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D-Day on Omaha Beach 29th Infantry Division
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29th Infantry Division, 116th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Command Group Group Critique Notes. D-day on Omaha Beach This material was prepared by GC method with groups of survivors on 12 Sept. 1944, in the position of the Battalion during the siege of Brest. There were about 7-8 witnesses from each company ; most of those who are pvts in the narrative had become NCOs. They agreed generally on the facts. There are some gaps in the story, for example, a clear explanation of how the SP to E of les Moulins was reduced. "E" was supposed to land here but "E" had come in far to the SE. It appears that various groups, principally a Ranger force but also elements from F-G, hacked away at this position at avrious time. The landing of the Bn is as show on the overlay. "E" landed in First Division territory. "F" and "G" landed in between 116-1 and 16th Infantry, while "H"’s groups came in with the rifle companies. Compared to the experience of 116-1, the landing of F-G and the integral elements of "H" was relatively smooth nd promising. As the narrative will sho, the two companies gor across the Beach in fairly good order, moving rapidly and losing relatively few men. It was after the worst of the passage had been made that those events occured which largely impaired the effectivenes of this Battalion. F and G landed abreast at 0635 – five minutes late. In the first two waves neither Company drew fire until the men actually reached the sand. The ramps were let down within 25 yds of the sand and the water was about knee-deep. The front had been deceptively quiet coming in and the men drew right into the shoreline still believing that they would get no real opposition. Each boat team had been shooled for exiting in a V-shapped for mation. "We didn’t expect any trouble on the beach and had been told not to run," Pfc August Bruno og "G". But the older men, looking at the sands and seeing no craters tehre, realized that the air strike and probably not done its works. "The sands were abolutely smooth except for tide pockets and there was no shingle on beyond the sand," Sgt Theodore Fettinger of G. The small boats had not fired a shot coming in, and as the boats bumped, the men were standing up and looking over the side. (They said that they were carying so much equipment that they could not sit down in any case.) What further lulled them was that they could see nothing of the enemy positions. The naval shelling and fired the grass atop the cliff and it was blazing fiercely and giving off such a thick smoke that nothing could be seen beyond it. This pall hung there during the first several hours : it was still so thick when the men climbed the hill taht many of them wore their gas masks. (Fettinger and the others). The men believed, and it seems to be a point well taken, that is was this smoke which screened F-G from the enemy and made his earlier fire ineffective. There were no losses in "G" when the ramps went down. The men were more than halway across the beach before they became conscious of any fire coming toward them (Fettinger and T/Sgt Waverly T. Dowdy) and it was a "sporadic and ill-directed MG fire, at that." In boats 4 and 5 of "G" there were a few men lost as the fromations got away from the ramps (Dowdy) but in N° 6, no one dropped and the men were most of the way to the cliff foot before they felt any fire. As a result, "G" was assembled in sections at the base of the cliff (Fettinger and Dowdy) within 3-5 minutes of the landing – apparently the fastest concentration effected by any company on D-Day. At the first MG burst, most of the men had dropped automatically to their knees. (Fettinger.) But all long the line the officers and NCOs yelled : "Get your ass on up there," and hat was enough to get them going frd again. In "F" things did not go as smoothly. Some of the boat teams hot half-way to the sea wall before receiving any fire. But the boats on the far flank were doubly exposed, being closer to the enemy fire positions and in an area which was not screened by smoke. Boat N° 6 lost 10 men killed or wounded as soon as the team left the ramp. (Pfc Anthony Ferrara). The fire alos put into them as they advanced across the beach so that the three sections on the left were reduced to about one-third of their original number by the time the company had got up to the sea wall – about 45 minutes after the ramps were dropped. The wounded had dropped behind in the sands. Feeling themselves safe from the water, ???? of them threw away their lifebelts and lay down. Then the tide came in and caught them and they drowned. (Ferrara and S/Sgt Popkin Krekorian.) These were about the only drownings that occured in either company. F(s third section went right on up the hill. In 2 hrs, the section reached the fortified house, (show map) began mopping up the entrenchments around it an then came under such heavy bullet fire that they were held there for the day. The 4th, 5th and 6th, led by T/Sgt George R. England (two officers had been killed and one was separated from the Co) and by S/Sgt Walter R. Wilbur, also advanced straight up the hill. After getting an approximate of their location by studying their relation to the cliff-head on the right, they had tried to organize themselves, but had had little success. Thus they were still moving along in mob formation when they came under machine gun fire from their right and left front. That stopped them and they waited irresolutely. At that stage, general Cota found them. He yelled at them : "Dont’s lay down now. Go on and get that machine gun !" About then, the group was joined by party 25-30 Rangers. The Ra,gers seemed to know where they were going and what to do about it ; the sections from "F" were still in a state of "mental confusion." (Ferrara). So they continued along under Ranger leadership. The combined groups were split into two patrols, which proceeded to operate against the enemy fire positions and eliminate them. This task occuped them most of the day. At 2100, they reached Vierville, having come down the side road S of Hamel au Pretre. They then went on to the Chateau. Section 1 and 2 of "F" remained on the beach, for the most part, and were engaged in evacuating wounded and otherwise working order out of the beach confusion. Elements from these two sections, participating with a Ranger group which had come up from their left, also put the SP at les Moulins under attack in the afternoon and neutralized the greater part of this work, though enemy riflemen were still holding out there the following morning. (How the SP at Hamel au Pretre was reduced in detail is not revealed, either, by studying what was done by groups of 116. Sgt Dowdy recalls seeing a PC boat stand off directly in front of this position and pump shell after shell into it just at the time of the landing. The PC kept on firing until the German arty began to find its range and the shells began falling so thick that the skipper ran his craft on in and beached it. Even then, it continued to fire on the target. Finally an 88 shell hit it and it burned all day. By the time "G" swung up the beach and around the SP, it was silenced. But there were 4 dead Germans lying within the work. They did not show the marks of arty fire, nor had the works been greatly bettared by the shelling. It appears possible that the shelling had brought about an abandonment of the position. There were no American dead in the immediate vicinity and the guns had not been estroyed.) "G"’s men realized as they moved up the sand to the sea wall that they were on the wrong beach. This identifying marks which they had expected were not there. By about 0645, the company was at the wall, with its sections abreast and properly organized. The Co marked time for a ???? its officers doubtful about how to proceed. (Fettinger) Then an order came down the line : "G move to right 1000 yds. You are to left of your target." It was in the attempt to comply with this order (Fettinger) that the company went to peces. The men were standing as sections ; thay were told to displace as a company, and as soon as they started to move to the right, along the crowded and embattled beach, sections became hopelessley mixed and little groups began to fall away from the company. In this way, cohesion and order were lost and the Company which had reached the beach in the best state of any lost the best of its power. As the company drifted right, the enemy fire from above continued to build up, this section of the beach being the rendezvous of the tanks which were the favorite targets of the german arty. The Hq section of "G" – due at H plus 30 – was only then coming in. The control boat had by then become aware that most of "G" had landed at the wrong place and the Hq scetion was directed to the proper area. The remaining tanks (perhaps half of those which had landed with the first waves had already been knocked out) were drawn up along the beach where Hq section came in. The men at first tried to refuge behind them to escape bullet fire ; they then found that they were exposing themselves to most of the arty fire by so doing, and they got away as rapidly as possible. It was the mission of the tanks to engage the pillboxes on their immediate front. But here, too, the scene was screened with smoke and it is the opinion of the men that the tanks fired blind for the most part and could not see their targets. The marching body, however, was already split apart before coming abreast of the point where Hq section landed. One group had turned left short of the SP at Hamel au Preter and had worked its way up the hill. At first there were only 10 men, under Fettinger. They had become detached from the main bidy without realizing it, and not knowing where the company had gone, they decided to move inland. Just about noon they reached the brow of the hill and halted a short distance in front of the road, after coming under a scattering enemy fire. Fettinger saw no Americans ahead of him and throught he was out in front of the Rgt. So he and his men waited. About 20 more men drifted in, and 2 officers, Lieut Eugene Raggett of H and Lieut McEntee of G. Neither officer took command ; the men were allowed to make their own decision about what they wihed to do. Too, they were in disagreement about what should be done. Raggett wanted to go to objective and McEntee wanted to hold the ground. A mortar squad from "H" came into the position. The body was now about 50-60 men, fairly well armed, but still could not act because of indecision. Groups within the group tried to obey both officers at different times. One group started frd with Raggett, worked its way about 100 yds into a wheat field, had two men wounded in the xplosion of an anti-personnel mine and then came on back. Three times, other groups broke away and went back to the beach, only to return again after looking the situation over. "These men did not go under orders. Each time they left, it was thought they were going for good. Yet they were not told either to go or to stay. No orders were given. There was no plan." (Fettinger and Pfc John T. Amendola.) In this way, the group were down its energy and accomplished nothing. About 1830, S/Sgt Krekorian returned with the word, given him by an MP, that the road to Vierville was open. He told the officers but they refused to believe it. (Krekorian). At 1930, the group finally moved, going through Vierville and to Chateau, where "G" was outposting the Rgtl CP. The main body of "G" had gone on up the beach, about 800-900 yards beyond where Fettinger’s party had broken away. About 11/2 – 2 hrs after landeing, they met Colonel Charles D. Canham, Rgtl Comm, near Vierville draw. He had already been wounded (in arm and wrist) but was collecting men for the purpose of getting the attack frd through the draw. There were then about 60 men from F-G-H with him. At about 0830, he took them on from the beach and up the hill to the right of the Hamel SP. They got no fire at first (Dowdy) execpt 88 fire which was going high and not bothering them. It dropped closer to them and began hitting around them ; the attack bogged down for a few minutes just short of the road. The group collected itself and went on, then encountered a co of Rangers who were already engaging an enemy force in a field beyond the road. The 116 men were deployed over the same ground as the Rangers. Shortly after the deployment, the Ranger learder told Lieutenant Arthur V. Hendrick, Jr, that he was going to disengage and try to break through Vierville. Hendricks, figuring his force too scant to engage without support, deceided to follow the Rangers. In Vierville, they again met Colonel Canham and he sent them on to Chateau to secure the CP. (It seems probable that this movement followed the advenace of Taylor’s party into Vierville and that the ground had already been softened up before the arrival of "G". "H", coming at H plus 30, lost heavily from MG fire from the les Moulins position as it hit the beach. Its boats were also drawing arty fire from the right. For about 30 seconds afer the ramps went down, it seemed to Krekorian, the enemy guns were held. Then all of the boats began to get fire at once. The boats had come into the same beach where F-G landed ; yet as the men first looked at the shore they got no impression of confusion or of things going wrong. "We saw where arty shells were hitting the water near us. We were so concentrated on that that we got no real impression of what was happening on the beach." (Pfc Preston W. Bousman and Krekorian) Then the bullet fire caught them as they tried to get off the boats and from then on for the next few minutes, they were concerned only with the problems of survival. From Pfc John T. Amendol. "Two of the men from my section got down behind a tetrahedron to escape bullets. An arty shell hit the tetrahedron and drove the steel back into their bodies. I tried to pry the steel loose from the men but couldn’t do it. Then I figured they were dead, anyway. In Bousman’s boat only 6 men were left in this section after five minutes ; the others were killed or wounded by an 88 shell as they stepped from the ramp (the shell snak the boat) or by bullets as they waded ashore through waist-deep water. The smoke had now cleared somewhat from the cliff edge, the grass fire burning itself out, and the Third and Fopurth Wave caught the full impact of the remaining enemy guns. Locking back, Krekorian saw nine boats. He counted them ; seven were ablaze and sinking. Two LCI’s containing the rgtl supply of plasma, were among the craft that were going down. The tide had fulled ; the boats were also runnng into mines at the top of the beach. The movement of the water was now so swift that it was all but impossible to drag those who had become wounded out of the water and to safety. The wounded did strange, panicky things. Krekorian saw Pvt Raymong J. Pryor of H wounded and lying on the beach clinging to a Teller mine. The mine also had a lifebelt around it and Pryor clung to it as if it meant safety. The other me, tried to tell him to leave it, but he wouldn’t loosen his grasp. At its high point, the tide had washed many of the bodies up on the sand and they lay there parallel with the beach, in an almost straight line of bodies. (On this point Amendola said : "They looked like Madame Tussaud’s. Like wax. None of it seemed real. I felt like I was seeing some kind of a show." Oddly enough, every other man present agreed with this statement/ they all said they were reminded of "wax figures" ; they thought to themselves : "This is a show. It can’t be happe,ning to me.") The men left in Bousman’s group moved straight on up the hill. Coming to a position containing German dugouts and minor entrenchments, they cleaned up a few of the enemy, none of whom were trying to put up a determined resistance. Bousman had lost his own MG in the water. He cannibalized two broken German MGs which which he found in the works, then discovered he had no ammunition for them. Some engineers came along and joined them (10-12 men) and then a medical major. They set up a defensive and spent the night there. On the following morning, they took 17 German prisoners from a large German emplacment off to their right. As soon as the Americans moved to surround them, the G’s came out with their hands up. Krekorian and the mortar squad alos had moved up the cliff and joined the party which Fettinger had taken frd. S/Sgt Glenwood E. Hankins had come in on the boat to Bousman’s right, this boat containing 1 section of MGs and 1 sqd of mortars ; MG and arty fire broke all around the group when the ramp went down but they got to the sea wall with only minor losses. After a patrol from this party made a frd reconnaissance, the group joined Canham’s force and moved into Vierville. The smoke was thick around the cliff in the sector of the advance and Hankins got the impression that this more than all else enable the frd movement. Other groups from the four companies fought in small detacments at other points along the perimeter on D-Day.many men did not succeed in leaving the beach. But the mop-up work was so incomplete that on D plus one the whole Bn went to the beach so that a sweep could be made of the frd enemy positions. So many had been by-passed that Rgt was drawing much harrasing fire from its rear. The position at les Moulins was still thick with enemy. There were other small out-works and rifle posts which had not been touched at all.
Never Forget American D-Day is still actively collecting testimonies, objects and documents from all D-Day veterans or families. If you have a potential donation or questions, please contact the association historian, laurentlefebvre@americandday.org |
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Copyright (c) 2002 American D-Day
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