view of the landings at Omaha Beach on D-Day.
Two infantry divisions were detailed to land here at H Hour; the 1st Division to the east and 29th Division in the west. Both were part of Major General Leonard T. Gerow’s V Corps. Their objective was to secure OMAHA Beach, link up with the British on the left just north of Bayeux and meet up with the airborne forces around Carentan and ground forces that had landed on Utah Beach. This was part of the overall strategy to take the Cotentin peninsula and push on to Cherbourg so that a deep-water port could be captured. The major potential threat to the landings was a gun battery at Pointe du Hoc, further supported by others close to Grandcamp-Maisy. These needed to be neutralised to ensure success on OMAHA and as objectives were allocated to American Ranger units (see the Pointe du Hoc Walk, p. 205).
The two OMAHA divisions were very different. The 1st was part of the American regular army and had a long tradition of fighting, and indeed had been in action in both North Africa and Sicily. Its unit commanders were experienced combat veterans who had taken part in amphibious operations, and many of its men had been in action several times. The 29th Division, in contrast, had never seen combat. It was a National Guard division with men recruited in specific geographic areas, much like the Territorial Army system in the British Army. From towns and cities in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia, men had joined up together, trained together and now were about to go to war together. Although the division was ‘raw’, like many British formations with no front-line experience, it had undergone extensive battle training and amphibious warfare training prior to Overlord. It was also felt that the common bond between the men because of where the division had been recruited gave it excellent esprit de corps.
On paper OMAHA Beach was not wide enough to land two divisions side by side. However, there was a necessity to do so and as much faith had been placed in the ability of the pre-D-Day bombardment to take out the major defences that this was not considered much of an issue. The beach was therefore divided into two divisional areas with four narrow sub-sectors – Dog Green to Easy Green – where the 29th would come in between the Vierville and Les Moulins draws, and wider sectors – Easy Red to Fox Red – where 1st Division would assault between St Laurent and above a hamlet called Le Grand Hameau. Supporting them were ships from two Naval Task Forces and Sherman DD tanks from two different armoured battalions. As on the British beaches, the key to breaching the defences of the Atlantic Wall were engineers, and on OMAHA a Special Engineer Task Force commanded by Colonel John O’Neill was supported by two Engineer Special Brigades. These men would clear the mines, cut lanes in the barbed wire, neutralise any remaining bunkers and make the beach suitable for heavy traffic to be unloaded. They would then set about modifying the draws so they offered better exits from the beach; for this task they had Sherman bulldozer tanks and also engineer bulldozers. Unlike the British beaches, there were no AVREs or ‘Funnies’ – in fact, the only such vehicle used by the Americans was the DD tank.
Opposing the assault troops were German units from the 352nd Infantry Division commanded by General Dietrich Kraiss, a formation responsible for a long stretch of coastline from the Cotentin area to Asnelles. Kraiss had divided his coastline into three defensive areas. The first between Carentan and Grandcamp was held by the 914th Grenadier Regiment supported by an artillery battalion and men from an Ost Battalion. The second sector was between Grandcamp and Colleville-sur-Mer and held by the 916th Grenadier Regiment, with artillery from two different battalions. The final sector was from Colleville to Asnelles and here the 726th Grenadier Regiment manned the bunkers, with an artillery battalion offering fire support. Prior to D-Day, in a rare example of Allied intelligence failure, it was believed this stretch of coast was held by the same division as on the British sectors and that the 352nd was well inland near St Lo. As such the intelligence briefings for both American divisions detailed to land at OMAHA indicated that no more than a thousand men defended the whole beach, with a handful of units up to 3 hours away. In fact, many more times that number were available, and all close to the coastline.
The German defences at OMAHA made full use of the terrain. The high bluffs above the beach offered both good vantage points for the artillery battalion observers and also for sighting anti-tank guns and machine-gun positions. On the area where the landings were planned to take place there were fifteen Weiderstandnest (WN-60 – WN-74) equipped with anti-tank weapons ranging in calibre from 47mm to 88mm, along with 20mm flak positions and numerous machine-gun positions. The majority of these were equipped with the older MG34, which could fire anything up to 1,200 rounds a minute depending on which model it was and whether it was mounted on a tripod, bipod or fixed position. Estimates for the number of machine guns vary, but it is commonly accepted that at least 85 weapons were available to the defenders, meaning that it was possible to direct something like a 100,000 rounds a minute down on to the beach. In addition, there were fifteen mortar positions and on nine of the bunkers turrets from redundant French tanks were fitted. With the superb fields of fire, all of them overlapping, OMAHA offered a considerable obstacle to any landings. Add to that minefields, anti-tank ditches and barbed wire, plus the artillery support to the rear with guns up to 150mm, like all D-Day beaches it would be no walk over.
In the final hours leading up to D-Day these defences were bombed from the air, and finally hit by naval gun fire from both American and British ships firing shells up to 14in calibre. The landings were timed to take place an hour before the British assault, with only 30 minutes of daylight accurately to direct the naval bombardment before the first landing craft hit the beaches. All the assault vessels were launched at 11 miles from the beach to stop them being hit by shore fire, which resulted in a long final approach in very rough seas, making things even tougher for the troops inside. The weather was poor with rain and wind, and a sea swell of several metres. A decision was also made to launch all the DD tanks at 6,000yd from the beach, the greatest distance they were released on D-Day. Dozens of Shermans were thrown into the rough seas, as waves beat against their canvas sides, signalling the start of their journey to support the infantry landings.
The 352nd Division reported that they could see Allied shipping at 0502, and orders went in to the German gun batteries behind OMAHA Beach to take on targets at sea. By 0550 the Allied naval bombardment was in full swing, with shells dropping all along the landing area, and 6 minutes later the final air bombardment began. Like all of the British beaches, this preliminary fire proved largely ineffective. It was difficult to co-ordinate accurately and some targets were very small, while others avoided detection in the half-light. The aerial bombardment was often way off the mark and the final part of the bombardment took place with a ‘run-in shoot’ of 105mm M7 Priests firing from LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks) as they approached the beach and rockets from Landing Craft Tank (Rocket)s. While the German troops under this terrible rain of steel were pushed to the limit of their endurance, the majority of their weapons remained intact as the American landing craft made the final approach.
Troops come ashore at OMAHA in a hailstorm of fire.
The two assaulting regiments were the 116th Infantry Regiment from 29th Division on the right, commanded by Colonel Charles D.W. Canham, and the 16th on the left, from 1st Division, commanded by Colonel George A. Taylor. Both these regiments, as was standard practice in the American Army, had been divided into Regimental Combat Teams (RCT). These were all-arms formations combining infantry, engineers and support weapons such as mortars and bazookas. But before these men would land American Engineers from Gap Assault Teams were detailed to land to clear paths through the minefields and wire and mark them for the follow-up waves; they had as little as 30 minutes to achieve this. On British beaches these men would have been assisted by armoured vehicles; on OMAHA there were none, as there were no Funnies. The DD tanks, meant to support them, had launched so far out they had now floundered. The historian of the 741st Tank Bn wrote that,
on the order, the tanks rolled gracefully into the rough sea and many of them sank immediately, carrying many men to watery graves. The more fortunate were able to leave their sinking tanks and swim about until rescued . . . Only one platoon of B Company beached, none of C Company . . . The Tanks that landed carried out their missions . . . [but] smooth operation was hampered by the dead bodies which lay about all over the beach. Frequently the crews had to pull a few bodies from their path, and proceed.1
In total some twenty-seven of the twenty-nine tanks launched at 6,000yd sank. Just three tanks made it in from LCTs but all became casualties on the beach.
This meant these combat engineers landed on their own facing the whole cacophony of firepower that remained on OMAHA Beach. The official history recalled their problems.
Men burdened with equipment and explosives were excellent targets for enemy fire as they unloaded in water often several feet deep. Of 16 doers only 6 got to the beach in working condition, and 3 of these were immediately disabled by artillery hits. Much equipment, including nearly all buoys and poles for marking lanes, was lost or destroyed before it could be used. Eight navy personnel of Team 11 were dragging the preloaded rubber boat off their LCM [Landing Craft Mechanised] when an artillery shell burst just above the load of explosives and set off the primacord. One of the eight survived. Another shell hit the LCM of Team 14, detonating explosives on the deck and killing all navy personnel. Team 15 was pulling in its rubber boat through the surf when a mortar scored a direct hit and touched to the explosives, killing three men and wounding four. Support Team F came in about 0700. A first shell hit the ramp, throwing three men into the water. As the vessel drifted of out of control, another hit squarely on the bow, killing 15 of the team. Only five army personnel from this craft reached shore. Despite such disasters and under continued intense fire, the engineers got to work on obstacles wherever they landed and with whatever equipment and explosives they could salvage. Some of the teams arriving a few minutes late found the rapidly advancing tide already into the lower obstacles. Infantry units landing behind schedule or delayed in starting up the beach came through the demolition parties as they worked, and thereby impeded their progress. One of the three doers left in operation was prevented from manoeuvring freely by riflemen who tried to find shelter behind it from the intense fire. As a final handicap, there were instances where teams had fixed their charges, were ready to blow their lane, and were prevented by the fact that infantry were passing through or were taking cover in the obstacles. When Team 7 was set to fire, an LCVP [Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel] came crashing into the obstacles, smashed through the timbers, and set off seven mines; the charge could not be blown. In another case, vehicles passed through the prepared area and caused misfire by cutting the primacord fuse linking the charges. A naval officer, about to pull the twin-junction igniters to explode his charge, was hit by a piece of shrapnel that cut off his finger and the two fuses. The charge laid by Team 12 went off but at heavy cost. Their preparations completed for a 30-yard gap, the team was just leaving the area to take cover when a mortar shell struck the primacord. The premature explosion killed and wounded 19 engineers and some infantry nearby.
In net result, the demolition task force blew six complete gaps through all bands of obstacles, and three partial gaps. Of the six, only two were in the 116th’s half of the beach, and four were on Easy Red, a fact which may have influenced later landing chances. Owing to the loss of equipment, only one of the gaps could be marked, and this diminished their value under high-water conditions. Their first effort made, the demolition teams joined the other assault forces on the shingle or sea wall and waited for the next low tide to resume their work. Casualties for the Special Engineer Task Force, including navy personnel, ran to 41 percent for D Day, most of them suffered in the first half-hour.2
Wave after wave is brought in.
As the work of the remaining engineers was still on-going the first wave of infantry came ashore. The weather had blown many landing craft off course, and many crews were about to put their loads down in the wrong part of the beach. This meant that the RCTs were immediately broken up, with vital equipment landing some distance from where it was needed, for example. A typical assault team looked like this,
Each LCVP carried an average of 31 men and an officer. The 116th assault craft were loaded so that the first to land would be a section leader and 5 riflemen armed with M-1s and carrying 96 rounds of ammunition. Following was a wire-cutting team of 4 men, armed with rifles; 2 carried large ‘search-nose’ cutters, and 2 a smaller type. Behind these in the craft, loaded so as to land in proper order were: 2 BAR [Browning Automatic Rifle] teams of 2 men each, carrying 900 rounds per gun; 2 bazooka teams, totalling 4 men, the assistants armed with carbines; a mortar team of 4 men, with a 60-mm mortar and 15 to 20 rounds; a flame-thrower crew of 2 men; and, finally, 5 demolition men with pole and pack charges of TNT. A medic and the assistant section leader sat at the stern. Everybody wore assault jackets, with large pockets and built-in packs on the back; each man carried, in addition to personal weapons and special equipment, a gas mask, 5 grenades (the riflemen and wire-cutters also had 4 smoke grenades), a half-pound block of TNT with primacord fuse, and 6 one third rations (3 Ks and 3 Ds). All clothing was impregnated against gas. The men wore life preservers (2 per man in 16th Infantry units), and equipment and weapons of the 16th were fastened to life preservers so that they could be floated in.3
As a coherent force, this array of firepower and equipment would mean that the RCTs had a good chance of overcoming the predicted opposition. The Americans landing knew the enemy they faced was second-rate, comprising large numbers of ethnic, non-German troops, and that their weapons and defences had been shattered by the pre-H Hour bombardment. But the enemy had survived. His defences were intact and his weapons were ready. Second-rate the Grenadiers may have been compared to the average Allied soldier, but they had practised time and again at repelling an invader and now they were about to do it for real.
As the ramps in the first wave went down all hell broke loose. Machine guns fired from the bluffs. Guns from the WNs opened up on landing craft. Artillery shells dropped in the sand and surf, directed by observers on the high ground. Men were cut down as they tried to get off the boats, others were scythed down before they even had a chance to move forward. Boats exploded in fireballs. The survivors went to ground, tucked up against the beach defences the assault engineers had tried to clear, many of them now surrounded by the bodies of the engineers who had died in the first moments of the battle. More waves landed, and the casualties mounted. The story of LCI 91 tells a typical tale of woe.
The landing craft make journey after journey.
The LCI was struck by artillery fire as it made a first attempt to get through the obstacles. Backing out, the craft came in again for a second try. Element ‘C’ was barely showing above the rising tide, and the LCI could not get past. The ramps were dropped in six feet of water. As some officers led the way off, an artillery shell (or rocket) hit the crowded forward deck and sent up a sheet of flame. Clothes burning, men jumped or fell off into the sea and tried to swim in under continued artillery fire. It is estimated that no personnel escaped from No. 1 compartment of the craft out of the 25 carried there. A few minutes later LCI 92 came into the same sector and suffered almost the same fate, an underwater explosion setting off the fuel tanks. The two craft burned for hours.4
OMAHA all too quickly turned from a coherent organised battle into a thousand small engagements; each one personal, each one unique. Here and there handfuls of men got forward into cover near the edge of the beach. On the 1st Division sector there was a rock face up against the bluff many sought cover against; photographs show men here without equipment and without weapons, shock visible on their faces. Further down men had crawled to a sand embankment and sought cover there, the open ground beyond to the base of the bluffs impassable due to mines, wire and heavy fire. On the 29 Division area there was precious little cover and the beaches swept by fire, the high tide of the advance marked by men close up against the sea wall. Officers trying to take command soon became casualties, and junior leaders soon followed them. Chaos does little justice to describe the conditions that prevailed in those early hours of the landing.
Under different circumstances tank support would have tipped the balance, but only a handful of DD tanks had made it to the shore, and while some had been landed close to shore from LCTs they had quickly come under fire and were knocked out or immobilised. It was clear to the men on the ground that it was going to be a battle of small groups of men looking for a weakness and exploiting it.
The outstanding fact about these first two hours of action is that despite heavy casualties, loss of equipment, disorganization, and all the other discouraging features of the landings, the assault troops did not stay pinned down behind the sea wall and embankment. At half-a-dozen or more points on the long stretch, they found the necessary drive to leave their cover and move out over the open beach flat toward the bluffs. Prevented by circumstance of mislandings from using carefully rehearsed tactics, they improvised assault methods to deal with what defences they found before them. In nearly every case where advance was attempted, it carried through the enemy beach defences. Some penetrations were made by units of company strength; some were made by intermingled sections of different companies; some were accomplished by groups of 20 or 30 men, unaware that any other assaults were under way. Even on such terrain as OMAHA Beach, the phenomenon of battlefield ‘isolation’ was a common occurrence, and units often failed to see what was going on 200 yards to their flanks on the open beach.5
Despite this isolation, gradually these individual efforts began to be joined up, and slowly but surely the defences began to fall. One of those who helped turn the fortunes of battle on OMAHA was Brigadier General Norman Cota. His party had landed an hour or so into operations.
Major General Norman Cota.
Beginning at 0730, regimental command parties began to arrive. The main command group of the 116th RCT included Col. Charles D. W. Canham and General Cota. LCVP 71 came in on Dog White, bumping an obstacle and nudging the Teller mine until it dropped off, without exploding. Landing in three feet of water, the party lost one officer in getting across the exposed area. From the standpoint of influencing further operations, they could not have hit a better point in the 116th one. To their right and left, Company C and some 2nd Battalion elements were crowded against the embankment on a front of a few hundred yards, the main Ranger force was about to come into the same area, and enemy fire from the bluffs just ahead was masked by smoke and ineffective. The command group was well located to play a major role in the next phase of action.6
Cota is reputed to have said to his men ‘Gentlemen, we are being killed on the beaches. Let us go inland and be killed.’ Whatever was said his presence, along with the other officers of his command group, helped tip the balance,
Reorganization for assault was spurred by the presence of General Cota and the command group of the 116th Infantry . . . Exposed to enemy fire, which wounded Colonel Canham in the wrist, they walked up and down behind the crowded sea wall, urging officers and non-coms to ‘jar men loose’ and get moving.7
Get moving they did. During the course of the rest of the day gradually WN after WN was overrun. Men advanced along the bluffs, neutralising machine-gun positions and trench systems. Clear from fire, engineers could then do the work they had trained for and clear lanes so the bulk of the survivors, tucked into cover, could move forward and exploit the situation. Battle after battle like this took place well into the late afternoon and by the early evening the last remaining resistance was inland close to the villages of St Laurent-sur-Mer and Colleville-sur-Mer. The battle for OMAHA beachhead was effectively over. It had nearly been a failure. The whole American timetable for D-Day was now seriously off kilter given that it had taken most of the day to get off the beach rather than a few hours. What had gone so wrong? Why had OMAHA been so bloody?
The beach now secure, the follow-up waves arrive.
No enquiry was ever made into what had happened at OMAHA Beach, nor was it the subject of any congressional investigation as some of the American failures in Italy were post-war. It still remains the subject of great debate, but what must be stated is the eventual outcome of OMAHA was only possible because of the tenacity and bravery of those who were thrown onto the beach on D-Day. Lacking armour support, with no engineer vehicles and specialists scattered wide with only limited kit, heroism and initiative got the men off the beaches. But could it have been any different? Like all the British beaches, the defences had survived the pre-D-Day strikes intact. On the British beaches a combination of specialist equipment from the Funnies, greater availability of armour (with DD tanks being launched much closer to the beach) and engineers arriving at the same time as the armour meant that despite casualties and much opposition the defences could – and were – overcome. The American plan to land the engineers on their own, the lack of any serious armoured support and the lack of specialist equipment the British had certainly contributed to the problems and the casualties, but there is no doubt that the nature of the terrain at OMAHA – a defenders’ paradise – helped tip the balance in the favour of the Germans. It is only when you stand on OMAHA Beach now and look back up to the bluffs that you can appreciate what a task was asked of the men here on D-Day. What of the losses? What did it cost to get off OMAHA Beach on D-Day? While certain aspects of the landings at OMAHA Beach remain a mystery, one of the greatest of them is the subject of casualties. The official history made the following observation in the post-war report,
Unit records for D Day are necessarily incomplete or fragmentary, and losses in men and materiel cannot be established in accurate detail. First estimates of casualties were high, with an inflated percentage of ‘missing’ as a result of the number of assault sections which were separated from their companies, sometimes for two or three days. On the basis of later, corrected returns, casualties for V Corps were in the neighbourhood of 3,000 killed, wounded, and missing. The two assaulting regimental combat teams (16th and 116th) lost about 1,000 men each. The highest proportionate losses were taken by units which landed in the first few hours, including engineers, tank troops, and artillery.
Whether by swamping at sea or by action at the beach, materiel losses were considerable, including twenty-six artillery pieces and over fifty tanks. No satisfactory over-all figures are available for vehicles and supplies; one unit, the 4042nd Quartermaster Truck Company, got ashore only thirteen out of thirty-five trucks (2½ ton), but this loss was much higher than the average. On the Navy side, a tentative estimate gives a total of about 50 landing craft and 10 larger vessels lost, with a much larger number of all types damaged. The principal cause for the difficulties of V Corps on D Day was the unexpected strength of the enemy at the assault beaches.8
The assault troops depleted, the men of the 2nd Division arrive to push inland.
Even seventy years after the event the full extent of the casualties is not known, but most historians now accept that certainly more American soldiers died on OMAHA Beach than all the other beaches put together, putting fatalities, therefore, at well over 2,000. The records of the American Battlefields and Monuments Commission, which manages the cemetery that overlooks the beach, only have records of those buried in its cemeteries, not those who were repatriated, so the more than 1,000 graves there bearing the date of 6 June 1944 will continue to represent but a fraction of the true story of the tragedy until more detailed research finally explains what D-Day cost the USA on ‘Bloody OMAHA’.
Walk 9: On OMAHA Beach
STARTING POINT: Car park of the Normandy American Cemetery, St Laurent-sur-Mer
GPS: 49°21′28.3″N, 0°51′03.9″W
DURATION: 14.5km/9 miles
With stops at the cemetery, visitors’ centre and one of the museums en route, this is a full-day walk. Food can be obtained at Les Moulins but it is easier to take some with you.
Leave your vehicle in the parking area of the cemetery (opening hours are 9am – 6pm, 15 April – 15 September, and 9am – 5pm the rest of the year) and begin your tour at the visitors’ centre. This can take up to an hour, and then afterwards explore the cemetery before actually starting the walk.
The visitors’ centre at the Normandy American Cemetery.
The Normandy American Cemetery has become one of the most famous American war cemeteries, having been featured in the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. The site was dedicated in July 1956 and covers 172 acres. There are 9,386 graves here and a further 1,557 names inscribed on the memorial to the missing. Many believe that it is the largest American war cemetery in Europe; in fact, that is the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery, near Verdun from the First World War. However, the sheer scale of the American sacrifice is understood here with crosses seemingly going on into infinity. It is all the more sobering when you consider this is only part of the story; the American repatriated more than 60 per cent of their dead after the Second World War, a practice started after the previous world war.
An immediate post-war aerial photograph of the Normandy American Cemetery. (US National Archives)
American graves either take the form of a marble cross or Star of David in the case of Jewish servicemen. The name of the casualty is reproduced in full along with his rank, unit, division, state where he came from and date of death. No details of age are recorded, and it was decided that personal inscriptions would not be added in the same way as they were in Commonwealth cemeteries. In this way the graves are not as personal. The following Medal of Honour winners are buried here:
Technical Sergeant Frank Peregory (Block G, Row 21, Grave 7) 116th Infantry, 29th Division. He was killed on 14 June 1944 and the decoration was for bravery at Grandcamp-Maisy on 8 June. His citation reads:
On 8 June 1944, the 3rd Battalion of the 116th Infantry was advancing on the strongly held German defenses at Grandcamp, France, when the leading elements were suddenly halted by decimating machinegun fire from a firmly entrenched enemy force on the high ground overlooking the town. After numerous attempts to neutralize the enemy position by supporting artillery and tank fire had proved ineffective, T/Sgt. Peregory, on his own initiative, advanced up the hill under withering fire, and worked his way to the crest where he discovered an entrenchment leading to the main enemy fortifications 200 yards away. Without hesitating, he leaped into the trench and moved toward the emplacement. Encountering a squad of enemy riflemen, he fearlessly attacked them with hand grenades and bayonet, killed 8 and forced 3 to surrender. Continuing along the trench, he single-handedly forced the surrender of 32 more riflemen, captured the machine gunners, and opened the way for the leading elements of the battalion to advance and secure its objective. The extraordinary gallantry and aggressiveness displayed by T/Sgt. Peregory are exemplary of the highest tradition of the armed forces.
First Lieutenant Jimmie W. Monteith Jr (Block I, Row 20, Grave 12) 116th Infantry, 29th Division. He was killed on 6 June 1944 and the medal was awarded posthumously for bravery that day. His citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, near Colleville-sur-Mer, France. 1st Lt. Monteith landed with the initial assault waves on the coast of France under heavy enemy fire. Without regard to his own personal safety he continually moved up and down the beach reorganizing men for further assault. He then led the assault over a narrow protective ledge and across the flat, exposed terrain to the comparative safety of a cliff. Retracing his steps across the field to the beach, he moved over to where 2 tanks were buttoned up and blind under violent enemy artillery and machine gun fire. Completely exposed to the intense fire, 1st Lt. Monteith led the tanks on foot through a minefield and into firing positions. Under his direction several enemy positions were destroyed. He then rejoined his company and under his leadership his men captured an advantageous position on the hill. Supervising the defence of his newly won position against repeated vicious counterattacks, he continued to ignore his own personal safety, repeatedly crossing the 200 or 300 yards of open terrain under heavy fire to strengthen links in his defensive chain. When the enemy succeeded in completely surrounding 1st Lt. Monteith and his unit and while leading the fight out of the situation, 1st Lt. Monteith was killed by enemy fire. The courage, gallantry, and intrepid leadership displayed by 1st Lt. Monteith is worthy of emulation.
The sheer scale of the Normandy American Cemetery is staggering.
Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr (Plot D, Row 28, Grave 45)
Commanding 4th Division. He died of a heart attack on 12 July 1944. The medal was awarded for bravery in the Normandy campaign. The son of the President, his brother ’s grave from the First World War was moved so they could be buried side by side. His citation reads:
For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, in France. After 2 verbal requests to accompany the leading assault elements in the Normandy invasion had been denied, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt’s written request for this mission was approved and he landed with the first wave of the forces assaulting the enemy-held beaches. He repeatedly led groups from the beach, over the seawall and established them inland. His valour, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack and his complete unconcern at being under heavy fire inspired the troops to heights of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Although the enemy had the beach under constant direct fire, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt moved from one locality to another, rallying men around him, directed and personally led them against the enemy. Under his seasoned, precise, calm, and unfaltering leadership, assault troops reduced beach strong points and rapidly moved inland with minimum casualties. He thus contributed substantially to the successful establishment of the beachhead in France.
Other interesting graves include:
Two brothers who inspired Saving Private Ryan (Block F, Row 15, Graves 11 and 12)
Second Lieutenant Preston Niland 22nd Infantry and Sergeant Robert Niland 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR). Robert was killed on D-Day and Preston on 7 June. A third brother was thought killed in the Pacific, so the fourth was allowed home. However, the brother in the Pacific actually survived the war. It was their story that largely inspired the script writers of Saving Private Ryan.
Father and son (Block E, Row 20, Graves 19 and 20)
Colonel Ollie Reed, 115th Infantry died on 30 July 1944 and his son First Lieutenant Ollie Reed Jr of the 163rd Infantry had died earlier on 6 July. Colonel Reed was from Kansas and had served in the First World War, becoming a regular army officer in the inter-war period. His son died in Italy and the Colonel’s wife requested that his body be brought here for burial so father and son could rest side by side.
Leave the cemetery on a minor road and follow it to where a grass path heads off towards an obelisk memorial. This leads you into an area where the remains of German trenches are visible along with concrete Tobruk pits. The defences in this area are all part of WN-62 which overlooked Fox Green beach where men from both the 16th and 116th Regiments landed, having become mixed up due to the tides. The potential fields of fire from this position are easy to comprehend. The bunkers here housed anti-tank weapons, there were machine-gun positions and some of the Tobruks contained mortars. The memorial commemorates the losses of the 1st Division in the opening phase of the Normandy campaign until 24 July 1944 and lists all those who died during that period. Medal of Honour winners are picked out in gold lettering.
Memorial to the 1st Division overlooking the beach where they landed.
From here walk down to the beach. Each bunker can be visited or the well-trodden path can be followed. On one of the bunkers is a memorial to the US Engineer units which took part in the assault in this area. From here go out onto the beach and stop and look back.
From this part of the beach looking back up to the bluffs it is possible to comprehend the enormous task facing the American troops who landed here on D-Day, and the great advantage the German defenders had. Throughout the walk stop and look back up the beach like this, as it will certainly reinforce the point about how terrain influences battles.
The defences above the beach are still visible, including many trenches and dugouts.
American Engineers Memorial; without teams of Engineers, breaking the defences would have been impossible.
The sandbank on the edge of the beach where many troops sheltered, pinned down by machine-gun fire.
Continue along the beach. At high tide it may be necessary to walk close to the sand embankment where many men sheltered, if not, do not forget to inspect it as erosion is gradually making it disappear. Beyond it is the marshland once strewn with mines and barbed wire. About a kilometre down the beach go across the sand dunes where there is a path cut through; follow this across a small wooden footbridge to a car-park area below one of the bluffs and at the entrance to the Easy-1 Exit or draw.
The bunker here is part of the WN-65 defences and still houses the original anti-tank gun used on D-Day. Men from M/116th Infantry Regiment landed on the beach below the bunker but remained pinned down until later in the morning when naval gunfire scored a direct hit on the bunker (damage still visible) and a mixed unit of infantry, engineers and signallers assaulted the position and forced the remaining Germans to surrender. The bunker now has a number of memorials and the interior can be visited. The stairs to the left of the bunker mark an older route off the beach for American troops in the follow-up waves after D-Day; one of the most famous of Normandy photographs was taken here and can be seen on an information panel nearby. Going up the steps and looking back again demonstrates the advantage the defenders had from the bluffs.
The winter tide of 2011 exposed a handful of Rommel’s Asparagus, once part of the beach defences.
German bunker at WN-65 overlooking the beach at Omaha and still housing the original armament.
A more recent memorial on the beach commemorating the American sacrifice here on D-Day.
From the bunker walk downhill towards the houses and into Rue de la 2eme Division US. Follow this until it reaches the beach area again. Here you are overlooking Easy Green where parts of F/116th and G/116th Infantry landed. Either continue along the path by the road or drop down onto the beach. Continue until you reach the Battle of Normandy Memorial at Les Moulins.
Les Moulins was protected on both sides of the draw, to the west by WN-68 and to the east WN-66. Officially known as Dog-3 Exit, it was one of the planned routes off the beach but on D-Day was the scene of bloodshed as men from the 116th Infantry tried to get inland. Tanks from 743rd Tank Bn had been disembarked directly onto the beach rather than launched at sea and it became one of the few occasions where tanks were able to assist the scattered parties of infantry and engineers eventually to overrun the defences, although some tanks became casualties from guns in the bunkers. However, it wasn’t until the evening that the exit was finally secure after some bitter fighting in the bunkers and trenches atop the bluff.
Continue along the beach. Further up on the left is a marker stone set back from the road marking the site of the first American cemetery in France. It was one that was closed post-war and the graves either repatriated or removed to the Normandy American Cemetery.
Again continue until you reach the main National Guard Memorial at the far end of the beach. This commemorates the National Guard units of the 29th Division and is sited on top of one of the anti-tank bunkers of WN-72. Its field of fire is clearly visible. There are several other bunkers in the area, and one of the last easily visible pieces of the Mulberry harbour that was built here and later destroyed in the storms. Beyond the Mulberry section a track goes uphill to another bunker which is worth walking to as again it shows the fields of fire from the defences here. On a clear day the entire extent of OMAHA Beach can be seen from here.
Returning to the area of WN-72, follow the minor road to the left uphill. On this part of the route a memorial to the 29th Division and another to the Rangers will be seen, as well as some sections of a Mulberry roadway section that belong to a local museum. Stay on the minor road (Rue de la Mer) into Hamel-au-Prêtre. Turn second left into Rue Paveé (D514) and stay left before taking the first left into Rue du Hamel-au-Prêtre. This is then followed along the top of the bluffs and there are good views towards the beach. There are a few tracks that lead to the edge of the cliffs that offer a better view, but private property should be respected at all times. Further along the track becomes Rue du 6 Juin 1944, follow this downhill back to the Les Moulins area. At the roundabout take Rue Desire Lemiere and then first right onto Chemin de la Fresnaie. Follow this to where it joins the D517 and into St Laurent. Go through the village on Rue du Val. American troops did not reach this area until quite late on D-Day and there was still some German resistance in the area from the shattered units of 352nd Division. Continue out of the village and at a junction with a Normandy stone house on the left go straight on. This leads to an area where a memorial stone is visible. Stop.
Marker commemorating the first American cemetery ‘then and now’.
View from a German bunker on the far end of Omaha Beach showing the incredible fields of fire the Germans enjoyed.
This is on the bluffs above WN-65 and marks the site of one of the first American provisional airfields. This sort of infrastructure was vital to the success of D-Day and work began on this airfield, A-21, on 8 June, with the first Dakota transport landing here at 1800 the next day. The airfield was used to bring in supplies, evacuate wounded and provide an emergency landing ground for fighters and small bombers. There is an information panel showing contemporary aerial views of the site.
At the memorial take the right-hand minor road and go downhill. At the end turn right and at the end of this section turn left and follow the path through the trees. This brings you to the southern boundary of the Normandy American Cemetery and joins up with the paths in the cemetery returning you to the car park and your vehicle.