11/9/2022 0 Comments Il 2 sturmovik 1946 gun sight dark![]() ![]() Jimmie Monteith was right about it not being their day at Omaha. The fact that the seasoned 726th Regiment, 716th Division was bolstered by the greener 352nd Infantry Division that was on maneuvers nearby on June 6th was not known to Allied intelligence. ![]() Mortars came next and then the big 88 mm gun emplacements dotted the furthest firing line. Backing that were the 100-foot cliffs housing pill boxes with machine guns, 20 mms, 50 and 75 mm anti-tank cannon. Besides the first layer of tank obstacles and mines was concertina wire and then more mines. And he took pains to make the beaches impenetrable. The first 24 hours will be decisive," he concluded. "The war will be won or lost on the beaches. Let's move inland."įew expected the Allied invasion at Omaha Beach. The radioman repeats the message from Colonel Taylor, "Hell, we're dying on the beach. Monteith did a head count and found that fully half of his fifty-one men were missing. They crawled forward to the relative safety of a rock overhang from the steel rain. The 7.92 mm copper-jacketed projectiles made the metal sing as the men hunkered behind it and others strewn along the beach. Monteith zigzagged to a position near an anti-tank obstacle called a spider. The village of the same name lay about a mile from the shoreline approachable via the Colleville Draw or over the bluffs. The bluffs of Colleville-sur-Mer spat out ordnance and the rounds erupted all around the 16th. Eleven men were already gone from the unit.Įveryone looked for the tanks they'd hoped would punch a hole in the enemy line but not one was in sight as Monteith lamented to Sergeant Orville Pierce, the demolition expert, "Man, one thing for sure, this just ain't our day." They drowned thrashing about the ugly water. Beyond the sand bar the nasty green water rose to eight feet and the puny life preservers could not help non-swimmers stay afloat. As bullets swept the area he ducked below the water instinctively. Monteith splashed into the cold three-foot deep water with his men. As the slugs splashed into the water in front of the ramp Monteith ordered the men over the sides of the craft. Muzzle flashes pierced the overcast low gray of the dawn from the wall beyond the beach from a thousand weapons. Other craft shared a similar fate hung up 50 to 100 yards from the sands. Monteith rallied the seasick men to their feet as the ramp dropped. thunked to stop on a sand bar 75 yards off the beach unable to proceed farther. Three hundred plus yards of bare beach was required to be crossed to the sea wall where the bluffs began. At high tide the relative safety of the shorter beach that needed to be crossed had the down side of the assault vehicles being hung up or destroyed on the submerged dangers. The landings had to be made at low tide to reveal the traps and obstacles. At other beaches they performed as planned. The floundering tanks were unique to Omaha's churning surf. The sad surprise was that the bombardment completely missed or did little damage and most of the tanks sank or bogged down as they emerged from their landing craft too far from the beach in the heavy seas. Also, amphibious tanks were to precede the infantry to the beaches. There was some solace in the fact that the fifty-two men were part of 35,000 assaulting Fortress Europe that day in the first wave and the fact the naval guns and B-26 bombers had plastered the defenses earlier. Weapons with 250 rounds of ammunition, grenades, rations, canteens, explosives, first-aid kits, gas masks, entrenching tools and life preservers were all vital but all added to the weight. These were battle tested men who had fought in North Africa and through Sicily but the prolonged disorientation in the craft did them in.Īdd the heavy equipment load each man carried in their weakened state and it contributed to the recipe for disaster. ![]() The Channel's six-foot waves began to take their toll in nausea damage as vomit hit the bilge water at their freezing cold feet. The craft had circled for thirty minutes after the men embarked to form up in concert with others. A quarter mile from the sand machine gun rounds were already finding their mark on the armored loading ramp. churned through the surf carrying Company E, the 16th Infantry unit of the U.S. of Virginia it was his job to cut through those defenses on June 6, 1944- D-Day. In moments the fifty-one men and the Lieutenant were reduced to just twenty-five.Īfter cutting a swath of destruction across North Africa it fell to Field Marshall Erwin Rommel to bolster the Atlantic Wall defenses for Adolf Hitler. Mortars, machine guns, 37 mm anti-tank guns, 75 and 88 mm guns, steel tripod stakes, floating mines, wired mines, buried mines and Teller mines that were just covered by the sea at high tide all took their toll on Lt. ![]()
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