The current in the English Channel runs eastward. It was perfect for carrying 4,000 landing boats of various descriptions with 23,000 men aboard onto the Normandy beaches in the early morning of D-Day. The channel provided perfect conditions to allow demolition teams time to clear obstacles from the beaches before they were covered by the rising tide.
The Germans never expected an invasion at low tide, and they were astounded to see an entire armada. They would be further shocked at the sight of armored tanks rising from the sea and surging toward them, but that was yet to come.
Two beaches, Omaha and Utah, were assigned to the American task force for D-Day. Utah, the westernmost of the invasion beachheads, was scheduled for H-hour at 0630. Off the coast of the Cotentin peninsula, the United States VII Corps would be led ashore by the 4th Division. Two airborne divisions, the 82nd and the 101st, would parachute inland from 800 planes the night before landing near the village of Ste-MΦre-╔glise.
Having crossed the channel in the early morning hours, rings of landing boats now circled their mother ships loaded with seasick men destined for Utah Beach. Weighted down with over 100 pounds of equipment, it was a major task just to get into the transport boats; many were injured in the process. Not even the sunrise would cheer them that morning: it was covered by fog, clouds, and defensive smoke screens.
Every now and then, a line of warships, including battleships, was momentarily visible as the fog and smoke drifted apart. It was an astounding sight. On the ships off Utah Beach, officers were giving last-minute pep talks to their chalk-faced troops.
The landing schedule for Utah, like all the beaches, had been planned almost minute by minute. First, amphibious tanks would take up firing positions to cover the first of the assault troops. Underwater demolition engineers would clear paths, tanks would land on the beaches and then the assault troops, wave after wave, would hit the beach. This effort would be matched by bombers flying in formation overhead, clearing as many Germans defenses as they could before the troops landed and moved inland. The sight of these planes would cheer the men as they struggled a short while later to reach the shore alive.
Five to six miles off Utah, the battleship Nevada and the cruisers Tuscaloosa, Quincy, and Black Prince hurled salvos at the German shore batteries. Smaller destroyers moved in one or two miles off shore and began firing. Meanwhile, the troops in landing craft were making for the beach, sprays of cold waves drenching them and their weapons. Some of the "unsinkable" transports rapidly took on water and many did sink. Men floated in the water for hours before rescue. Some were carried forward to the beach and others back to the ships.
The overriding orders for all landing craft were to get to the beach in spite of casualties. The crew had to maneuver past comrades screaming for help. Any landing craft that tried to pick up casualties was called off by commanders in nearby ships, bellowing reminders that they were not rescue ships and to get on shore.
First wave casualties were light on Utah Beach in spite of continual fire from the Germans. One reason for this was known only by the general who had landed with the first wave troops and a few of his officers. They had actually landed in the wrong place. Strong currents had carried the men about a mile south of the original beach. They had also lost the vessel guiding their assault craft, an American patrol craft PC 1261. The change in destination proved to be fortunate because this was the site of the weakest German fortifications on the Normandy coast.
Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Junior, 57, (former President Theodore Roosevelt's son) was the only general to land with the troops. Having refused him once, his commanding officer had finally agreed to let him go ashore to, as the general said, "steady the troops." Rather than redirect the troops to the original, but more heavily fortified landing area, Roosevelt made the decision to move the troops inland. Exploiting the weakly defended site, by late morning the troops had spread out, taking a broad stretch of beach and pushing inland over the one open causeway in their sector. They soon met the beleaguered airborne troops of the 101st at Ste-MΦre-╔glise and also linked up with the men of the 82nd Airborne Division west of the causeway from the beaches.
The Germans in the Cotentin peninsula were not prepared for a serious counterattack, but they did defend the hedgerows and causeways with tenacity. Some of the U.S. VII Corps moved toward Carentan, the closest main German battery, to link up Omaha and Utah. The rest headed further in on the peninsula toward Cherbourg through swamp land created by the Germans who purposely left irrigation waterways wide open.
In spite of Allied attempts to cut German communications, the German 77th Division reached the Cotentin without resistance. This meant the VII Corps would pay dearly to expand the Utah perimeter across the swampy lands northward to Cherbourg. In spite of this, they succeeded. Carentan was seized on 12 June, and the next day troops from the two American beachheads, Utah and Omaha, crossed the swampy wetlands and were in contact. Soon the VII Corps would take Cherbourg on 27 June.
