D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (74 page)

"We moved cautiously and hesitantly, partly because of fear and partly because of the strangeness of the situation," Sgt. Charles Zarfass recalled. St.-Laurent was only about a kilometer up from the beach, but the 2nd Battalion, 115th, did not start its attack against the village until late afternoon, while the 1st Battalion did not reach its objective south of St.-Laurent until 1800.
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Pvt. John Hooper got near St.-Laurent in midafternoon. "Creeping forward, ever so cautiously, I tripped a Bouncing Betty mine. It popped into the air and I hit the ground expecting to be blown to bits. It fell back to earth with a thump—a dud. Greatly fatigued, I just lay there wondering if the war would last much longer."

Hooper got up and advanced, only to be held up by machine-gun fire coming from a wood. A prolonged firefight ensued. Rifle ammunition for the GIs was running critically low. A lieutenant with an M-l and binoculars told Hooper to cover him—he intended to climb a tree and "get those bastards."

"That's not a good idea, Lieutenant," Hooper said. The lieutenant glared at him, turned, climbed the tree, found a good firing position, and shot three times. Then he came crashing down, screaming, "My God, I'm hit."

Hooper and a buddy dragged him to a hedgerow. He had been shot in the chest. They called for a medic who gave him some morphine.

"What a thorough waste," Hooper commented to his buddy. "All the money spent on commissioning this guy and he's trying to act like a Sergeant York. Didn't last a day. What a terrible waste." The lieutenant died that evening.
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By late afternoon, E-l was open for tracked vehicles. At 2000 hours, Major Bingham sent a runner to ask for tank support in the assault on St.-Laurent. Three tanks from the 741st Tank Battalion came up. They destroyed sniper and machine-gun nests in the vicinity of the village. But just as the infantry began to move in,

5-inch shells from American destroyers came pouring down. As at Vierville, the troops at St.-Laurent had no way of contacting the Navy, and they took some casualties as a result of the bombardment.

After the naval fire lifted, the fighting in St.-Laurent reached a crescendo. GIs ducked around corners, threw grenades into windows, kicked in doors, and sprayed interiors with their BARs and carbines. The Germans, taking advantage of the stone houses that might as well have been fortresses, fought back furiously.

In the midst of this street fighting, several men from the 115th were startled to see Lt. Col. William Warfield, CO of the 2nd Battalion, calmly sitting on a curb with his feet extended into the street, tossing pebbles at a scruffy dog.

Another strange sight: General Gerhardt had come ashore in the late afternoon and set up 29th Division HQ in a quarry in the Vierville draw. He could not get much information on how things were going up on top for his regiments, but he could see a long file of men trudging up the draw. He spotted a passing soldier eating an orange. When the man tossed the orange peel away, Gerhardt sprang up from the maps he was studying and gave the GI a furious tongue-lashing for littering.
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By nightfall, 29th Division troops held positions north, east, and south of St.-Laurent and parts of the town. Elements from five battalions had spent the afternoon fighting through an area of about a square mile without securing it—and it was defended by only a single German company. That spoke well for the German defenders—and showed what excellent defensive positions hedgerows and stone houses on narrow streets provided, as well as how difficult it was in World War II for infantry lacking on-site artillery, tank, or mortar support to carry out a successful assault.

But although the Germans had done well and the Americans had failed to reach their objectives, the prospects for the next day were decidedly dismal for the Germans. The GIs had fresh supplies coming up from the beach, plus reinforcements, plus all those vehicles waiting for a chance to drive up the draws and get into the action. The Germans were all but surrounded, they had no hope of fresh supplies or reinforcements, and they were badly outnumbered.

At Colleville, as in the other two villages, small separate battles developed throughout the afternoon. Advancing American

units were more or less blind, and coordinated action by the assaulting forces was impossible. Capt. Joe Dawson got his men from G Company, 16th Regiment, 1st Division, into the western edge of Colleville in the afternoon, but after seizing the first few buildings he was unable to advance further, due to a terrible experience.

"The Navy had been given orders to fire on Colleville as soon as visibility would permit," Dawson explained. "Due to the haze of battle which permeated the whole sky and area, observation was almost impossible. Nevertheless, in the late afternoon, our Navy did go ahead and decide to level Colleville while we were there. We lost sixty-four men from our naval fire, as it swept the town from one end to the other. That was the worst tragedy that befell us on D-Day."
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Harding
participated in the bombardment. The ship's action report read, "At 1854 received orders from Commander Task Force to open fire for two minutes on Colleville Church, range 3500 yards, which was complied with.

"At 1857 ceased fire, church badly battered, 73 rounds expended.

"At 1935 again received orders from CTF to open fire again for two minutes on Colleville Church and to spread fire around area.

"At 1937 opened fire again on same target, range at this time 3800 yards, scoring numerous hits on church and area. Sixty rounds expended. It is believed that this church was being used as an observation post for mortar fire since the beach at this time was being bombarded apparently from inland."
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The CTF was just guessing; Dawson's losses, and those of other companies in Vierville and St.-Laurent, to so-called friendly fire were one of the prices paid for the complete absence of radio communication between those on the high ground and the Navy in the Channel.

Between 1100 and 1400, the 18th Regiment landed in front of E-l draw and began moving up to join in the attack on the Colleville area. The 2nd Battalion passed to the west of Dawson to take up positions a half kilometer southeast of the village. The 1st Battalion ran into two platoons of Germans holding trenches near the head of E-l draw, eventually bypassed them, and headed toward the village.

"As we moved against moderate fire toward the town of

Colleville," Lt. Charles Ryan of Company A related, "I became aware of a small group of men moving steadily toward Colleville. As I reached my position, I saw that it was my battalion commander, Lt. Col. Robert York, who was one of the greatest combat leaders of WWII or any other war.

"He had his command group with him. He paused to say, 'Keep moving, boys, through town to the other side. We're getting a handle on this thing but we still have a long way to go.' Then he moved ahead."

At 1730, Ryan's platoon reached the coastal road, where it assumed defensive positions for the anticipated counterattack. "That night," Ryan remembered, "we were subjected to continuous machine-gun and rifle fire." He paused, then went on: "But there was a beachhead. The 1st Division was ashore.

"The Sixth of June, 1944, was an exhausting day, a frightening day, an exhilarating day, a sorrowful day, and a joyous day. It was a day when the men in the 1st Division lived up to the division motto, 'NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT, NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT. DUTY FIRST.'

"Now, forty-five years later, it's hard for me to believe that I was a part of this. I still correspond with some of the men in my D-Day platoon and we're all still proud of what was done and happy that we were a part of it and completely bewildered as to why we survived. But we're bewildered by lots of things these days."
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At 1900, the 1st Division CO, General Huebner, landed on Easy Red and set up his CP. At 2030 General Gerow and the advance HQ of V Corps left the
Ancon
for shore. On the high ground inland, the men of the 29th and 1st divisions were scattered and isolated in eighteen different pockets around the three villages. There was no continuous line. They had no artillery or heavy mortars, only a few tanks, no communications with the naval or air forces. For the night, they were on the defensive, dug in.

But they were there. The presence of so much brass on the beach was proof that they had secured the beachhead and won the battle.

The German defenders had inflicted very heavy casualties on the assaulting force at Omaha Beach. V Corps suffered 2,400 dead, wounded, and missing in putting 34,000 troops of the 55,000-

man assault force ashore. Losses of 7.2 percent in one day are horrendous, but that was five percentage points less than anticipated.
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The 352nd Division suffered 1,200 killed, wounded, and missing, or about 20 percent of its total strength. The 29th and 1st divisions had accomplished their basic objective, establishing a foothold, even if they had not driven anywhere near as far inland as they had planned or hoped. The 352nd Division had not accomplished its objective, stopping the assault on the beach.

The experiences of Pvt. Franz Gockel of the 352nd provide some vivid images of what the day was like for a German infantryman. At 0830 he had thought the battle won, but the Americans had continued to land. To his left and right, American squads and platoons had bypassed WN 62, then attacked it from the rear, "making it necessary for us to defend ourselves from attack from behind." At noon, he got a half ration of bread and a mess tin of milk, but no supplies or reinforcements came in. A runner sent to get help was never seen again. The Americans, pressed on and "our resistance became weaker."

Gockel was shot through the left hand. The medic who put a bandage on smiled and said it looked like a good
Heimatschuss
(million-dollar wound). American troops got into the network of trenches and suddenly they were only twenty meters away.

Gockel grabbed his rifle and ran toward Colleville. On the outskirts he linked up with his company CO and the few survivors from WN 62. The Americans were already in the village.

The CO ordered Gockel and fifteen other wounded men into a truck for transport to a hospital in Bayeux. The route was blocked. Ruins and rubble covered the crossroads—here was the payoff from the B-17s and battleship bombardment. "Dead cattle lay in the pastures. The supply units had also suffered their share of casualties. Many of them were immobilized."

Gockel's truck came under fire from a strafing RAF fighter plane. He and his comrades jumped out. Those with light wounds proceeded on foot toward Bayeux. En route they commandeered a French farmer's horse and wagon. In Bayeux they found that the hospital had been evacuated. They were told to proceed to Vire. They found that city badly damaged and still burning from air bombardment. They spent the night in a farmhouse, drinking Calvados.

Of the twenty men from WN 62, only three escaped un-wounded, and they were taken prisoner. Gockel concluded, "None of my comrades who had survived the invasion continued to believe in victory."
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The German failure at Omaha Beach had many causes. The attempt to defend everywhere had scattered the division in driblets here, droplets there. Furthermore, the CO of the 352nd, General Kraiss, completely misinterpreted Allied intentions. At 0200, when he received reports about paratroopers landing on his left flank between Isigny and Carentan, he thought that the Americans were trying to separate the 352nd from the 709th. At 0310 he ordered his division reserve, called
Kampfgruppe Meyer
after the CO of the 915th Regiment, to move from its positions south of Bayeux all the way to the Vire estuary. But it was a wild-goose chase; the paratroopers were a handful of 101st men who had been misdropped.

At 0550 Kraiss realized his error. He told Meyer to halt the
Kampfgruppe
and await further orders. Within a half hour the Americans began landing at Omaha, but not until 0735 did Kraiss commit reserves to the area, and then he sent only one battalion from the
Kampfgruppe.
At 0835 he sent the other two battalions against the British 50th Division at Gold Beach. Splitting the 915th in this fashion meant it was nowhere able to strike a telling blow. The battalions were also hours late in arriving at the battle areas, because as they moved they were shot up by Allied fighters and hit by Allied bombers.

Inadequate intelligence in many cases, and none at all in others, badly hampered Kraiss, but he was as guilty of passing on bad information as he was a victim of receiving it. At 1000 he reported penetrations in the forward positions of the 352nd at Omaha but indicated that they were not dangerous. At 1335 he advised Seventh Army HQ that the American assault had been hurled back into the sea, except at Colleville, which he said was being counterattacked by the 915 th. Not until 1800 did he admit that the Americans had infiltrated through the 352nd's strong points, but even then he claimed that only Colleville was in danger.

At 1700, Field Marshal Rundstedt demanded that the Allied bridgehead be wiped out that evening. A few minutes later, General Jodl sent out an order from OKW—all available forces should be thrown into the battle. At 1825, Kraiss ordered his last uncommitted unit, the engineer battalion, to move to St.-Laurent and

fight as infantry. By the time the engineers got there, it was dark, too late to do anything but dig in and wait for daylight.

Shortly before midnight, June 6, Kraiss admitted to his corps commander, General Marcks, that the 352nd desperately needed help. "Tomorrow the division will be able to offer the enemy the same determined resistance it did today [but] because of heavy casualties . . . reinforcements must be brought up by the day after tomorrow. Losses of men and material in the resistance nests are total."