Omaha Beach, D-Day, 6 June 1944

Visit The War Years http://www.thewaryears.co.uk On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Allied nations landed around 156,000 troops on the Normandy coastline. The American forces landed numbered 73,000: 23,250 on Utah Beach, 34,250 on Omaha Beach, and 15,500 airborne troops. In the British and Canadian sector, 83,115 troops were landed (61,715 of them British): 24,970 on Gold Beach, 21,400 on Juno Beach, 28,845 on Sword Beach, and 7900 airborne troops.

The War Years has created a range of D-Day commemorative designs and merchandise. Each of our designs incorporates QR barcodes that enables anyone with a smartphone or similar web-enabled mobile device to connect to our digital content, such as this Omaha Beach video. We also use 2D QR codes so that you can connect to our social media pages on Facebook and Twitter. Checkout our website: www.thewaryears.co.uk

The Assault on Omaha Beach
On D-Day, the untested 29th Infantry Division, joined by nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to assault the western half of the beach. The battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern half. The initial assault waves, consisting of tanks, infantry, and combat engineer forces, were carefully planned to reduce the coastal defences and allow the larger ships of the follow-up waves to land.

However, the assault on Omaha Beach did not go to plan. Almost all the specially designed amphibious DD tanks, that were to provide much needed covering fire for the infantry assault waves, sank off shore. Navigation problems caused the majority of landing craft to miss their targets throughout the day. The defences were unexpectedly strong, and the Germans inflicted heavy casualties on landing US troops. Under heavy fire, engineers struggled to clear beach obstacles; later landings bunched up around the few channels that were cleared.

Many troops were drowned or killed the moment they hit the beach. Many landing craft hit under water obstacles or were destroyed by mines. The surviving assault troops could not clear the heavily defended exits off the beach. This caused further problems and consequent delays for later landings.

Eventually small groups of Rangers and infantrymen scaled the heavily defended bluffs commanding the beach. Allied naval gunfire supported these improvised assaults. By day's end, two small footholds had been won, which were subsequently exploited against weaker defences further inland, thus achieving the original D-Day objectives over the following days.

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[thewaryears1939]

Hi there: certainly use the video for your history project. Happy to help and best of luck

[MNxHOCKEYx24]

In the actual D-day, did the soilders get absolutlely lit up by the germans or is that just saving private ryan?

[thewaryears1939]

@MNxHOCKEYx24 Hi There: Saving Private Ryan certainly gives a dramatised version of events, but does go someway to helping convey the real horror of what happened on Omaha Beach. Take a look a Stephen Ambrose book D-Day that has plenty of first-hand accounts from the men who were there and survived to tell the tale, or books like Beyond The Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy

[kodeeman]

i believe that the beginning of saving private ryan, is one of the bedst, if not the best re-enactment/interpretations of this

[thewaryears1939]

@kodeeman Many thanks for your comments, and appreciate you taking the time to view our videos

[Stratmandoin]

@MarshMallowMan234 Most of them were walking because they were wet and weighed down by their wet gear. Their biggest problem was most of them were sick because they were fed a big breakfast and got sea sick and were throwing up. Put all that together and try to run up hill in sand.

[pigurine]

My dad survived the first assault.

[Evginii1]

Хорошо америкосам дали.Но мало.

[zeropluszeroiszero]

@Treyb3yond We all no the brits and canadians were involved maybe a director from those countys will make a film showing there side of the story.

[Q2kerS]

So many Brave Soldiers gave their lives..

[Treyb3yond]

There was more than the USA involved in ww2, actually they didn't comein til the tail end, Britain was fighting years before that. Not that you would know it by the amount of media and films the yanks churn out. Why they didn't stop hitler earlier is anyone's guess.

[skinnyernie]

@AUG351 Thanks for replying. As I said in another post, it's nothing short of amazing that the mission was successful with all the chaos.

[AUG351]

@skinnyernie We did but it did almost nothing to the bunkers and trenches and one of the main reasons was to create craters for troops to take cover in.

[skinnyernie]

@zeropluszeroiszero Wow. Plus our paratroopers missed most of their drop zones and some ended up in water drowning. The military blamed the fog, poor visibility and the pilots for the missed drops. It's amazing that we were still able to succeed with so much chaos during the invasion. thanks for your reply!