| Success on Omaha Beach | Omaha Beachhead by the Historical Division of the War Department | | Brandi Dean | 4/23/2012 |

Omaha Beach was the code name for one of the major landing points of the Allied forces for their invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 during the Second World War. Omaha Beach was the largest of all the assault areas, stretching 7,000 yards. (Beachhead, 5) The rest of the beach had cliffs averaging 100 feet high, reefs, and wide tidal ranges (Beachhead, 10) which left Omaha’s cliff less interval suitable for landing. The Omaha area had a shore that curved landward in a “very slight crescent and backed with bluffs which merge into the cliffs at either end of the sector”. (Beachhead, 11) The beach sloped a bit below high water mark and had an expected tidal range of eighteen feet that, at low tide exposed a 300 yard stretch of sand that the German’s had placed ‘underwater’ obstacles and heavily mined. (Beachhead, 11-12) The initial assault force numbered 34,142 men and 3,306 vehicles and included the 1st Division made up of the “16th and 18th Regimental Combat Teams, the 116th Regimental Combat Team and the 115th Infantry attached from the 29th Division and the Provisional Ranger Force of two battalions”. (Beachhead, 8) The follow-up force, arriving “after noon on D-Day numbered 25,117 men and 4,429 vehicles” (Beachhead, 8) and another 49,500 men and 11,746 vehicles would eventually join the assault as well. (Beachhead, 9) The key factors that led to the success of the American forces on Omaha Beach were the detailed strategic planning, chance, and the determined leadership of the soldiers.
A major factor for the success at Omaha Beach was the two years of strategic planning and preparation by British and American staffs. Absolute coordination and teamwork was needed between all arms of the forces of both nations to overcome the tactical difficulties that loomed overhead. (Beachhead, 1) Since planning was done with such attention to detail and the higher level decisions would “determine the mission and objectives of subordinate units, the work had to be done concurrently and with constant interchange of views between different levels of command and between the different services”. (Beachhead, 6) This shows how important it was for all ideas and concerns to be worked through and gone over time and time again to ensure victory. A lot of timely detail was put in action just to make preparations for the invasion, like the assembling of immense stocks of shipping and military supplies that caused significant taxation to the war industry that was still in the middle of fighting the war in North Africa. (Beachhead, 2) In 1943, the planning called for the air force operations to begin. The U.S. Eighth Air Force was instructed to concentrate its attacks on the aircraft industries and airfields of German forces and succeeded in preventing the enemy from increasing its strength in the air, an approach that greatly boosted the invasion efforts. (Beachhead, 3) Another big strategic success was the decision to send bombers and fighter-bombers in April and May of 1944 to destroy every base and bridge they could find in France. This detail was to ensure that Normandy would be isolated from the rest of the major bases making it harder to rally support after the Allied invasion. (Beachhead, 3) In planning the actual infantry invasion, it was decided that soldiers needed training in conditions similar to those they would encounter on the beaches of Normandy. The most ideal location was in Ilfracombe, northwest Devonshire. (Beachhead, 6) This involved cooperation from the British Navy and focused on experimenting with “methods of loading and landing” (Beachhead, 6) techniques starting in September of 1943. This was crucial to the preparation and without the assistance of the British Navy and Government, the invasion would have been impossible since the training ground was used for “every type of experiment and for exercises involving naval, air force, and service force units as well as the assault infantry and tanks”. (Beachhead, 6) These experiments led to many changes in the planning of the invasion and adjustments to final details, (Beachhead, 7) proving that without this cooperation of all the Allied forces, the planning would have fallen short and success would have been compromised.
Another integral part of the strategic planning that shouldn’t be overlooked was the plan to make the Germans believe that the invasion would take place elsewhere. In making this part of the invasion plan, the Allies succeeded in deceiving the Germans into expecting the attack to come farther north. This included diversionary bombing, false agent reports, and misleading radio communications that together convinced the Germans to station the majority of their better infantry divisions north of the Omaha Beach area. These tactics proved so convincing that Hitler continued to hold units there after D-Day because he thought that the Normandy landings were the diversion. (Beachhead, 112-113) This outcome was a major factor in the Allied success since the confusion gave the Allies some much needed time to strengthen their forces. It is important to also point out that by creating this diversion and subsequent confusion, combined with the planned air strikes that took out surrounding bases and transportation roadways, the Germans weren’t left with a means to move large amounts of support troops to the Omaha area. This was no accident, indeed.
Even with the grandiose strategic planning that was accomplished, it must be said that another factor in the Allied success at Omaha Beach was pure chance. According to plan, the first landing waves were due in shortly after dawn under conditions of low tide so that the underwater beach obstacles would be exposed. (Beachhead, 30) Timing was crucial since the first waves were supposed to cross the tidal flat in enough time to “allow an engineer task force to clear lanes through the obstacles before the arrival of larger forces and supplies at high water”. (Beachhead, 30) The subsequent waves were timed at intervals of thirty minutes. (Beachhead, 32) The weather forecast forced a postponement of D-Day due to high winds and overcast skies, but a chance break allowed them to commence the invasion after only a 24 hour delay. (Beachhead, 37) The winds were still pretty strong on D-Day and caused many miss-landings. Most units landed where enemy defenses were very heavy with a clear shot at the Allied forces approaching the beach. By chance, some units that landed on the “bluff west of les Moulins draw were obscured in heavy smoke from grass fires, apparently started by naval shells or rockets”. (Beachhead, 45) This smoke aided in providing concealment across the tidal flat and left these units “comparatively unscathed”. (Beachhead, 45) Other units happened to make their landings at areas where enemy defenses were generally weak or inaccurate. Four scattered sections had very few casualties coming into Easy Red. (Beachhead, 48) Company C even managed to make it to a four-foot sea wall and reorganize with most of their equipment intact, their sections pretty well together and in pretty good shape to commence action. (Beachhead, 50) Some divisions also happened to make it to points relatively safe after crossing the beach and onto the bluffs, thanks to the naval fire or the tanks very nearby, (Beachhead, 57) points that would otherwise have been even more dangerous.
The most decisive factor in the Allied success at Omaha Beach was the determined leadership of the soldiers. Once the strategic planning turned into heavy casualties and chaos the soldiers had to pull themselves together, leave cover and drive forward with purely improvised assault methods. (Beachhead, 57) The lieutenants and officers, both commissioned and noncommissioned, played a critical role in inspiring, encouraging and bulling their men forward by leading in the advances. An officer and a wounded sergeant of divisional engineers on Easy Red stood up and walked beyond the embankment to inspect the wire obstacles that were nearby, all while under fire. When the lieutenant came back with his hands on his hips, he looked down in disgust at the men lying behind the shingle bank and said, “Are you going to lay there and get killed, or get up and do something about it”? (Beachhead, 57) Most of the soldiers were experiencing their first enemy fire and had seen a lot of their fellow men die. It took this kind of reaction from the officers to get them to ‘snap out it’ and realize that they would have to push on. Seeing others attempting to go ahead and complete the mission made like a chain reaction of motivation for the rest to follow suit. General Cota walked up and down behind a crowded sea wall, exposed to enemy fire, urging the need “to ‘jar men loose’ and get moving”. (Beachhead, 60) When Company C came to a road at the edge of the sea wall that was blocked by a double-apron wire entanglement, Private Lambert “jumped over the wall, crossed the road, and set a Bangalore torpedo. Unfortunately the igniter failed and Lambert was killed by a riffle bullet, but seeing his determination made it impossible for his fellow soldiers to turn back. The platoon leader, Schwartz, fixed the igniter and blew a large gap in the entanglement. And even though “the first man through was shot down; others followed and took shelter in some empty trenches just beyond the road” (Beachhead, 61) and on they all went. The soldiers were determined that the death of their comrades would not be in vain and that the invasion must succeed so that their death had a legacy. Cornel Taylor, of the 16th RCT, arriving at the beach seeing men still hugging the embankment, disorganized, had this to say: “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”. (Beachhead, 71) Blunt and to the point was the way to motivate during all the chaos, and it worked especially well since everyone knew it couldn’t be any more true. During the advance from Easy Red across the flat, Captain Dawson and another man went on ahead but were forced into cover halfway up the hill by an enemy machine gun. Dawson sent his companion back to get the rest of the company while he crawled on from one patch of brush to another. Eventually the enemy lost sight of him and Dawson circled left and came to “the military crest a little beyond the machine gun, and got within 30 feet before the Germans spotted him and swung their weapon around”. (Beachhead, 68) Dawson threw a fragmentation grenade, killing the crew and opening the way up the draw. In every group of men this determined leadership of a few paved the way for ultimate success at Omaha Beach.
Within a week of D-Day, the V Corps had driven inland about twenty miles and its mission of capturing an adequate beachhead had been achieved. Casualties were numbered at 5,846 with more than half of those in the first day. Enemy prisoners numbered at about 2,500 and the Allies left the enemy forces a mere shadow of its former strength. (Beachhead, 163) The foundation for a successful Allied campaign in France was firmly in place and the scene of the largest amphibious mission in history, Omaha Beach, was now the base for offensive operations for the assault to Germany. The detailed strategic planning, chance, and the determination of leadership were all key factors that led to the success of the American forces on Omaha Beach.