Omaha Beach
Omaha was one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. The primary objective at Omaha was to secure a beachhead eight kilometers deep, linking with the British landings at Gold to the east, and reaching the area of Isigny to the west to link up with VII Corps landing at Utah. The coastline of Normandy was divided into seventeen sectors, with codenames using a spelling alphabet.
About Omaha Beach in brief
Omaha was one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, during World War II. The primary objective at Omaha was to secure a beachhead eight kilometers deep, linking with the British landings at Gold to the east, and reaching the area of Isigny to the west to link up with VII Corps landing at Utah. The coastline of Normandy was divided into seventeen sectors, with codenames using a spelling alphabet—from Able, west of Omaha, to Roger on the east flank of Sword. Sectors were further subdivided into beaches identified by the colors Green, Red, and White. Omaha was originally designated X-Ray, from the phonetic alphabet of the day. Two names were changed on 3 March 1944; with Omaha and Utah probably suggested by Omar Bradley, as two privates fitting out his London headquarters were from Omaha, Nebraska and Provo, Utah; they were not named after the corps commanders, who were from Virginia and Louisiana. The American 29th Infantry Division, along with nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, assaulted the western half of the beach. The battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern half. Opposing the landings was the German 352nd Infantry Division. The German strategy was based on defeating any seaborne assault at the water line, and the defenses were mainly deployed in strongpoints along the coast. The Allied plan called for initial assault waves of tanks, infantry, and combat engineer forces to reduce the coastal defenses, allowing larger ships to land in follow-up waves.
But very little went as planned. Difficulties in navigation caused most of the landing craft to miss their targets throughout the day, and inflicted heavy casualties on landing U. S. troops. Later landings bunched up around the few channels that were cleared. Small penetrations were eventually achieved by groups of survivors making improvised assaults, scaling the bluffs between the most heavily defended points. Two small isolated footholds had been won, which were subsequently exploited against weaker defenses further inland, achieving the original D-Day objectives over the following days. At the western end, a bank of shingle bank rested against a stone wall, which ranged from 1.5–4 m high in height in the height of the sea. For the remaining two thirds after the beach ended, the shingle ended the seawall ended, with a low sand embankment and sea wall. The crescent-shaped beach presented a gently sloping tidal area averaging 300 m between low and high-water marks. Above the tide line was a bank up to 15m wide in places and 15 m up to the high tide line, which dominated the whole beach east of Vierville-sur-Mer. The beach was bounded at either end by large rocky cliffs. At either end and extending up to 200m, a narrow shelf of sand extended up to either end.
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This page is based on the article Omaha Beach published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
