We’re in Normandy, visiting the D-Day Beaches. We started at the Normandy American Cemetery, made a stop at Omaha Beach, and then headed north toward Arromanche. We’ve been taking a coastal route on narrow roads passing through one small village after another. Home-made tributes to American, British, and Canadian soldiers lined the road whenever we passed through a village. We’re on our way to see the Batterie Longues-sur-Mer.
Batterie Longues-sur-Mer
A “battery” is a group of guns operated as a set. The batterie Longues-sur-Mer consisted mainly of four giant Nazi guns, range-finder and fire-control installations, and bunkers to house 180 troops, all positioned on top of a 200-foot cliff between Omaha and Gold Beach.
Each gun was, (and still is), in an enclosure made of 6-foot thick cement walls. They could shoot 100 lb shells as far as 12 miles. On D-day, they opened up on targets identified offshore, then swung around to shell Omaha Beach. They started firing around 5:00 AM, right about the time we left off in the previous post. Let’s pick it up from there.
D-Day, 5:00 AM
By 5:00 AM on D-Day, paratroopers and gliders had landed inland. French Resistance fighters and paratroopers had been at work for hours, cutting communications lines and securing or blowing bridges. They had already taken out a gun battery similar to the one at Longues-sur-Mer.
At first light, all hell broke loose as battleships and gun batteries opened up on each other. Bombers started pounding Nazi defenses, but at Omaha Beach, the sky was so overcast, incoming bombers couldn’t find their targets.
At 6:00 AM, landing craft headed to shore through rough seas. Troops got sea-sick on their way to the beaches. Ships and landing craft blew up and sank as they hit mines and booby traps that hadn’t been cleared.
American troops would land at Utah and Omaha Beaches first. An hour later, British troops would land at Gold and Sword Beaches, and Canadian forces would land at Juno Beach.
The First Wave Lands at Omaha Beach
At 6:30, the first wave of troops and armor landed at Omaha and Utah beaches. Everyone knew Omaha was going to be brutal. It was a tailor-made kill zone, with cliffs and a curvature that allowed defenders to spray the beach from the sides as well as from head-on. Omaha had to be taken, though, otherwise forces landing on the other beaches would be isolated – a major strategic no-no.
At Omaha Beach, Nazis had dug an extensive network of deep trenches on the cliffs. They’d installed machine guns in cement turrets, mortars and fixed guns of various sizes, all trained on the landing zone. Bombers were supposed to have softened up those defenses and crater up the beach so troops would have cover, but not one of their bombs hit the mark.
When our guys hit the beach at Omaha, it was even worse than expected. If a landing craft made it all the way to the beach, troops were greeted by machine gunners who’d been waiting for the front ramp to come down. Guys in the back jumped over the sides in desperation to get out alive.
The Nightmare Continues
For a while, everything that happened was bad. The flat, wide beach provided no cover for gunfire coming in from three sides. Many tank-carrying landing craft let them out in water that was too deep, so the tanks just sank. It was beyond a nightmare.
At 6:45 the second wave of troops landed at Omaha. One can imagine the sight in front of them, not that they had time to take it in. Waves of troops kept coming, and little by little, mostly because of incredible acts of heroism, they started making headway.
At 9:30, Allied Command received an estimate that 3,000 men were out of the fight at Omaha Beach. Naval bombardment, which stopped when the first wave of troops landed, restarted as destroyers moved closer to shore, within range of Nazi guns. The big guns of Batterie Longues-sur-Mer turned from the beaches to shoot at the destroyers.
Beaches Secured
Landings on the other beaches were no picnic, but they went much more according to plan. Skies had cleared, so pre-landing bombers could be effective. Defenders hadn’t dug in to the extent they had at Omaha Beach.
By 12:00 noon, things had started looking up, even at Omaha. One by one, Nazi guns had been silenced. The guns at Longues-sur-Mer were quiet. (Guns in those thick cement enclosures survived direct hits, but the guys who operated them got their bells run big-time).
American, British, and Canadian troops all started to take objectives inland. The beaches had been more or less secured. A feared Nazi counter-attack didn’t materialize. There were 10,000 Allied casualties, including 2,500 dead on D-Day, but as bad as that first day was, far worse was yet to come.
To be continued…
To dive deeper into D-Day, see Travel Notes, Normandy, D-Day.
