Omaha Beach in Focus - Series introduction

Picture taken by Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert Sargent, of the USS Samuel Chase. Image shows Company A, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division landing on Easy Red Beach Sector, Omaha Beach at 7:40 AM on 6 June 1944.

Over the next months I will be posting here a series of articles which will take a close look at selected aspects of the NEPTUNE landings on Omaha Beach on D-Day, 6 June 1944.  I would like to open by claiming that this series includes ‘never before seen’ material or ‘newly found material that had been lost’, or other such spectacular claims which seem to be de rigueur for popular military histories.   While such claims might be true in one or two instances throughout this series, the fact is that surviving historical documentation has been poured over in such depth and such frequency that the documents are wearing thin from repeated handling, and there are very few new revelations to be ‘discovered’.

If that’s the case, then why bother with this series at all?  I suggest there are a couple good reasons.

First is the matter of perspective.  If you want to engage in a nearly futile pursuit, try to find a modern military historian with firsthand military experience.  There are some, but they are too few and too far between.  The generations of historians who had any military service, much less during WWII, have sadly passed away.  In their wake has arisen a field of military historians who rely instead on whatever expertise an advanced degree in history can bestow.  While such a degree, complemented with sound common sense, has turned out many fine works by many fine authors, it also imposes strict limitations on their depth of understanding and analysis in details.  They have no firsthand idea of how small units operate, especially in combat conditions.  They often have only a surface-deep understanding of tactics and doctrine.  Few have had any experience in leading, managing and commanding large bodies of men and complex organizations.  Few have been trained at the general staff college level, so they lack understanding of how staffs operate or the subtleties of planning.  Even fewer have been trained at the war college level, so they have no firm appreciation of either the Operational Art or Strategy.  In fact, it’s depressing to see so many of them use the words tactics and strategy interchangeably.

The result of this lack of professional training (in the military sense) limits these academic historians to an 32 bit understanding of a 256 bit subject matter.  And their products often reflect those limits. 

I hope I bring a different perspective to this series.  I was a professional Army officer, entering the service at 17, graduating from the Military Academy at West Point and then serving 22 years as an Infantry officer, complete with the Ranger tab, Master Parachutist Badge and Combat Infantryman’s Badge.  I’ve even had planning experience, ranging from platoon level on the one hand to theater army  level at the other extreme.  So, I hope to provide a somewhat better perspective than many.  Beyond that, a short tour as an inspector general taught me not to focus merely on what happened during an incident, but to look deeper into the causative factors that may have brought about the end result.  And the fact is, the seeds sown by the preconditions before the battle far too often are responsible for the poisoned fruit reaped in combat.  I am not a professional historian and have never claimed to be.  Nevertheless, my perspective may be worthwhile.

The second reason I have for writing this series is historical accuracy.  Despite the amazingly diligent work of hobbyist and professional researchers - and a number of excellent authors – popular knowledge of the landings increasingly has been distorted or falsified by sketchy 5-minute YouTube videos as well as some authors who seek to create spectacular stories at the expense of the facts.  Of course, there are also the Hollywood productions which place entertainment impact over historical reality.  Then there is the ‘regimental history’ version of events which seek to record the glory and great accomplishments of a particular unit, with just the barest nod to factual accuracy.  I ran into this in several units to which I was assigned over the years.  ‘Regimental history’ may be understandable in its intended role of inculcating martial culture, but it should never be confused with legitimate history.  And finally, popular histories seldom delve deeply into technical military details, so they tend to deliver either a superficially shallow story, or, again, seize on one small aspect and exaggerate its importance to absurd degrees. 

All of these factors have resulted in some fairly incomplete, if not generally distorted views of military history in general, and Omaha Beach in particular.  For instance, the jumbled and scattered landings of the first few waves on Omaha Beach are usually quickly attributed to the unexpectedly strong eastward current and smoke that obscured landmarks . . . and no further thought is given to the matter.  But that ignores a number of decisions during the planning and rehearsal phases that laid the groundwork for failure once the current and smoke were encountered.  Official action reports tend to lay blame at the feet of uncontrollable influences rather than staff and command decisions that set the preconditions for failure.  And so it is that I believe several points merit a deeper analysis.  From an organizational and planning perspective, one would do well to study how and why these decisions were made.

And now for a caveat.  Although the Second Front (the Allied landings in northwest Europe) had long been a point of discussion, and been a subject of studies and limited planning, the actual preparations were very much a hurried and not totally coordinated affair.  Largely this was due to the rather late expansion of the size of the invasion.  It was a critical decision – and absolutely necessary – but it placed significant additional demands on forces and materiel, especially when it came to naval shipping.  The fact that all of these challenges were met in a relatively short time stands as a testament to the exceptional ability of those involved.  It is inevitable, however,  that under the pressures of time, the vast scope of the planning effort, a host of unknows and an altogether too active enemy commander, that oversights, mistakes and errors in judgement would occur.  The intent with this series is not to find culprits or lay blame (well, with one or two unavoidable exceptions).  Rather it is to identify how decisions conspired to affect some of the more notable events.

I hope you find these articles informative, and perhaps even enjoyable.

CRH

Destroyers’ Inshore Support at Omaha beach - Motion Picture Evidence

Several months ago, I was asked to do some research for a documentary film project on an Army combat cameraman who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, 6 June 1944.  As with most of these requests, it ended up involving many, many hours reviewing the scattered film clips and photos that have survived.  Although the invasion was a momentous event, the vast bulk of the visual record consists of some pretty routine, even boring material.  I was trying to track the progress of a specific landing craft, tank (LCT) and identify the time it beached.  Normally, a quick look at an image is enough to let you know that it isn’t relevant and you move on to the next hundred or so images.  So, as I was reviewing a particular film clip shot by an Army motion picture cameraman aboard the LCT, I quickly dismissed the clip; it had been taken too early in the day and the LCT was much too far offshore.  As I was about to fast-forward, something caught my attention.  The clip showed a mass of landing craft milling offshore, part of the backlog that was created when crowded conditions on the narrow beach caused beachmasters to halt further landings of vehicles and equipment. 

But there amid the traffic jam of landing craft was something else altogether.  It was a warship, a destroyer, to be exact.  It was like an elephant that had been overlooked because I was focused on the herd of mice surrounding it.  What stood out was the location of the destroyer.  Destroyers were supposed to operate in the fire support lanes, which looped toward the beach, turning away some five thousand yards or more from the shore.  But in this film clip, the destroyer was much farther inshore.  It was obviously well forward of the line of departure and closer in than any of the landing craft. 

As far as I can tell, that clip represents the only motion picture evidence of one of the most critical, if not decisive actions on D-Day:  the movement of Destroyer Squadron 18 close inshore to pound German defenses.

“Thank God for the U.S. Navy”

If you have read anything about the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach on 6 June 1944, then you are aware of the critical role played by a few Navy destroyers.  With the assaulting regiments largely pinned down at the shingle embankment, no exits yet opened and later waves of men and vehicles piling up at the waterline, things looked very bad from offshore.  That viewpoint may have been a bit misleading, as limited progress was actually being made in the gaps between German strongpoints, but those advances were not apparent from offshore and there is little doubt the landings were in trouble.

Ironically, there was substantial firepower at hand to help the troops struggling to seize the beachhead, but that firepower had been largely since the pre-H-Hour bombardment had ended.  Task Force 124.9, the Omaha Beach naval bombardment force, was lying several thousand yards off the beach.  It included two old US battleships, three light cruisers (two Free French and one Royal Navy), nine US Gleaves-class destroyers. and three British Hunt class destroyers.[1]  The US destroyers, which are the focus of this article, constituted Destroyer Squadron 18 (DESRON 18), and included USS Frankford, DD 497; USS Carmick, DD 493; USS Doyle, DD 494; USS Emmons, DD 457 (replacing the damaged USS Endicott); USS McCook, DD 496; USS Baldwin, DD 624; USS Harding, DD 625; USS Satterlee, DD 626; and USS Thompson, DD 627.

Figure 1. The USS McCook, DD 496, showing the configuration of the nine Gleaves-class destroyers of DESRON 18 on D-Day. (NAVSOURCE)

The battleships and cruisers had been primarily engaged with coastal artillery batteries and other targets behind the landing beaches.  Most of the naval gunfire placed on the immediate beach defenses during the pre-H-Hour bombardment had come from the nine US destroyers (employing their four 5-inch guns and in some cases their 40mm antiaircraft guns in the direct fire mode) and the three British escort destroyers (mounting four 4-inch guns).  At 6:25 AM, the destroyers had been ordered to cease fire as the first waves were about to land.

After that, the destroyers had only conducted direct fire missions on the few enemy ‘targets of opportunity’ they could positively identify.  The Satterlee, and later the Harding and Thompson, were able to make contact with the Rangers’ shore fire control party (SFCP) and provided gunfire support that first suppressed defenders so the Rangers could climb to the top of the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, and then aided the Rangers in repelling German counterattacks.  Beyond the far eastern end of Omaha Beach, Baldwin, Doyle, Emmons and Harding periodically engaged German shore batteries in the vicinity of Port-en-Bessin that just wouldn’t stay dead.  Beyond these few engagements, the destroyers’ guns had mostly been idle.  This was not due to a lack of will or capability, rather a lack of targets, or more precisely, a lack of spotters ashore.  Each ship had been tasked to support fire requests from one or two FSCP attached to infantry battalions coming ashore.  But the ships had been largely unsuccessful in establishing communications with their SFCP teams.  Between casualties in the SFCP teams and waterlogged radios, communications generally failed and the destroyers were mostly blind.  From time to time, they might spot a target of opportunity and engage it, or, taking a clue from the shell bursts of the surviving tanks, bring their guns to bear on the same targets.  But by and large the destroyers had been frustratingly idle, unable to do much to help with the crisis ashore for fear of hitting friendly troops, whose locations were difficult to identify through the smoke and haze from their positions in the fire support lanes. 

Until about 8:30 AM the Frankford, with the DESRON 18’s commander aboard (Captain Sanders), had been overseeing the establishment of the anti-submarine screen north of the Transport Area (which was 23,000 yards offshore).  She then departed and headed inshore where the rest of the squadron was operating, and, according to the ship’s action report, closed within 1200 yards of the beach.  Seeing the situation on the beach, at about 9 AM, Captain Sanders, ordered his destroyers to close into the beach as far as possible to provide fire support.  According the Samuel Eliot Morison, by 8:00 AM some of the destroyers had already moved closer to shore, but now the entire squadron closed in.

Figure 2. This illustration shows the organization of the various naval control measures off Omaha Beach. Note the fire support areas. The destroyers generally operated from within these lanes. (Morison)

To put this in perspective, the fire support lanes in which these destroyers operated, were 5000 to 7000 yards from the beaches at their nearest points.  Twelve hundred yards would put the ship at point blank range as far as their 5 inch guns were concerned.  It also placed the destroyers in dangerously shallow water.  The draft of these ships ranged from a bit more than 13 feet to a bit less than 18 feet (when fully loaded).  McCook, for example closed to the 3 fathom line (18 feet depth), based on charts whose hydrographical data was none too precise.

When Captain Sanders ordered his ships that close in, he was taking a big risk of grounding and the possible loss of one or more of his ships.  And the danger wasn’t just from running aground.  If one of the destroyers steamed over a sunken LCT or even one of the sunken duplex drive tanks in that shallow water, the result could very well have been a holed hull.  On the other hand, the reward was potentially great.  At those close ranges, ships had far better observation to locate targets on the beach and could better key off the targets the tanks were engaging.  Just as importantly, at those ranges, they could precisely place fire on identified targets, reducing the risk of danger to friendly troops ashore.  CPT Sanders’ decision was bold, but not entirely rash. He had conducted close in fire support in the Mediterranean, so he had experience on his side. His was a classic example of a calculated risk.  And he led by example; his ship reported closing to 800 yards from the beach. Fortunately, while some of his ships scraped bottom, none ran hard aground.

Captain Sanders’ orders were soon given unambiguous endorsement. At 9:50 Am, Admiral Bryant, commanding the bombardment group, exhorted all the ships in his group: “Get on them, men! Get on them! They are raising hell with the men on the beach, and we can’t have any more of that! We must stop it!”

And it worked.  In light of the recent Army loss to Navy in their annual football game, I am not inclined to say much nice about my nautical compatriots.  Nevertheless, justice demands I make this one concession: The Navy may well have saved the day at Omaha Beach.  Certainly, Generals Bradley (commanding the First US Army) and Gerow (commanding the VII Corps and the Army troops landing at Omaha Beach) thought so.  As did several thousand men ashore[2].  With the destroyers finally able to spot and engage specific German emplacements at absurdly close ranges, enemy defensive fires rapidly lessened and the troops ashore were able to more faster progress off the beach.[3]

Despite the gallant, and arguably decisive, actions of DESRON 18, it was only able to contribute a small fraction of its firepower to the fight. According to Morrison, “Commander W. J. Marshall in Satterlee reported that, owing to want of information, only about 20 per cent of the destroyers’ fire support capabilities were were used.”

I won’t attempt here to relate the fire missions these destroyers executed during this phase of the landings.  Those have been told many times before, and such details are not the focus of this article.  Our focus here is on the visual record of these events.  But I’ll close this section with an excerpt of a letter from Colonel Mason (chief of staff for the 1st Infantry Division) to Rear Admiral Hall (commander of the Navy forces off Omaha Beach:  “I am now firmly convinced that our supporting naval fire got us in; that without that gunfire we positively could not have crossed those beaches.”

(For those interested in a summary of this action, I suggest “Destroyers at Normandy, Naval Gunfire Support at Omaha Beach”, by William B. Kirkland Jr., or Morison’s  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume XI, The Invasion of France and Germany.)

Visual Evidence

Until I stumbled on this film, the only images of these destroyers in action close inshore at Omaha Beach that I had seen were still images.  The most well-known were drawings, The Battle for Fox Green Beach and Target of Opportunity, both by Dwight Shepler, a combat artist aboard the Emmons that day.  And I can only recall a single still photo (Figure 3 below). But motion picture film of the destroyers in action?  Not so much.

Figure 3. A destroyer off Dog White beach sector. This photo has been associated with the fire mission conducted by the USS Harding to demolish the bell tower of the church in Vierville in the belief the Germans were using it as an observation post. The request supposedly had been passed from an Army colonel to the captain of LCT 538 who passed it on to the Harding. After approval from higher, at 2:13 PM the Harding expended 40 rounds, destroying the tower and causing friendly casualties. The area was already in the hands of the Rangers and no Germans were in the tower. This is an excellent example of how confusing combat can be, and especially when using naval gunfire to support troops ashore. A similar incident occurred at the opposite end of Omaha Beach when naval shelling of Colleville, which was already occupied by Company C, 16th RCT. Numerous friendly casualties resulted.

Although the Harding appears to be close inshore in this photo this is a bit deceptive, as the relative sizes of the Harding and of the burning Landing Craft, Infantry (LCI) and beached LCT indicate. (Omaha Beach - Vierville)

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I did finally stumble on some film of this event while browsing through the excellent holdings on the Critical Past website.  It was clip # 65675051420, titled “United States soldiers loaded in Landing Crafts as they move towards Fox Green Beachhead in Normandy, France on D-Day”, and was just 1 minute and 6 seconds long – including the Critical Past introductory splash screen.  It’s not the best quality film.  Taken from a bobbing LCT, it can be a bit difficult to identify and track specific details, a condition not helped by the camera panning past key parts of the action.  Further, it is grainy footage and the exposure is not the best. 

Figure 4. This image comes from a frame of motion picture film taken aboard an LCT by Technical Sergeant (TSGT) Val Pope, a US Army combat cameraman belonging to the 165th Signal Photo Company. Outlined in blue is the distinctive shape of a Gleaves class destroyer. It’s impossible to tell from this image how close to shore it is, but it is well inshore of the landing craft seen gathered here, which are seaward of the Line of Departure (4000 yards from the shore). Outlined in red is the distinctive black smoke column of high explosive shell detonations. (Critical Past)

During this clip, a destroyer can be seen in four separate sequences.  The first sequence runs from the 00:04 second to 00:12 second time mark.  As Figure 4 illustrates, the scene shows the backlog of various landing craft in a holding pattern off Omaha Beach.  Between this log jam and the beach is a lone destroyer; from what little can be seen, it doesn’t appear there are any landing craft shoreward of the ship, but that isn’t certain.  From its shape it is a Gleaves-class destroyer, exactly as we would expect.  Its bow is pointing to the right (west), facing into the direction of the current and this is exactly how the destroyers maneuvered.  For example, the Doyle’s action report included this entry: “Maneuvering ship to stay in position against current which is running west at 2.8 knots. Flood tide."

In the background you can clearly see the bluffs behind the beach.  There are several streams of low lying white smoke, usually a sign of grass fires.  Ignited by the pre-H-Hour bombardment, they proved to be a persistent problem on D-Day, obscuring key navigational landmarks for the first waves.  Atop the bluffs on the left side of the frame is a darker smoke column, more in keeping with the results of high explosive shell detonations.  The area of the presumed HE explosions are a good distance laterally down the beach from the destroyer, so these impacts are probably the product of a different destroyer.

Figure 5. Taken from a frame just 2 seconds after Figure 3, the camera has panned to the right. The destroyer (again in blue) is now in the left side of the frame. The film coincidentally catches a salvo of naval shells impacting at the far left of the frame before the camera quickly pans away. Note this is not the same area as the black smoke seen in Figure 4. (Critical Past)

At time mark 00:10 of this same sequence, a cluster of HE shells detonates at the top of the bluffs farther to the right.  Because the camera has panned to the right, this new set of explosions is again in the left half of the camera’s frame, but the impact location is several hundred yards to the right (west) of the first HE smoke column.  Again, you can’t see any indication that the destroyer pictured fired this salvo, it is nonetheless the only film I’ve seen that shows both a destroyer and a destroyer’s shellfire during this critical phase of the battle.

The gap in the bluffs visible at the 00:10 mark appears to the entrance to the Colleville Draw (Exit E-3 in the invasion plan).  This would place these ships off the Fox Red beach sector.  The HE detonations seen at that time mark appear to be well to the east of WN60 and the F-1 exit[4], and probably are hitting the bluffs just north of le Grand Hameau and Sainte Honorine.

For the next 7 seconds, the camera is angled to the right (west) and shows little of interest to us.

Figure 6. A closer view of the destroyer in action. In the background is the same stretch of bluffs, showing signs of recent shellfire. Some time has passed since the sequence in Figure 5 was filmed, as indicated by the changed smoke patterns. (Critical Past)

At time mark 00:19, the camera is again focused on the destroyer, which is in the right half of the camera’s frame, and briefly obscured by the passing LCT-626[5].  The contour of the bluffs and the pattern of the grass fire and HE smoke columns proves this is the same scene as in the first sequence.  The destroyer is still pointed to the west.  The camera’s point of view appears much closer inshore; whether that is due to the camera’s LCT moving closer or a telephoto lens isn’t clear.  There are no new detonations visible, but both HE smoke columns continue to expand.  Nor is there a sign that the destroyer pictured has fired a salvo during the 11 seconds of this sequence.  

At the 00:31 mark there is a new scene showing the smoke rising from recent HE explosions on the bluff.  At the very end of this sequence (00:38 mark) at the right of the frame, you can see the two white vertical shapes which are the distinctive funnels of a destroyer.  The sequence ends there. [Note: the film cells available as still images through Critical Past were generated one per second of film. The image of the destroyer’s two funnels discussed in this paragraph fall between the two nearest cells, so it wasn’t possible to include an illustrative photo here. The funnels are briefly visible in the clip.]

The next sequence begins at the 00:40 mark, with another large HE smoke cloud billowing up at the top of the bluffs.  In this case, LCT-623 is in the foreground[6], but no destroyer is visible.

Figure 7. In this image taken from the film’s 55 second mark, a destroyer - perhaps the same one in previous sequences - is moving out to sea and is in the vicinity of the Line of Departure (which was 4000 yards from the beach) or beyond. The second and third gun turrets (mounts 52 and 53 in US Navy terminology) are still trained fore and aft respectively, while the front and rear turrets (mounts 51 and 54) are trained to starboard, and may still be in the process of a fire mission. (Critical Past)

The next sequence begins at the 00:51 mark and shows a destroyer at much closer range.  Even at this distance it is not possible to identify which ship it is.  The nine Gleaves-class destroyers here had nearly identical configurations[7] and the hull number isn’t visible.  Note the point of origin for the black smoke is on the slopes of the bluff, not the top. The volume black smoke indicates a heavy volume of naval fire has been concentrated on the target.  

Also note that in every sequenced discussed – save one - all we see are the HE smoke clouds, not the actual explosions as the shells impacted.  There’s a reason for this.  The motion picture cameras used 100 foot reels of film, and there were practical limits on how many rolls could be carried.  The cameraman who filmed this sequence belonged to Detachment P of the Army’s 165th Signal Photo Company, and he was going ashore that day.  Whatever load of film he carried on D-Day would have to last him a few days, until a resupply chain was established. So he had to carefully conserve his film, and not waste it on useless scenes.  With this in mind, we can easily understand why this clip consists of so many short sequences: get the shot, stop filming and look for another interesting scene.

With film being a critical item, our cameraman could not afford to film long sequences in the hope that a destroyer would fire before his roll was exhausted.  The solution was to try to stay ready and focused on the likely action, and start the camera after the boom of the guns signaled the action had commenced.  So it was a case of reactive filming.  Not a very good technique, but considering the circumstance, it was about the best possible.

Recall I said only one sequence actually showed shells detonating.  That was the first sequence, and I believe it was purely accidental.  The sequence began by showing a growing HE smoke cloud – typical of the reactive method of filming that was required.  The camera then panned to the right, briefly seeking some other subject before the sequence cut off.  The shell bursts we do see apparently were captured accidentally, and the fact that the camera quickly panned past the explosions and shuts off indicates to me the cameraman didn’t even know he captured that historic image.

This motion picture clip may not be the most earth-shattering discovery in military history, or even D-Day lore. But it is quite a nice bit of documentation that captures a significant event on D-Day. Choppy, short - almost disjointed - sequences, grainy and with poor exposure. Nevertheless, it is a small and meaningful piece of history, captured as it happened, under difficult conditions. I hope you find it as interesting as I have.

If you are aware of any other motion picture footage of destroyers operating close inshore off Omaha Beach, please be sure to leave a note - and a link! - in the comments section.

Chuck Herrick

Footnotes:

[1] The following account omits discussion of the British Hunt class destroyers, Tanatside, Talybont and Melbreak.  Termed ‘escort destroyers’ by the Royal Navy, they were smaller and less heavily armed than fleet destroyers, as befitted their design role as convoy escort ships.  During the morning of 6 June, they participated in the pre-H-Hour bombardment, but then were detached from the gunfire support mission and moved to the outer screening station to join other ships in the anti-submarine screen, as the plan called for.  As a result, they did not figure in the actions that are the focus of this article.  As always, no slight is intended to our gallant British allies, as these ship did credible jobs in all tasks assigned to them.

[2] Of course, the Navy was also responsible for several factors which plagued the landings, so perhaps the credit and debit columns rather balanced out in the end.  I hope to address some of the problems with the naval planning and execution in future posts.

[3] I should note that in at least one instance during this period, a large ship in the bombardment group aided the destroyers battering the German beach defenses.  Morison reported that, “Between 12:23 and 12:30 PM the old battleship USS Arkansas put six 14-inch shells into the German strongpoints at the Vierville exit.”

[4] WN60 was the German strongpoint on the eastern bluffs of the Colleville draw; the F-1 draw snaked up just below the position.  WN stands for the German word Wiederstandnest, literally, resistance nest.

[5] Scheduled to land at H+300 (11:30 AM) in wave 21 for Fox Green beach sector.

[6] Scheduled to land at H+130 (8:40 AM) in wave17 for Easy Red beach sector.

[7] Eight of DESRON 8’s destroyers had a square-faced bridge, and only the Emmons had the standard rounded-face bridge.  Unfortunately the front face of the bridge in this sequence isn’t visible.

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