D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (70 page)

Nevertheless, as a staff officer of the 116th recalled, "First-aid men of all units were the most active members of the group that huddled against the seawall. With the limited facilities available to them, they did not hesitate to treat the most severe casualties. Gaping head and belly wounds were bandaged with rapid effi-ciency.

The situation looked worse to the medical teams than it did even to the generals offshore. Maj. Charles Tegtmeyer, regimental surgeon of the 16th, who landed at 0815, described what he saw: "Face downward, as far as eyes could see in either direction were the huddled bodies of men living, wounded and dead, as tightly packed together as a layer of cigars in a box. . . . Everywhere, the frantic cry, 'Medics, hey, Medics,' could be heard above the horrible din."

Tegtmeyer's medics, now wading, now stumbling over prone men, bandaged and splinted wounded as they came upon them, then dragged them to the shelter of the shingle. "I examined scores as I went," Tegtmeyer declared, "telling the men who to dress and who not to bother with." In many cases it was simply hopeless. Tegtmeyer reported a soldier with one leg traumatically amputated and multiple compound fractures of the other. "He was conscious and cheerful," Tegtmeyer noted, "but his only hope was rapid evacuation, and at this time evacuation did not exist. An hour later he was dead."
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Confusion in the planned landing sequence compounded the chaos. The first men of the 61st Medical Battalion to wade ashore on Easy Red were members of the headquarters detachment. They landed with typewriters, files, and office supplies on a beach strewn with dead and wounded. They abandoned their typewriters, scavenged for medical equipment among the debris, and went to work on the casualties around them. Forward emergency surgery never got started on Omaha that day; of the twelve surgical teams attached to the 60th and 61st Medical battalions, only eight reached shore and none of them had proper operating equipment. Like the clerks from the HQ detachment, the surgeons pitched in to give first aid."

At 0950, General Huebner gave the order for the 18th Regiment of the 1st Division to go ashore at Easy Red, the largest of the eight designated sectors. It lay just to the east of the middle of Omaha Beach. The right flank of Easy Red was the dividing line between the 29th and 1st divisions. Two first-wave companies of the 16th Regiment were supposed to have landed on Easy Red, with three additional companies coming in on the second wave.

But the mislandings were such that what was to have been the most heavily attacked sector was actually the loneliest—only parts of one company came ashore there in the first hour, parts of two others in the next three hours. But at 1000, with the 1st Battalion of the 18th coming in and the 115th Regiment of 29th Division mislanding right on top of the 18th, it became the most crowded and bloodiest of all the beach sectors.

At 1000, the tide was nearly at its highest mark. All the obstacles were covered. The skippers on the larger landing craft were afraid to try to go ashore, and they had orders from the Navy Beach Battalion to stay away. But the 18th's 1st Battalion officers had orders from their CO to go in. There were some fierce arguments between the skippers and the soldiers.

The stalemate was broken at about 1010 when LCT 30 drove at full speed through the obstacles, all weapons firing. LCT 30 continued the fire after touchdown. At about the same time, LCI 544 rammed through the obstacles, firing on machine-gun nests in a fortified house. These exploits demonstrated that the obstacles could be breached and gave courage to other skippers, who began to give in to the demands of the Army officers and move in.
¹²

The destroyers helped immeasurably in this attack. As noted, they sailed in close and pounded the enemy—when they could spot him.
Harding's
action report noted, "At 1050 observed enemy pillbox which was firing on our troops down draw north of Colleville, thereby delaying operations on the beach. Opened fire on pillbox and demolished it, expending 30 rounds."
¹³

Adm. Charles Cooke, along with Maj. Gen. Thomas Handy of General Marshall's staff at the War Department, were on
Harding.
Cooke recorded that as
Harding
closed the beach, "We saw an LCT dash in opposite a draw firing her guns at some German position at Colleville. The German batteries were hidden in the shrubbery, had the advantage, and the LCT was badly shot up."

So were many others. The Navy report for the transport

group carrying the 18th ashore listed twenty-two LCVPs, two LCIs, and four LCTs as lost at the beach, either to mined obstacles or to enemy artillery fire.

Sgt. Hyman Haas was lucky. LCTs to the right and left of his were burning. "The machine-gun fire was right into them. Mortars were blowing around them. Artillery pieces were blowing beside them. But we had landed in a spot that seemed to be immune."

Haas commanded a half-track (M-15). When he drove off the LCT, "the water reached up to my neck. My driver, Bill Hen-drix, had his head just above water. We kept going. Some screwball gave a rebel yell. Sgt. Chester Gutowsky looked at him and growled, 'You schmuck!! Why don't you shut up?' "

When Haas reached shore, "I was breathing very heavily with excitement, eyes darting in all directions, looking, waiting, seeing. It was quite bewildering." He started thinking straight immediately. Haas ordered Hendrix to drive back into the water, then to turn the M-15 into firing position. He began to blaze away with his 37mm gun, aiming at a pillbox on the west side of the E-l exit. The first three rounds were short. He adjusted his range setter, and "the next ten shots went directly into the porthole of the pillbox."

(Later that day, Haas drove up to the pillbox. "There, lying on the parapet, was a German officer, bleeding from the mouth, obviously in his last moments of life, being held by another wounded German. McNeil came running over. He says, 'Haas, that's your pillbox.' It took my breath away. It's one thing to fire impersonal, but I was responsible for that dying German officer and the wounded men in there. I felt awful and shocked at the sight."
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)

With that kind of support, the 18th got ashore, but not without loss and not without confusion, a confusion compounded by the mislanding of the 115th Regiment of the 29th Division, which was supposed to land on Dog Red but instead came in starting at 1030 on Easy Red, right on top of the 18th. This caused a horrendous mix-up of men and units, and imposed delays, but it put a lot of firepower on Easy Red, where it was badly needed.

As the 18th came ashore, it appeared to the officers that no progress at all had been made. The regimental action report declared, "The beach shingle was full of tractors, tanks, vehicles, bulldozers, and troops—the high ground was still held by Germans who had all troops on the beach pinned down—the beach was still

under heavy fire from enemy small arms, mortars, and artillery."
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Capt. (later Maj. Gen.) Al Smith was executive officer, 1st Battalion, 16th Regiment. He had landed on Easy Red at 0745. "About 500 yards offshore I began to realize we were in trouble," he recalled. "The nearer we got to the beachline, the more certain I was that the landing was a disaster. Dead and wounded from the first waves were everywhere. There was little or no firing from our troops. On the other hand, German machine guns, mortars, and 88s were laying down some of the heaviest fire I'd ever experienced."

About half of Smith's battalion made it to the defilade afforded by the shingle embankment. Smith made contact with Brig. Gen. Willard Wyman, the assistant division commander. Wyman asked if the men were advancing by fire and movement, as taught at the Infantry School.

"Yes, sir!" Smith snapped back. "They're firing, we're mov-ing."

He followed the path made earlier that morning by Captain Dawson of G Company up the bluff. "Near the top, I can recall the most pleasant five-minute break of my military career. With our column at one of its temporary standstills, [Capt.] Hank [Hangs-terfer, CO of HQ Company] and I moved to the side to sit down and eat apples provided by the ship's mess. We also had time for a wee nip of Scotch whisky—my farewell gift from a little old English lady."

Smith set up the battalion CP beside a dirt road.* "About this time a telephone line reached me from regimental HQ at the base of the bluffs. Colonel [George] Taylor [CO of the 16th] asked about our situation and what he could do to help. I told him we could use tanks—the sooner, the better. He promised to do everything possible."
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It was 1100. Taylor ordered all tanks available to go into action up the E-3 draw. Capt. W. M. King got the order. He ran along the beach, notifying each tank as he came to it to proceed to E-3 and move up. When he reached the last tank, King found the commander wounded. He took over. Backing away from the shingle, King drove

* General Smith, in a 1993 letter to the author, recalls, "Today, the site would be very near the Rotunda of our Normandy memorial." Captain Dawson, also in a 1993 letter, remarks: "I am proud and indeed honored that the esplanade dividing the monument from the reflecting pool and graves is centered at the exact spot where we made the opening from the beach."

east, weaving in and out of the wreckage along the beach. He made about 200 meters when he hit a mine that blew the center bogie assembly off and broke the track. He went on to the exit on foot, where he found that, of the handful of tanks that had started for E-3, only three had arrived. Two of these were knocked out as they tried to force their way up the draw; the third backed off. E-3 was not yet open.

Pvt. Ray Moon of the 116th reached the top about this time. "I looked back at the beach. The view was unforgettable. The beach was a shooting gallery for machine gunners. The scene below reminded me of the Chicago stockyard cattle pens and its slaughter house. We could see the men in the water and those huddled along the sea wall. There was little movement and all those below were sitting ducks for any trained marksmen and artillery observers."
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Mortar fire, artillery shells, and machine-gun fire continued to rain down on the beach. At higher HQ, Easy Red continued to look like a calamity. Gerow reported to Bradley, "Situation beach exits Easy still critical at 1100. 352nd Infantry Division (German) identified [this was the first that Bradley knew his men were up against the 352nd, which had been missed by Allied intelligence]. . . . Fighting continuous on beaches."

But on the spot, things looked better. Colonel Talley of the Forward Information Detachment reported shortly after 1100, "Infiltration approximately platoon [strength] up draw midway between exits E-l and Easy 3," and a bit later, "Men advancing up slope behind Easy Red, men believed ours on skyline."
²⁰

One of those GIs on the skyline was Capt. Joe Dawson of G Company. How he got there is a story he tells best himself: "On landing I found total chaos as men and material were literally choking the sandbar just at the water's edge. A minefield lay in and around a path extending to my right and upward to the crest of the bluff. After blowing a gap in the concertina wire I led my men gingerly over the body of a soldier who had stepped on a mine in seeking to clear the path. I collected my company at the base of the bluff and proceeded on. Midway toward the crest I met Lieutenant Spaulding.

"I proceeded toward the crest, asking Spaulding to cover me. Near the crest the terrain became almost vertical. This afforded complete defilade from the entrenched enemy above. A

machine-gun nest was busily firing at the beach, and one could hear rifle and mortar fire coming from the crest.

"I tossed two grenades aloft, and when they exploded the machine gun fell silent. I waved my men and Spaulding to proceed as rapidly as possible and I then proceeded to the crest where I saw the enemy moving out toward the E-3 exit and the dead Germans in the trenches.

"To my knowledge no one had penetrated the enemy defenses until that moment.

"As soon as my men reached me we debouched from that point, firing on the retreating enemy and moving toward a . . . wooded area, and this became a battleground extending all the way into town."

In an analysis of how he became the first American to reach the top of the bluff in this area, written in 1993, Dawson pointed out: "The Battle of Omaha Beach was 1st, Deadly enemy fire on an exposed beach where total fire control favored the defender and we were not given
any
direct fire support from the Navy or tanks. 2nd, the poor German marksmanship is the
only
way I could have made it across the exposed area because I could not engage the enemy nor even see him until I reached the machine gun. 3rd, the fortunate ability to control my command both in landing together and debouching up the bluff together as a fighting unit. 4th, our direct engagement of the enemy caused him to cease concerted small-arms, machine-gun and mortar fire with which he was sweeping the beach below."*

While Dawson moved on Colleville, Spaulding went to the right (west), toward St.-Laurent. Spaulding spread his men over an area of some 300 meters and advanced. They spotted a German machine gunner with a rifleman on each side of him, firing down on the beach from their dugout. Sergeant Streczyk shot the gunner in the back; the riflemen surrendered. Spaulding interrogated the prisoners but they were ethnic Germans and refused to give any information. With the prisoners in tow, Spaulding moved west.

"We were now in hedgerows and orchard country," he told Sgt. Forrest Pogue of the Army's Historical Division in a February

Dawson's route to the top was approximately the same as the paved path that today leads from the beach to the lookout with the bronze panorama of Omaha Beach on the edge of the American cemetery. His oral history and a written memoir are in EC.