The plan

General Huebner's plan was to attack on a two-regiment front with the 16th Regiment on the left and the 116th Regiment on the right. In turn each regiment was to land two battalion teams on its own section of front with the task of clearing the beach obstacles and moving some two miles inland to secure the beachhead for follow-on landings. Almost 300 special assault engineers were to follow the leading waves of infantry in order to blow up the obstacles.

The set-piece plan had been prepared in great detail and perhaps reminded General Huebner of the way plans had been prepared for the American offensive at St. Mihiel in 1918 in which he had taken part. The beach had been divided into eight sectors of different lengths beginning with DOG in the west and ending with FOX in the east. The infantry landings were to follow the air and naval bombardment at 0631 hours. The beach approaches were to be cleared by 0700 hours when for the next two hours another wave of infantry was scheduled to come ashore every thirty minutes. The plan continued in its detail enemy strongholds to be neutralised by 0830 hours artillery to begin landing at 0830. It was a plan that had similarities to the one in September 1944 for Operation Market Garden which prompted the Pole, General Sosabowski, to complain, 'But what about the Germans?' Here, as in Holland, the enemy was not prepared to cooperate.

The effect of the weather on Force O for OMAHA was far worse than on Force U for UTAH because the 1 St. Division did not have the benefit of shelter at sea from the Cotentin Peninsula. The troops were loaded into their assault craft some eleven miles offshore, about twice the distance out that the British would use and against the lather's advice. Being so far out, the operation had to be done well before 0630 hours and it was, therefore, dark. Many craft got out of position including those carrying the engineers, whose task it was to clear the beach obstacles.

Six thousand yards offshore, twenty-nine DD (duplex drive) floating tanks were launched. Only two of these reached the beach. Many did not float at all but went straight to the bottom taking their crews with them.

There were losses too amongst the LCVP's carrying the infantry. Ten were swamped by the heavy seas and sank. The men, loaded with almost 701b of equipment each, had little chance of survival. Much of the intrinsic artillery to provide close-support for the infantry combat teams had been loaded on to amphibious DUKWs, but they proved to be top heavy and as a result they capsized losing more than twenty guns.

As the leading waves of landing craft approached the beach they were off target, without their beach-clearing engineers, without supporting armour and short on artillery. The men, crouched down in the bellies of the LCVP's, had been there for three hours. They were cramped, cold and seasick and then before they reached the shore the enemy opened fire on them.

Despite all difficulties, despite a situation that looked so desperate to General Bradley that he considered evacuating OMAHA, by the end of D-Day the Americans were on the cliffs above the beach and around the villages of Vierville and Colleville. They owed a great deal to the on-the-spot leadership of Brigadier General Cota, the Assistant Divisional Commander of the 29th Division. That evening the first follow-up force, the 26th Infantry Regiment, came ashore to defend the bridgehead. However, the landing was behind schedule and only two of the five exits from the beach were secure. If the Germans were to counterattack with armour within 48 hours, the beach might yet be lost.

What happened?

As the sun rose over Europe on June 6, 1944 hundreds of landing craft packed with thousands of American troops stormed towards the Normandy Coastline, specifically towards the beach codenamed Omaha Beach.  The weather conditions on this momentous morning were miserable, visibility was down to about one hundred yards and a thick grey mist hang over the English Channel.  Whilst they may not have been the most desirable of conditions to conduct an invasion in, they were beneficial towards covering the Allies's approach to the coastline, hiding them from the Germany defenders until the very last moment.

Unbeknownst to the Allies, the beach defences at Omaha had recently been reinforced with the German 352nd Infantry Division and thus the strength of the defending force was much larger than the Allies had anticipated.   However this wouldn't prove to be the Allies's greatest downfall in the initial moments of the invasion, rather the weather, which had supplied them with the element of surprise up to now, would turn against them.

Because of the topography of Omaha Beach the weather was having far greater effects on the water than at the other beaches spread along the coast of Normandy.  The result was an extremely rough surf which not only swamped some of the landing craft with water, forcing the troops to bail it out with their helmets, but also made scores of the soldiers sea sick - and this was before the advancing troops were noticed by the Nazis.

Under covering fire from US battleships the advancing invasion force was quickly noticed by the Germans, who responded with an armada of explosive shells and mortars. 

Some of the landing craft took hits, badly damaging the boats and killing scores of troops.  In reaction to this the commander of the landing craft containing the amphibious tanks order his 32 tanks into the water some 6000 yards from the shoreline.  27 were immediately swamped by the deep waters and sank with their crews.  Of the remainder some were stopped from launching by a jam in the landing craft's ramp, whilst 2 actually managed to make it onto the beach.  As they neared the beach the German return fire gathered intensity, three battalions of field artillery together with their 105mm howitzers were dumped into the sea.  Elsewhere more amphibious vehicles were lost in the rough surf.

Still some distance from the beach the ramps on the infantry landing craft spilled open, it was time for the invasion.  Thousands of cold, tired and soaked troops poured into the chest deep waters, and keeping their weapons above their heads they pushed towards the shoreline, dodging bullets and explosions in the process. 

Some men who had trained for four years for this invasion were killed in the first seconds of the landing.  Others were ripped about by bullets, and lay wounded on the shoreline.  By the time any of the soldiers actually reached the beach itself, they were dazed, exhausted and in no condition to fight.

In the confusion soldiers who were assigned specific tasks found themselves nowhere near their assigned places, so what ensured on the beach was not so much a battle, but rather a fight for survival as the Allied troops crammed themselves against the sand dunes for protection.  The Americans were forced to fight for ever metre of Omaha Beach.  Within half an hour of the invasion, at approximately 0630 hrs, 1000 man had managed to reach the shoreline.  Bodies and injured soldiers were strewn everywhere and as more reinforcements arrived they too were met with fierce German resistance.  After two hours the shoreline was awash with burning vehicles, wrecked landing craft and injured troops, and yet no exit from the beach had been attained yet.  Only 100 tons of the 24,500 tons of supplies scheduled to land managed to make it to the beach, and the constant flow of supplies and troops threatened to swamp the beach as they struggled to make an exit from the beach.

Morning quickly became early afternoon, and the troops still had not managed to gain sufficient exits from Omaha Beach.  Whilst they struggled, officers began to round up their squads and some head way was made.   By mid-afternoon the Allies had blown up the barriers preventing them from exiting the beach and subsequently thousands of soldiers poured off Omaha Beach to begin a chain of events which would see the eventual downfall of Nazi Germany take place.