D-Day Invasion Map, Omaha Beach

Spearheading the long-awaited Allied invasion of Normandy in the early dawn of June 6, 1944, the U.S. 1st (Big Red One) and 29^th Infantry Divisions landed on Omaha Beach, the deadliest of the five landing beaches in Nazi-occupied France. Coming ashore grossly overloaded and seasick, these brave men struggled through the rough surf, mined beach obstacles, murderous machine gun fire, and unyielding artillery, attempting to reach the shelter of a small seawall near the base of a bluff overlooking "Bloody Omaha". The Nazi defenders had Omaha covered with criss-crossing fields of fire from many machine guns and artillery pieces mounted in bunkers, pillboxes and on the bluff overlooking the landing beach. Hundreds of GI's that morning were cut down while struggling to get ashore, and many drowned when their landing craft let them off in water that was over their heads.

While the landings at the other American beach (Utah) and the three British and Canadian beaches (Gold, Sword and Juno) progressed difficultly but with success, the situation at Omaha was in doubt throughout the morning. Many of the commanding officers had been killed or wounded in the initial landing, so the soldiers who survived the exhausting struggle to reach the seawall huddled there; some dazed, unsure of what to do. By midday however, the personal initiative of the American GI (a trait that would be repeated thousands of times throughout the campaign in Europe) kicked in. The words of Colonel George Taylor, CO of the 1st Division's 16th Regimental Combat Team, perfectly summed up the reasoning behind these individual actions when he said: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach: the dead and those who are going to die. Now let's get the hell out of here!" With increasing numbers, junior officers, noncoms and individual soldiers took charge, emerged from behind the seawall, and led small groups of men up the bluff to begin clearing the trenches and bunkers of German defenders so the four exits off the beach could be used by succeeding waves of infantry and armor.

By evening of D-Day, elements of the 1st and 29th Divisions had advanced 1/4 to 3/4 miles inland from the bluff overlooking Omaha. The movement into the French countryside did not penetrate as far as the invasion planners had hoped, but the GI's were not going to relinquish an inch of the Norman soil they had paid for so dearly.