D-DAY AT OMAHA BEACH

6/6/1944 - Okay, I don't see as there is any need to remind everyone that today marks the anniversary of the invasion of Normandy ... Operation Neptune ... Overload ... D-DAY ... over 200,000 men battling for 50 miles of French beaches (give yourself a cookie if you could name all five of the code names for the landings ... Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and Omaha).  Instead I'd like to hone in on one beach and gratefully remember another group of Americans that gave all they possibly could on that day so that the generation I belong to, and those that followed, could live free.  The beach is Omaha ... "Bloody" Omaha ... and the men are the soldiers Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29 U.S. Infantry Division ... 230 men, from Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, with 35 of them hailing from the small town and area of Bedford, Virginia (known as "the place that sells itself," the town is located with the Blue Ridge Mountains to its North, Smith Mountain Lake to its South, and the James River town of Lynchberg to the East ... in 1944, the population of the town is roughly 3,200 souls).
 
Company A

Formerly elements of National Guard units, they have been chosen in part for the first wave of the assault because they have not yet experienced combat and are still fired up rookies that don't know what they are in for (aboard the RMS Queen Mary, they arrive in England as part of the 29th Infantry Divison, under the command of Major General Leonard Gerow, on October 5, 1942).  Awoken at 3:00 in the morning aboard the transport Empire Javelin (shipping out of Portland Harbour in Dorset) to ready themselves for the invasion of Nazi held Europe, boated, the men carry 60 pounds of equipment on their backs and ride towards shore through 6-7 foot waves in seven, thirty man LCAs (Landing Craft, Assault) awash in water and vomit (their assault is supported by the 14-inch guns and 2,000 pound shells of the battleship, USS Texas).   Many do not make the beach (four hundred yards from the beach, four footballs from France, they begin drawing fire), and those that do, find out almost instantly that they have entered a nightmare of hell on earth.

Queen Mary Arrives In Great Britain

SS Empire Javelin

The USS Texas Firing On Omaha Beach

Heading In

The assignment of Company A is to secure one of the four passages off the beach, their mission is the draw named D-1, just to the front of the village of Vierville.  Opposing them are veteran elements of the Wehrmacht's 352 Infantry Division ... behind defensive positions that extend beyond high tide.  Running the length of the beach are obstacles for both low and high tide approaches ... 10 foot high steel structures like gates covered in contact mines, heavy logs that are also mines, crossed steel rails in "X" shapes, barbed wire, and thousands of sand buried mines.  Beyond those impediments are cliffs rising 170 feet above the water where the Germans have placed firing pits, concrete pillboxes, machine gun nests, mortars. and 75mm and 88mm artillery pieces.

Rommel and Staff Touring The Beaches

From The Mind Of Erwin Rommel

At roughly 6:30 in the morning, still 400 yards from the beach, the Germans open up on Company A ... and a massacre begins.  One of the landing craft is sunk, another has its coxswain killed and drifts into an area where German tank guns can concentrate on blowing it apart, another boat is hit and its occupants are forced to jump into chest high water peppered by machine gun fire (of its 30 man compliment of troops, only three make the beach uninjured), the company commander, Captain Taylor Fellers is shot through the head, and another boat comes to ground directly in front of a machine gun nest that kills every man aboard.

Captain Taylor Fellers

Forward

In less than 10 minutes, Company A ceases to exist ... of the 230 men in the assault, all but 18 are killed or wounded.  They do gain a toehold though, and working with other scattered American combat units, the draw is eventually opened for other troops to fight their way inland.  Success at a horribly high cost!

At Omaha Beach

Military censorship in effect, the 3,200 residents of Bedford are unaware of the part their husbands, sons, and friends have played in the attack until telegrams begin arriving in town on July 17th.  "The Secretary of War desires to express his deep regrets ..."  Before the summer is over, twenty-two of the death notices will be received in Bedford, Virginia (the town will lose more residents per capita on D-Day than any other American community) ... 22 out of the 35 men that traveled away from their homes in 1942 aboard the Queen Mary to fight for the United States of America (hardest hit is the Hoback Family, who lose both their boys, Bedford and Raymond, on "The Longest Day").

Western Union
 
The Hoback Brothers

Parade's Rest In France

Gone, but not forgotten, brave heroes that made possible Hitler's defeat ... finding their forevers in the sea and sand of Omaha Beach ... because of the sacrifices of Company A and its Bedford boys, in 1996 the community is chosen by Congress as the home of the National D-Day Memorial ... a memorial that is dedicated by President George W. Bush on June 6, 2001.






The National D-Day Memorial - Bedford, Virginia

******6/6/1944 MEDAL OF HONORS******

@24-year-old Private Carlton W. Barrett of Fulton, New York ... a guide for the 1st Infantry Division, risking his life again and again moving through the surf and across bullet blasted Omaha Beach, Barrett moves wounded men off the beach, carries dispatches, provides movement guidance, and calms many of the shocked men of his unit.

Barrett

@26-year-old First Lt. Jimmie Waters Monteith of Low Moor, Virginia ... coming ashore on Omaha Beach with the 1st Infantry Division, Monteith begins his busy day by organizing his men into a viable defensive position, leads them in an assault to get off the beach, under fire, personally walks two blinded tanks through a minefield and guides the armored vehicles in destroying several German positions, rejoins his men and leads them in an assault that takes a strategic hill area above the beach, and leads the defense of that position against several heavy counterattacks until he is killed.

Monteith

@32-year-old Technician Fifth Grade John J. Pinder, Jr. of McKees Rock, Pennsylvania ... carrying his unit's vitally important radio, Pinder struggles ashore despite being wounded, refusing to be evacuated or have his wounds treated, three times he travels back over the fire swept sands and rescues communication equipment out of the surf (including a second working radio) ... an effort that gets him machine gun wounds in both legs ... in pain and weak from blood loss, he again refuses evacuation as he helps set up a communications center for his unit ... until a third hit finally kills the intrepid soldier.

Pinder

@56-year-old Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. of Cove Neck, New York ... landing over a mile away from the position his men have been given on Utah Beach, Roosevelt is the personification of American leadership under extreme duress ... "We'll start the war right here," are his famous words, and that is just what his command does as Roosevelt,with a heart condition (he will have a major heart attack and die on July12, 1944) and arthritis that forces him to walk with a cane, points regiments at their new objectives, recite poetry and tells stories about his father to steady his men's nerves, untangles traffic jams of tanks and trucks, and gives courage to his men by moving about the beach as if unaware of the bullets flying all about.

Roosevelt, Jr.

With all the chaos and heroism on display on 6/6/1944, I'm somewhat shocked that only four men won the Congressional Medal of Honor for their actions on the Normandy beaches ... but then again, maybe the number is indicative of that combat ... with witnesses killed, or officers slaughtered that would recommend medals, maybe four is about right, and all the other acts of valor and sacrifice belong now only to God and the men that spent their last moments on the blood reddened sands of France ... opening the European foothold to end Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany ... unknown, but still remembered!

Omaha Beach - 6/6/1944