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