Machine guns chattered, mortar shells exploded and shrapnel whirled across Omaha Beach on the morning of June 6 1944. D-Day, the most ambitious Allied military operation of the Second World War, was underway as American infantrymen assaulted the 4.5-mile (7km) ribbon of otherwise nondescript sands that the German defenders had turned into a killing ground.
Intended to pierce Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic Wall defences and open a second Allied front in Western Europe, the operation was a tremendous undertaking as 150,000 troops hit the five invasion beaches of Normandy. The combat was fierce in several areas, but nowhere more so than windswept Omaha Beach, where the issue was in doubt for hours. The heroism of officers like 1st Lieutenant Jimmie Monteith tipped the scales that terrible day – from possible defeat to hard-won victory.
Company L, 3rd Battalion, 116th Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, was fully immersed in the maelstrom on Omaha as its soldiers slogged through the surf under fire, sought temporary cover, then made the move against their assigned objective: the opening of the Cabourg Draw.
Five of the six landing craft intended to bring Company L ashore reached the beach, but heavy currents had dragged some of them off course. Nevertheless, Monteith managed to bring his platoon ashore amid the chaos. Omaha is remembered today as the most fiercely contested of the landing sectors, where approximately 2,500 American soldiers of the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions were killed or wounded.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 133-utgaven av History of War.
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COUPS & CHAOS
How the French armed forces lost the war in Algeria and almost destroyed French democracy in the process
BATTLE OF ALGIERS
When the Front de libération nationale FLN) took its war to the streets of the capital, France’s military responded with merciless wrath
THE RISE OF ALGERIAN RESISTANCE
How the anti-colonialist struggle around the globe helped inspire Algeria’s liberation movement to organise and fight back
ROOTS OF REVOLUTION
A century of French occupation led to a genocide in Algeria that provoked one of the bloodiest showdowns of the modern age
DWIGHT W BIRDWELL
In the opening hours of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, this Specialist Five led his armoured cavalry detachment in repulsing a fierce communist assault against Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon
THE FIVE STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP
Phillips O’Brien discusses how this quintet of national leaders impacted the course of the Second World War
Great Battles FLODDEN
On the morning of 9 September 1513, King James lV of Scotland stood atop Flodden Hill with what seemed an insurmountable advantage over the English. Yet by the day's end he would lay slain and his army shattered
FERDINAND 'THE BLOODY'
Known for his brutal martial punishment and execution of his own men, Ferdinand Schérner’s ruthlessness was matched only by his devotion to Nazi ideology
AIRBORNE UNDER SIEGE ARNHEM
For nine days the heroic 1st Airborne fought desperately, waiting vainly for relief that never came
SCANDINAVIA UNDER ATTACK
Hitler’s forces smash through Denmark and Norway ina grim foretaste of the terrible fate awaiting the rest of Western Europe
