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These two illustrations show the landing zones of the first wave of 1st Division soldiers at Omaha Beach.
The cross-section view at the top depicts the landing zones at both high and low tide. The first wave landed at 6:30 AM when it was mid-tide. The bombings minutes before were supposed to have formed craters for the soldiers to dive into for cover, in addition to reducing the German defenses. But, this failed. The cloud cover was too thick; bombadiers were afraid they would hit their own, so they let go of their payloads too late. While many salvos hit the German fortifications, most landed beyond the landing zones.
A visitor to Normandy today would not see the beach shingle at the water's edge, but it was the only refuge of safety for soldiers who were able to cross the two hundred yards of killing field over the wet sand and make it to this four-foot high pile of washed up stone, shells and debris. It was here that the first arrivals were pinned down for most of the morning of D-Day. A few squads got off the beach, but thousands did not. By the end of D-Day, 3,000 1st Division soldiers were dead or severly wounded.
The shelf over the shingle was barricaded by barbed wire and loaded with mines and TNT. If any soldier got over the shingle and through the barrier of obstacles, the mines would get them. If tanks advanced here, they would fall into ditches that had been dug to trap them and be rendered useless.
In November of 1943, the German 352nd Infantry Division was reformed in a weathered chateau near St. Lo, some twenty miles inland. On D-Day, however, they were stationed at the tops of the escarpment. The Nazis had been spending months fortifying these positions, improving lines of fire, closing gaps and digging trenches for their safety. Most of the soldiers in this division had survived the vicious fighting on the Russian front, but their units had been decimated. The 352nd was reformed under General Dietrich Kraiss, and he had his men on high alert as the mist lifted out of the sky on D-Day, and first light filled in from the east. Our boys never had a chance.
The illustration below the cross-section view segments the actual locations where the first wave of hapless GIs landed beneath Coleville and St. Laurent. Each box notates where a company, or a section of a company came ashore. At the time of the landings, the wind was blowing hard from the northwest and the current was running at over two knots across the bows of the landing craft. Consequently, many did not land where they were supposed to. Instead of neat rows of craft coming in side-by-side, some poured in on top of others. One unit (shown in the Fox Green zone as E Company of the 116th regiment) landed far from where it was targeted to come in. It was supposed to have landed between Dog Red and Easy Green.
The E-1 draw beneath Coleville (just to the left of center in the map above) was forced by the unit the main character in Before Taps Sounded landed with during the late morning. The arrowed lines depict the movement of other forces inland during the afternoon and into the evening. | | |
