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Authors: Max Hastings
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700 yards out, and the drivers and cargo drifted out of control until the rising tide brought them ashore. The Rangers haddeveloped an early scepticism about naval efficiency when the officer in charge of one of their landing craft rammed a breakwater before getting out of his English harbour, and the skipper of another spent the cross-Channel voyage prostrate with seasickness. Now, one group of Rangers found themselves left to bring their landing craft in to the beach unaided. Its crew simply took to their dinghy and deserted them. In contrast to these episodes, the sailors manning two LCTs with immense courage rammed the beach obstacles head-on, and remained in position using every gun to support the infantry in their plight.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Williamson, commanding the 2nd/18th Infantry of the 1st Division, led his men into their LCVPs soon after 8.00 a.m., more than an hour late. When some craft began to swamp as they circled waiting for word that the beach was clear, the crews of others sought to begin rescue operations. After some forceful urging from Williamson, the craft began their run-in. They approached the shore not in an orderly wave, line abreast, but in a column, a queue, jostling for position on the sands. ‘The beach was loaded with men, tanks, DUKWs,’ said Williamson. ‘I was surprised that nobody had moved off.’ Major Frank Colacicco, executive officer of the 3rd/18th, stood among his men on the deck of an LCI, watching the spectacle ashore in utter bewilderment: ‘It was like a theatre. We could see it all, we knew that something was knocking the tanks out, but we kept asking, “Why don’t they clear the beach? Why aren’t our people getting off?” ’ When at last their own turn came to approach the sands, Colacicco’s LCI struck an obstacle whose mine blew up. Some men were hurled into the water by the blast, others found themselves struggling in the surf moments later as the craft settled. At last someone on the beach got a lifeline out to them, and the soaking men dragged themselves ashore. The major was told that Brigadier Wyman, the assistant divisional commander, wanted to see him. He reached the command post after being knocked off his feet by a mortar blast. He was told to take over the objectives of the 1st/16th, and returned to his men lying below the sea wall to point out to them,unanswerably: ‘We can’t stay here.’ Slowly they began to work up the hillside, crawling over the immobile figures of men of the 116th Infantry: ‘They were too green to know that the closer you are to the enemy, the better off you will be.’ Colacicco tore a strip off one man he saw firing apparently recklessly along the hillside: ‘Just settle down,’ said the major soothingly. ’That’s our men over there.’ ‘But sir, they have overcoats on,’ insisted the soldier. Indeed they were German riflemen.
Yet although the defenders possessed the capability to maul the American landing on Omaha seriously, to impede and to disorganize it, they lacked the power to halt it absolutely. Despite the near-total destruction of the first wave of invaders landing on the western flank below Vierville, despite the casualties and the terror inflicted upon thousands of green troops, a great many men survived to reach the sea wall alive – enough, finally, to swamp the vastly outnumbered German defenders. General Marcks’s LXXXIV Corps reserve, the 915th Regiment, had set off in pursuit of the mythical paratroop force of Allied dummies at 4.00 a.m. on 6 June. It was hours after the seaborne landing before the 915th could be reached by dispatch rider, regrouped, and brought back from the Carentan–Isigny area on foot and by commandeered vehicle. The defenders thus lacked any force capable of mounting a co-ordinated counter-attack either against the attackers of Omaha, or against the British threat to Bayeux, further east. At Omaha, the Americans found themselves facing Germans of the 352nd Division as
Lieutenant-Colonel John Williamson, commanding the 2nd/18th Infantry of the 1st Division, led his men into their LCVPs soon after 8.00 a.m., more than an hour late. When some craft began to swamp as they circled waiting for word that the beach was clear, the crews of others sought to begin rescue operations. After some forceful urging from Williamson, the craft began their run-in. They approached the shore not in an orderly wave, line abreast, but in a column, a queue, jostling for position on the sands. ‘The beach was loaded with men, tanks, DUKWs,’ said Williamson. ‘I was surprised that nobody had moved off.’ Major Frank Colacicco, executive officer of the 3rd/18th, stood among his men on the deck of an LCI, watching the spectacle ashore in utter bewilderment: ‘It was like a theatre. We could see it all, we knew that something was knocking the tanks out, but we kept asking, “Why don’t they clear the beach? Why aren’t our people getting off?” ’ When at last their own turn came to approach the sands, Colacicco’s LCI struck an obstacle whose mine blew up. Some men were hurled into the water by the blast, others found themselves struggling in the surf moments later as the craft settled. At last someone on the beach got a lifeline out to them, and the soaking men dragged themselves ashore. The major was told that Brigadier Wyman, the assistant divisional commander, wanted to see him. He reached the command post after being knocked off his feet by a mortar blast. He was told to take over the objectives of the 1st/16th, and returned to his men lying below the sea wall to point out to them,unanswerably: ‘We can’t stay here.’ Slowly they began to work up the hillside, crawling over the immobile figures of men of the 116th Infantry: ‘They were too green to know that the closer you are to the enemy, the better off you will be.’ Colacicco tore a strip off one man he saw firing apparently recklessly along the hillside: ‘Just settle down,’ said the major soothingly. ’That’s our men over there.’ ‘But sir, they have overcoats on,’ insisted the soldier. Indeed they were German riflemen.
Yet although the defenders possessed the capability to maul the American landing on Omaha seriously, to impede and to disorganize it, they lacked the power to halt it absolutely. Despite the near-total destruction of the first wave of invaders landing on the western flank below Vierville, despite the casualties and the terror inflicted upon thousands of green troops, a great many men survived to reach the sea wall alive – enough, finally, to swamp the vastly outnumbered German defenders. General Marcks’s LXXXIV Corps reserve, the 915th Regiment, had set off in pursuit of the mythical paratroop force of Allied dummies at 4.00 a.m. on 6 June. It was hours after the seaborne landing before the 915th could be reached by dispatch rider, regrouped, and brought back from the Carentan–Isigny area on foot and by commandeered vehicle. The defenders thus lacked any force capable of mounting a co-ordinated counter-attack either against the attackers of Omaha, or against the British threat to Bayeux, further east. At Omaha, the Americans found themselves facing Germans of the 352nd Division as
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