Omaha Beach
The Normandy Invasion had five planed landing sites Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold. These were code names given to specific sections of beach. Omaha beach was the largest targeted strip of beach, it was over 10 kilometer long. Counting from the right, Omaha beach was the second, it was between Port-en-Bessin and the delta of the Vire River. The westernmost part of the beach had a three-meter high wall created by the sea. The entire beach had cliffs when the sand and small rocks ended, the cliffs were about thirty-three meters high. The beach could only be exited through five places and only one was a paved road.
The Germans had built incredible defenses to ensure the beach if a battle were to come. The water and the beach had numerous mines. The beach had a great trench system and twelve heavily defended positions Widerstandsnester ("resistance nests").
A LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) from th...
Landing craft and tanks at Omaha beach during the ...
The build-up of Omaha Beach: reinforcements of men...There were lots of other fighting positions also. The Germans defended themselves with three battalions, they could use their weapons to fire from the ground level and also to make deadly fire from a higher position such as the cliffs. If some organization tried to invade through Omaha beach it would surely suffer lots of death.
Omaha Beach was assigned to the U.S. 1st Army. The sectors being attacked were code-named Charlie, Dog, Easy, and Fox. The attack was scheduled for 0630 hours. Omaha beach was big enough to fit two land regiments, this land regiments would have armor in front to protect them. The 1st Division wanted to capture this villages Vierville, Saint-Laurent, and Colleville. It also wanted to intersect and cut the Bayeux-Isigny road. This was very ambitious because they wanted to attack Trévières and also Pointe du Hoc.
The Omaha attack started very wrong, amphibious...