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30 Army Hist. 1 (1994)

handle is hein.milandgov/aryhsy0030 and id is 1 raw text is: ARMY HISTORY ThE PROFESSIONAL BU~iLETIN (IF ARMY HiSTORY PB-20-94-3 (No. 30) Washington D.C. Spring 1994 The Normandy Landing Barry W. Fowle T s artcke origmially appeared as an irsay in bwlders and Fighters: U S Army Engineers in World W ar I Rep rined wiih permisinm die general eior, Dr. Barry W. Fwie On 6 hine 1944, the Allies began Operation OViR - LJif 1 the invasion of the European contmnent that was desIgned to bring to a close a war that had lasted far too l n T amphibious assault on Normandv in World War lwas the key o theContinet. wo years of plannin went inm Openraion NEPTUNE, as the landing an Nornandy wasknown, The troops would assault in Ive beach areas with an initial strength of six rein- lor dmntaniry divisions landing from the sea and three ,ibme divisioin dropping behind the hmes by para- thute and glider. The First United States Army would t on wo beaches, and the second utN Army I udln onithree beaches The planners chose irst Army to make the D-day ,as.u1t tbr the Americans on two beaches, OMA h A and I I All They assigned OMAHA Beach io V Carps, with t 1 and Nth Infantry Divisions. The VII Corps got A Beach Is 82d and 101st Airbome Divisions uId drop inland and ik up with the 4th Division hadng on the bea h eeral hours later The Eiinmecr pecial tngade Group (Prov iiana1), consistng ofthe 5th nd 6th Engmneer Special Brigades ISBs , provided landing support for V Corps. On D- day it landed 34,250 mnen and 2.870 vehicles. Of these, 5fr2 men and 315 vehicles belonged to the Engineer Speal Brigade (3roup. Approximalely 2,5(X other eng Iieers-memb i of corps and dmisional unit&- also landed Enginer made up approximately 25 percent t alt te troopsthat landed on OMAHA, Thimy engineer orlicers and 516 engineer enlisted men, tI include I I ofIicers and 115 enihsted men who em N y demohtons personnel dd wih the 140 assult infantry dunng the tirsi phaer of the cpeanon Of the personnel ita rnd theiii~ landing 4 0630 on 6 June 1944, enine repe- snIt over one third- The I? LEin eer Special 'xgde oIdue I A lar operauons on the American U TA Beach where. on the frst day 01 the invasion, .t put ashore some 2OAXK truops and 1,700 vehicles of V1I Corps' 4th hin antry DiviSion and suppored units. Assauli gapping teams designed to blow holes in the obstacle lines on the beach, called Assault Forwc 0 (OMAH A ) and Assault Force U (UTAl' , trained at the British Assault Training Center, Woolacomube, En gland intelligence pmrvded aerial photographs show ing the types of obstacles on OMAHA Belach, and mockups of them were made Ior training purposes. The men completed schooling in four weeks. OMAHA Beachwas a7T,XX) ard slash ofsand with upto200feetexposed atlughtn d as much a1 400 yards showing at low tide An 8 foot bank of cixirse shingle (gravel) marked the seaward edge of the wes- em pan of the beach. To the rear of the center of the beach, a line of grass-covered bluffs rose some t[M to 170 feet. They sloped downward at either end, merg- ing with the rocky co,1 that , ecot. d OMAHA Generally, the lbsales on OMAHA conise ml two bands, fifty to seventy-fve yards wide, wth aba-ut the same distance separatmng them T he outer line at obstacles consisted of the fol ling: element C i Bel gian Gute) with a specially adapted, waterprooled vc>rsionof thepowerfuIllylethal Genmnani tankTeller mine on the forward face; wooden ramps; and posts topped with Teler mines. The inner band combined wooden posts and rampstyk b bakd y three staggered rowsot steel hedgehogs The Germans spaced the element C, ramp type, and post-y pe oh- stacls twenty to fony feet apart and scattered them in depth. They spaced the steel hedgehogs ten to 11 teen feet apart The general plan for the en mers cal ed to Ib' development of the OMAHA beachhead inthree phases the assault phase. the initial dump phase. and the heac' maintenance dump phase The first two phases took

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