D-Day
Kayden Brust, Kristin Beier
US Troops Landings
The first wave of US landings was scheduled for around 6:30 in the morning, and was ordered to have 96 tanks, the Special Engineer Task Force, and eight companies of assault infantry.
With speeds of 5 mph a strong current was flowing on that morning from west to east. This created problems because all the troops were landing further east, some even landed where there was nothing there to provide protection.
The soldiers here were faced with the strongest German resistance, and it was the deadliest D-Day landing, with the most casualties.
The Beaches
The objective of the Omaha landing was to allow the soldiers to more south by securing a beachhead between Port-en-Bessin and the Vire river. They also wanted to link the VII Corps to the easy through the small town of Isigny.
There were four sectors of Omaha beach and they were given code names: Charlie, Dog, Easy and Fox.
Omaha Beach was around 7,000 yards long with a tidal range that was around 300 yards between the low and high tide. At four different locations on the beach there was small valleys that offered protected exits off the beach. These valleys were the only way for armor to reach high ground. There are three farming villages surrounding the beach that are: St. Laurent, Colleville and Vierville.
The enemies had a good advantage due to the crescent curve of the shoreline, which allowed for perfect fields of fire to protect against landing troops.
There were also 8 concrete casements, 35 pillboxes which contained various guns, and machine guns placed around the beach.
101st Airbourne
The 101st division went to take their positions west of Utah Beach. Their mission was to anchor the corps’ southern flake and to eliminate the German’s secondary beach defenses. This would then allow the seaborne forces of the 4th Infantry Division to continue inland.
fog caused the planes to break formation so they missed landing zones and had problems finding their units
Despite all of the struggles the men faced they never gave up on their mission. The soldiers had secured the beach exits in their zones and contacted the 4th Division’s landing forces by night
By June 14th the 101st Division had been successful in linking Utah and Omaha, along with landing forces.
The 101st were then transferred to VII Corps to be responsible for the southwest flank where they continued to fight in northern France for 3 weeks. Finally in July they were ordered back to England to begin a new mission.
verified 2,499 American deaths out of 4413 total
Kenneth Trott
“I was born in Ilford, London, England on the 28th of December 1922. I volunteered for the RAF in April 1941, age 18 and joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in September 1941 as a Trainee Cadet Pilot. During my training, I held the rank of Leading Aircraftsman. I did my initial training on ground subjects at Torquay, Devon, England, before being posted overseas to Canada for flying training. I went solo at Windsor Mills Airfield near Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada flying Fleet Finch Biplanes. Later I was posted to St. Hubert, Montreal, for advanced flying on North American A.T. 6 Trainer. In September of 1942, I received my pilots' wings and was also commissioned as a pilot officer. I was finally demobilized in November 1946 in the substantive rank of Flight Lieutenant. The blackboard was then unveiled to reveal the proposed landings, etc. We were told to turn in early, as we should be on call from approximately 4 a.m. the next morning. Needless to say, the roar of aircraft going overhead towards France made sleep almost impossible in our tents. We all took an early breakfast and reported to our various dispersals, where the ground crew were already running up the Sabre engines of our Typhoons and then refueling them while we awaited the first calls to briefing and also listened to the BBC radio broadcasts. My squadron, 197 was first involved at 0710, eight aircraft being led by Wing Commander Baker, who later lost his life over Normandy on the 16th of June. They attacked targets in a low level attack south of Bayeux and all returned safely at 0820. As soon as the aircraft from the first operation of the day had landed and taxied in, they were surrounded by both ground crew and the other pilots on standby, who were checking firstly to see if the muzzle (the mouth of the cannon) covers had been blown off, which would indicate that each of the four 20mm cannons had been fired, and then if there was any flak damage to the aircraft. On my return to Needs Oar Point, I remained on call until 1750 hours when eight of us were briefed to carry out a reconnaissance south of Caen. My log book indicates that this involved low level bombing on an emergency supply dump, which was left with black smoke and flames coming from the target area. n all, during the ten weeks of the Battle of Normandy, 150 Typhoon pilots lost their lives, while many others were taken prisoners of war, myself included. To commemorate this battle, and in particular the part the Typhoon played, a memorial has been erected near the village of Noyers-Bocage (France) about ten miles southwest of Caen."