Great waves came out of the pre-dawn darkness and smashed into the flat bows of the boats, sending cascades of icy sea water onto the helpless soldiers, who were now wading in their own vomit as well as that of their comrades.

"We had been issued a puke bag for seasickness but, as it turned out, one wasn't enough," remembered Private first class Roger Brugger, K Company, 16th Infantry.

Signal Corps cinematographer Walter Halloran recalled, "I don¹t think that fear was a recognizable element. We were so seasick, our only thought was, ‘We¹ve got to get off this boat.’"

The entire coastline was a gigantic steel-and-concrete nightmare for the attackers.

Virtually every foot of ground was covered by direct- and indrect-fire weapons ­ rifles, machineguns, 105mm guns, and the dreaded 88s.

Likely invasion beaches were studded with underwater and beach obstacles designed to rip the belly out of landing craft or blow them to bits with mines.

Mines, too, were profligate under the beach sands, and backed by thickets of barbed wire.

Beyond the wire were concrete foxholes, elaborate trench systems and concrete bunkers and gun emplacements sited to scythe down any invaders with enfilading crossfire.

Rommel’s defenses

And, all that was before the tall bluffs that rose above the beachhead and had their own interconnected series of defensive positions and strong points. The entire enterprise was under one of Germany’s most able commanders, Generalfeldmarschal Erwin Rommel.

Rommel had been working the troops to exhaustion for five months to improve on Hitler¹s Atlantic Wall ­- including the installation of over 4 million mines between Cherbourg and Calais.

While the physical aspect of the defense was impressive, the manpower
was lacking. Many of Germany’s finest soldiers were no longer available for the defense of the Reich; they had been killed or maimed during nearly five years of fighting.

With the Soviets pressing the Germans hard on the Eastern Front, what was left to defend Normandy were a few understrength, over-age, static regiments and battalions with only bicycles and horses for transport. The 352nd had been brought up to reinforce the thinly spread 716th Coastal Defense Division in the Omaha Beach area.

The 352nd was not considered a first-class fighting force; still it gave the Germans 10,000 more men at Normandy than the Allies thought were there.

Only the panzer divisions could be considered a real threat to the invasion, and these were kept well back from the coast.

Rommel did not have operational control of these panzer units; they could only be released for action upon personal authorization of Adolf Hitler.

To compound the problems of the German units in Normandy, many of their commanders were absent from their command posts on the crucial night of 5/6 June.

First wave lands

The first wave of landing craft ­ transporting the 3rd Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment ­ somehow managed to slip through most of the falling shells and sea obstacles to deposit the men close to shore, but the initial landing at Easy Red beach was anything but easy.

Because of a strong west-to-east current, nearly every boat was landed a half mile or more east of where it was supposed to be.

On Fox Green beach, things were as bad as on Easy Red. Five boat sections of F Company, 16th Infantry, were scattered across a thousand yards of sand.

Two sections of the company did manage to land close together in front of enemy positions but were decimated by machine guns and mortars as they departed from their LCVPs.

Six officers and half of the company became casualties in a matter of minutes.

The remaining boat section of E Company, 16th Infantry, reached the shore where water and sand were spouting in an endless flurry of artillery and mortar explosions.

Four boat sections of E Company, 116th Infantry, also drifted into the area and experienced the same, terrible greeting.

Wozenski’s soldiers

Captain Ed Wozenski, commanding E Company, 16th Infantry, one of the first elements to land on Omaha Beach, recalled his unit¹s experiences: "MG [machinegun] fire was rattling against the ramp as the boat grounded.

For some reason, the ramp was not latched during any part of our trip, but the ramp would not go down. Four or five men battered at the ramp until it
fell, and the men with it.

The boats were hurriedly emptied ­ the men jumping into water shoulder deep, under intense MG and AT [anti-tank] fire.

No sooner was the last man out than the boat received two direct hits from
an AT gun, and was believed to have burned and blown up.

"Now all the men in the company could be seen wading ashore into the field of intense fire from the MGs, rifles, AT guns, and mortars.

Due to the heavy sea, the strong cross current, and the loads that the men were
carrying, no one could run. … Many fell left and right, and the water reddened with their blood.

A few men hit underwater mines of some sort and were blown out of the sea.

The others staggered on to the obstacle-covered, yet completely exposed beach.

Here men, in sheer exhaustion, hit the beach only to rise and move forward through a tide runlet that threatened to sweep them off their feet.

Men were falling on all sides, but the survivors still moved forward and eventually worked up to a pile of shale at the high-water mark."

Dawson at Easy Red

Captain Joe Dawson’s G Company, 16th Infantry, approached Easy Red at about 0700. "When we landed, it was total chaos, because the first wave from . . . E Company and F Company had been virtually decimated.

"… They were badly disorganized when they landed, whereas I was privileged to land intact with all of my men and my LCVP in the very point that I was supposed to land in.

". . . Unfortunately, my boat was hit with a direct hit, so the rest of my headquarters company was wiped out, as well as the [fire] control officer from the Navy, which was our communication, to give us support fire that was supposed to [neutralize] the village of Colleville, which was the objective that I was given. . . ."

The situation was no better on the 116th Infantry's portion of Omaha
Beach.

Green Beach

On Dog Green Beach, A Company of the 116th Infantry was being systematically slaughtered even before it reached shore.

One LCA took four direct hits and blew apart.

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