This story was originally written by me at our sister site Techography.com June 5th, 2006. As so many of my work, the original article is no longer in the archives there. I republished it here in May of 2010. I bring it back around every June as a remembrance to the D-Day Invasion and for those whom have gone before. It’s that time of year again, to bring it back to the front page. The time to Remember. Always, Remember.-BS
Our supporting Naval Fire got us in….without that gunfire we positively could not have crossed the beaches…” Col S. B. Mason Chief of Staff, 1st Division
I mentioned before I owned a picture of that painting. (You can too But mine has more history as I got mine from the now dissolved Navy Aviation Ordnance School out of Oceania, VA.) I received it from my father, a US Naval veteran, at age 7. It has hung on walls in my homes ever since, and in my bedroom as a lad. I never knew that years later I would be inspired to write about those units, that beach, that day. Maybe he did.
Water. My father and uncles told me once that at sea the ship becomes an island, and the water becomes all encompassing.
It surrounds the Landing craft, reminds you of that old poem
“Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink…”
The wind is cold, the spray is miserable. The clothes are soaked through, and the landing craft is pitching and yawing like a kite in a windstorm. The boys vomit from the roller-coaster affects of the seas and smashing waves that jar your teeth out of your head.
The place, is Normandy, the beach is Fox Green.
Welcome to the Invasion
There are so many things about which some old man ought to tell one while one is little; for when one is grown one would know them as a matter of course. -Rainer Maria Rilke
The Army units (known as Force O) include but not limited too, the 16th Infantry Regimental Combat Team of Major General Clarence R. Huebner’s 1st Infantry Division (The Big Red One) which had already seen plenty of combat in North Africa and on Sicily.
Attached to the 1st for most of the first day of this operation, known as “Overlord,” was the 116th Infantry Regimental Combat Team of Major General Charles Gerhardt’s 29th Infantry Division “Stonewall Brigade” a well-trained division which had not yet experienced combat.
Also Attached to A Company 16th Infantry was a Contingent (about 64 men) of 2nd Battalion US Army Rangers (Dog, Echo and Fox Companies, totaling 200 men).
The greatest use of life, is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
WIlliam James
The 16th, commanded by Colonel George A. Taylor, was scheduled to land on “Easy Red” and “Fox Green” beaches two sections of a five-mile-long beachhead code-named “Omaha;” the 116th’s assigned sectors, just to the west of the 16th¹s, were designated Dog Green, Dog White, and Dog Red.
Some Naval units involved include, but not limited too, LST-266, 6th Naval Beach Battalion (NBB), and numerous Naval Combat Demolition Units (who were part of Operation: Neptune (In late December the commanders for the invasion of Europe are announced. US General Eisenhower will be Supreme Allied Commander with Air Marshal Tedder as deputy. In charge of all naval operations under the code name ‘Neptune’ is Adm Sir Bertram Ramsey) as well as the infamous USS Emmons (DD-457/DMS-22), the USS Texas (BB-35), the USS Samuel Chase (APA-26), the USS LCI(L)-490,the USS LCI(L)-496 , the USS Ancon (AGC-4), the USS LST-373, the PC-1225, the USS Arkansas, theUSS Doyle, the USS Baldwin (DD-624), the USS Carmick (DD-493), the USS Frankford (DD-497),the )USS McCook (DD-496), the USS Thompson (DD-627), the USS Nevada(BB-36) ((Ed.- The Nevada was also one of the sole survivors of Pearl Harbor) the USS Augusta (CA-31), the USS Tide (AM-125) ( the Destroyers all being part of DESRON (Destroyer Squadron) 18)
The Coast Guard was represented as well with the LCI(L)-91 and 92 Landing crafts as seen below
Landing Craft
The assault was brutal, vicious, with more hellfire, brimstone, metal and explosions than the men had ever seen, including their time in Italy and Africa.
“Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice.
- ”
A Journal of the 3rd Battalion, 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division gives you a brief idea and insight:
June 6th. – At daylight no land can be observed. 0720 hours was to be “H” hour for the invasion of Europa Festung (The Fortress of Europe). We are to land on Omaha Fox Green beach. The 16th Infantry is the assault force coupled with the 116 Infantry of the 29th Division. The 18th Infantry follows the 16th Infantry and the 26th Inf. is scheduled to land, as reserve, at “H” plus 12 or approximately 1930 hrs. At 1000 hrs. we first observed land on our right flank (starboard bow). We were first able to discern the beach at 1500 hrs. It seems to be littered with equipment. Enemy fire falling length and breadth of the whole beach. It must be really tough ashore.
Co. Corley and the Bn. hit Omaha Easy Red Beach between 1800 and 1900 hrs. after vainly trying to get in on Fox Green. “I”,”K”, and “M” Companies landed during this period and moved inland under control of Col. Corley. “L” Co. moved in on Fox Green as intended under Capt. Billings control. They joined with the 16th Inf. in the vicinity of Colleville Sur Mer and went into action.
Col. Corley’s command reports the beach an utter shambles. Equipment scattered everywhere. Beach under observed artillery fire. Derelict sea-craft hung up on the beach–a few on fire. The colonel led the Bn. through the one gap they were able to traverse. Moved toward assembly area and ran into the Reg. CP in an over-ran gun emplacement. Received orders to hold the Bn. in place for a possible change of orders. Order came and Bn. moved to draw north of St. Laurent Sur Mer. Capt. Moultrap injured. Lieut. Cornwell placed in command of “K” Co.
Major Carvey with second command group left LST 494 at 2145 hrs. and landed on Omaha Easy Red Beach. Major Carvey, Capt. Ford, Lieuts, Willis, Huff, Egge and 31 EM were in one LCVP that struck a mine and sank. Capt. Hughes took charge and let the group to a point some 1700 yards off the beach where he contacted the rest of the Bn. At this point Hq. Co., I, K, & M Co’s. formed the complete Bn. At 2300 hrs. German Dive Bombers bombed the beach area.
At 2300 hrs the Bn. moved out in column of files because of mine fields. Held up almost at once while Col. Corley reports to regiment again. During this time check on Hq. Co. finds only 27 men present. Lieut. Brown placed in temporary charge of the company.
Col. Corley received orders that 116th and 115th are attacking St. Laurent Sur Mer and that 3rd Bn. is to by-pass the town and seize the high ground on the south of town. Bn. moved out at 1230 hrs. with “K” Co. leading.
The objectives of the 1st Division were ambitious. First it was to capture the villages of Vierville, Saint-Laurent, and Colleville; then it was to push through and cut the Bayeux-Isigny road; and then it was to attack south toward Trévières and west toward the Pointe du Hoc. Elements of the 16th Regiment were to link up at Port-en-Bessin with British units from Gold Beach to the east.
From the beginning everything went wrong at Omaha. Special “DD” tanks (amphibious Sherman tanks fitted with flotation screens) that were supposed to support the 116th Regiment sank in the choppy waters of the Channel. Only 2 of the 29 launched made it to the beach. With the exception of Company A, no unit of the 116th landed where it was planned. Strong winds and tidal currents carried the landing craft from right to left.
A Company, who landed for the most part correctly was gunned down as it exited the crafts. Men coming off LCVPs were torn to bits; others, leaping over the gunwales of their landing craft, were pulled under water by the weight of their packs and equipment and drowned.
Every officer in A Company, and most of the NCOs, became casualties.
A small, 64-man company of Rangers, following A Company, was similarly decimated.
They lost half their men; A Company lost two-thirds. And they had yet to fire a shot.
Farther west, Rangers (also attached to the 1st Division) were attempting to climb the sheer cliffs to get at the casemated battery of 155mm guns at Point du Hoc and were taking heavy casualties in the process; the Rangers would soon discover that the guns had been moved and posed no danger to the fleet. They successfully completed its mission of scaling the 100-foot cliffs by the use of grappling hooks and ropes and destroying five 155 coastal guns by 8:30 a.m. The guns were found in their alternate positions about a mile from where they were supposed to be as previously indicated by Army Intelligence
American forces fought all day for this stretch of Omaha beachhead. Its benign green bluffs and valley entrance were a maze of crossfire from enfilading (positioned to fire down the length of the beach) German guns. These included 88’s (a high-velocity 88mm anti-aircraft artillery piece which was used with devastating effect on Allied armored vehicles), mortars (small shell-launchers which fired at a high angle to clear hills and other obstacles), and machine-guns. All of these, plus infantry rifle fire, raked the beaches and pinned the infantry to a small area before the expertly designed and deadly minefields.
By mid-afternoon disabled landing craft were clogging the few gaps in the beach obstacles, while under a rain of short and long-range artillery fire, support waves circled and jockeyed for an opening. Destroyers moved toward the beach into dangerous shoal waters to pump salvos of five-inch shells into stubborn German emplacements and mobile targets of opportunity.
Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.
J M Barrie
The house in the valley and the spire of Colleville-Sur-Mer on the Hill were landmarks of Fox Green Beach. Germans used the spire for an artillery control tower, with spotters able to see the full panorama of the American forces and direct artillery fire at opportune targets. The church’s lovely renaissance architecture crumbled into sad rubble when a U.S. fire-control party on the beach called on the destroyer U.S.S. Emmons to demolish it. The artist of my picture/painting (Dwight C Shepler) was serving as an identification officer aboard that ship. This was the beach which Hemingway described in his article “Voyage to Victory.”
One of the spectacular actions of D-Day was the duel between the twisting snarling USS Emmons, and mobile 88 mm German guns on the Normandy cliffs near Port-en-Bessin. While searching out artillery which had been raking the support waves on the beach, she poured out 250 rounds of five-inch shells in the gun emplacements.
They never fail who die in a great cause.
And o.h how they were going to have to fight.
Frank Whitlock in his Article “The Battle For Easy Red/Fox Green” describes what lie in wait ashore for those poor boys in the landing crafts
The entire coastline was a gigantic steel-and-concrete nightmare for the attackers.
Virtually every foot of ground was covered by direct- and indrect-fire weapons rifles, machineguns, 105mm guns, and the dreaded 88s.
Likely invasion beaches were studded with underwater and beach obstacles designed to rip the belly out of landing craft or blow them to bits with mines.
Mines, too, were profligate under the beach sands, and backed by thickets of barbed wire.
Beyond the wire were concrete foxholes, elaborate trench systems and concrete bunkers and gun emplacements sited to scythe down any invaders with enfilading crossfire…..
…..And, all that was before the tall bluffs that rose above the beachhead and had their own interconnected series of defensive positions and strong points. The entire enterprise was under one of Germany’s most able commanders, Generalfeldmarschal Erwin Rommel.
Rommel had been working the troops to exhaustion for five months to improve on Hitler¹s Atlantic Wall - including the installation of over 4 million mines between Cherbourg and Calais.
Throughout the landing, German gunners poured deadly fire into the ranks of the invading Americans. Bodies lay on the beach or floated in the water. Men sought refuge behind beach obstacles, pondering the deadly sprint across the beach to the seawall, which offered some safety at the base of the cliff. Destroyed craft and vehicles littered the water’s edge and beach, and at 0830 hours all landing ceased at Omaha. The troops on the beach were left on their own and realized that the exits were not the way off. Slowly, and in small groups, they scaled the cliffs. Meanwhile, The Navy Destroyers of DESRON 18 steamed in and, scraping their bottoms in the shallow water, blasted the German fortifications at point-blank range with their 5 inch guns.
Meanwhile At approximately 0345 hours, the 2nd Bn and 3rd Bn debarked from the USS Henrico and the HMS Empire Anvil, respectively, to assault Beach OMAHA, north of Colleville sur Mer, Normandie, France, at 0630 hours. Heavy seas, numerous underwater obstacles, and intense enemy fire destroyed many craft and caused high casualties even before the assault battalions reached shore. Most supporting weapons, including DD tanks, were swamped. The 2nd Bn., landing from one hundred to one thousand yards from its scheduled points, were pinned down on the beach by extremely heavy fire from concrete fortifications, machine gun emplacements, and sniper nests, which remained intact through severe naval and air bombardment. Casualties were extremely high.
The 3rd Bn. landed on the left of Beach OMAHA in the vicinity of Beach Exit and despite heavy fire, fought inland up the draw and destroyed many enemy beach fortifications in its sector.
The 1st Bn. landed on the same beach on which troops of the 2nd Bn. and supporting organizations were pinned down, as the reserve battalion, at approximately 0730 hours.
This caused severe intermingling and confusion on the already crowded beach. Reorganization was accomplished under continued heavy fire. Much equipment was lost and casualties mounted. One group had blown a gap in the wire and started moving inland through the minefields to take the ridge line overlooking the beach.
The 1st and 2nd Bns. cleared Colleville sur Mer and by 1100 hours, a general movement inland was underway, meeting stubborn resistance.
By night, the 1st and 2nd Bns. had reached positions about 1500 yards to the West and North of Colleville sur Mer, where they dug in and repulsed enemy counter attacks during the evening and night.
The 3rd Bn. seized le Grand Hamel and moved eastward along the ridges toward Port en Bessin, digging in during the night and consolidating their position.
One of the only pictures of the USS Texas, in color
At about 0440 on the morning of the 6th, the USS Texas battleship closed the Normandy coast to a point some 12,000 yards offshore near Pointe du Hoc. At 0550, Texas began churning up the coastal landscape with her 14-inch salvoes. Meanwhile, her secondary battery went to work on another target on the western end of “Omaha” beach, a ravine laced with strong points to defend an exit road. Later, under control of airborne spotters, she moved her major-caliber fire inland to interdict enemy reinforcement activities and to destroy batteries and other strong points farther inland.
By noon, she closed the beach to about a range of 3,000 yards to fire upon snipers and machinegun nests hidden in a defile just off the beach. At the conclusion of that mission, the warship took an enemy antiaircraft battery located west of Vierville under fire.
Mean while the USS Nevada went in action from 6 to 17 June, and again 25 June, her mighty guns pounded not only permanent shore defenses on the Cherbourg Peninsula, but ranged as far as 17 miles inland, breaking up German concentrations and counterattacks. Shore batteries straddled her 27 times, but failed to diminish her accurate fire
By nightfall the 1st and 29th divisions held positions around Vierville, Saint-Laurent, and Colleville—nowhere near the planned objectives, but they had a toehold. The Americans suffered 2,400 casualties at Omaha on June 6, but by the end of the day they had landed 34,000 troops. The German 352nd Division lost 20 percent of its strength, with 1,200 casualties, but it had no reserves coming to continue the fight.
The blood was not minimal, it was not a fairy tale or a movie. It was bad. We took a pounding.
The landings at Omaha Beach had incurred significant casualties and in fact, the enemy defenses were stronger than expected. Very little progress had been made in the push to the interior and this caused significant backups on the beach. Of the 2,400 tons that were planned to arrive on the beach on D-Day, only 100 tons were delivered. Operations on the 7th and 8th of June would be spent deepening the bridgehead.
Landing Craft inbound to Omaha Beach
Understandingly, casualties were high among those first units, which landed on Omaha Beach. Casualties for V Corps that day were about 3,000 (killed, wounded, and missing) with the 16th and 116th sustaining about 1,000 casualties each.
291 landing craft had been lost on D-Day, and numerous destroyers, LCTs, LCIs, and DUKWs had been sunk, cruisers hit, and aircraft downed.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once
more, Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As
modest stillness and humility; But when the blast
of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action
of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the
blood.
- William Shakespeare
King Henry V , Act 3 Scene 1
Within the 1st Infantry Division, it is estimated that 18 officers and 168 enlisted men had been killed or died of wounds on D-Day; seven officers and 351 went missing; and 45 officers and 575 men were wounded in action.
The 29th Infantry Division, attached to the 1st, also suffered grievously, with 328 men killed or died of wounds; 281 wounded; and 134 listed as missing in action.
Senior U.S. officers watching operations from the bridge of USS Augusta (CA-31), off Normandy, 8 June 1944. They are (from left to right): Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk, USN, Commander Western Naval Task Force; Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley, U.S. Army, Commanding General, U.S. First Army; Rear Admiral Arthur D. Struble, USN, (with binoculars) Chief of Staff for RAdm. Kirk; and Major General Hugh Keen, U.S. Army.
So many years have past now. The guns are silent, and their emplacements are slowly taken over by the sand and sea. A fitting end if not poetic, for they could neither hold back the assault, nor can they now hold by the sea from taking them away.
The beaches are no longer red, it is clean after the years have passed.
Omaha Beach, Present Day
One day they will all be gone. And all we shall have are these pictures, these stories and memories. Legends.
But the sacrifice can not be forgotten.
Ever.
We must always keep close what these men and women did. Regardless of race, color, creed, sexual preference, branch of service or who they called god.
They died, for and as, Americans.
And they attest to an axiom which I swear by. That no one, desires peace, more than a solider.
Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Normandy Cemetery Memorial. Normandy France
- War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill
Chin Music by Diesel Boy
A soldier boy and his violin
Uneasy wartime ballet
Omaha Beach
Normandy on D-Day
As his fellow man lay dying
And crimson tide colored the shore
Sons cried for their mothers
Bitter pill of war
He strikes the strings
His heart is on parade
Knows one day he’ll be gone
But his melody will stay
A teenage boy in his attic
Finds a case tattered and torn
His father’s violin
Companion through the war
He dusts off the fiddle
And raises up to his chin
What the old leave behind
And what the young begin
