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| Mobile Army Post Offices like this kept the boys happy with prompt delivery of letters from home. This one was set up in a field near Cherbourg. |
Chapter 2
For months the world had awaited the news that was to flash to every corner of the civilized world on the morning of 6 June 1944. The aerial assault of Europe had begun in 1942, and an ever increasing avalanche of high explosive and incendiary bombs was dropped on German factories, railroad centers, and key cities. The "rocket coast" of France, from which flying bombs were planned to be launched against London, was pounded daily by a constant shuttle of bombers from England. Fighter planes swept across France, attacking enemy planes and transportation on the ground and literally driving enemy fighters from the sky. Then, during the darkness of the early morning of June 6th, a new aerial blow was struck.
Beginning at 0130 hours, over 800 transport planes dropped the parachute elements of the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions on the Cotentin Peninsula, just north of Carentan and inland from the beach where in a few hours troops of Assault Force "U" would land. The invasion had begun!
Invasion!
Meanwhile, the vast armada carrying the seaborne elements was assembling some eight miles off shore, undetected by the enemy. The numerous rehearsals of unloading the troops from transports to landing craft now proved their value, and the task was accomplished in the darkness without accident. With a hum of motors, the craft bearing the leading waves of assault troops circled, then churned off to the west, leaving white wakes on the dark sea. Wave upon wave followed, amphibious tanks, LCVPs, LCMs, LCTs, LSTs, each bearing a chosen group of men and equipment specially selected for a specific task. The guns of naval ships flashed and roared, big guns of such vessels as the battleships USS Nevada and Arkansas and the heavy cruisers USS Tuscaloosa and Quincy, smaller rifles of the numerous destroyers, all carrying out a carefully scheduled plan of fires. Rockets fired from specially fitted landing craft screamed onto the beach. The earth, the sky, and the sea seemed to tremble with the roar of tons of explosives, each projectile directed at some target which might be a threat to the success of the landing. And out of all this din and tremendous mass of activity, the situation studied and planned for so long began to take shape.
The Iles St. Marcouf are two small islands lying about four miles east of the Cotentin Peninsula. Their importance to the assault lay in their position, since all the landing craft headed for Utah Beach must pass just south of them. If the enemy defenses included guns on St. Marcouf, they must be silenced quickly, so at 0430 hours on June 6th a specially trained assault unit of the 4th Cavalry Group landed there. Once ashore, the troops found both inlands undefended except by mines and a few booby traps, and both Army and Navy staff officers breathed a sigh of relief to know that one more possibility of enemy interference with our landing plans had been removed.
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| Mobile Army Post Offices like this kept the boys happy with prompt delivery of letters from home. This one was set up in a field near Cherbourg. |
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| This aerial view of part of the beach area shows an artificial breakwater made of sunken ships. Other craft, "dried out" by the receding tide, will float again when the water rises. |
The hour for the assault landing had been carefully selected for the most favorable conditions of tide and light, and at 0630 hours the first wave of LCVPs touched down and disgorged their cargoes on Utah Beach. Resistance was light. The beach defenders were quickly driven from their pillboxes and strong points, and in a very few minutes fighting units of the 4th Infantry Division has assembled and were advancing inland across the inundated areas just off the beach.
Engineers began to clear the mines and obstacles in the shallow water, on the beach, and inland along the roads. More and more troops poured ashore with a seeming disregard of the coastal batteries that continued to shell the beach and craft nearing the shore.
Before daylight, the paratroopers of Major General Maxwell D. Taylor's 101st Airborne Division has seized the western exists of the beach to prevent enemy reinforcements from hindering the landing. All initial objectives of both this division and the assaulting 4th were quickly reached, and contact between the two forces was established in almost precisely the same manner as was planned and rehearsed back in England. By nightfall, it was apparent that the initial hold on the peninsula was about 4,000 yards wide and up to 10,000 yards deep, and that our troops were securely ashore.
On the following day, firm contact was established with elements of the 82d Airborne Division at Ste. Mére-Eglise. Enemy guns located north and south of the beachhead fired intermittently to harass operations on the beach. In spite of a heavy counterattack by the enemy, our troops continued to expand and consolidate their holdings, and by the end of their second day on the continent they had securely established their beachhead, thus completing the first step in the liberation of France and Europe.
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| Antiaircraft guns like this 40 mm Bofors protected the Corps in England and on the Continent. |
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| Aerial bombardment disrupted German rail schedules and prevented rapid movement of their reserves. |
Reinforcements continued to flow ashore, and soon the 90th and 9th Infantry Divisions joined the battle. The enemy had retired west of the Merderet River, but not without making our gains as costly as possible. He persistently launched small counterattacks late every evening in a series of attempts to regain ground lost during the day, but every one was decisively beaten off. He still held Carentan, preventing the juncture of VII Corps with V Corps. His defense in the fixed fortifications along the coast was tenacious, and our advance was slow.
On June 10th, Major General Matthew B. Ridgway's 82d Airborne Division pushed across the Merderet River in one of the most daring attacks of the campaign and succeeded in contacting elements of the division which had been isolated in that area since D-Day. Two days later the 101st Airborne Division captured Carentan, lost it in the face of a strong enemy counterattack, then retook it and established contact with troops of the V Corps east of that city.
In the face of overwhelming allied air superiority, the German air force was unable to operate except in small nuisance flights, chiefly at night.
Interrogation of prisoners revealed that troops arriving to reinforce the three enemy divisions initially contacted by units of the VII Corps had had great difficulty in transit. Attacks of Ninth Air Force fighter-bombers had decimated whole units moving by rail or motor, and heavy and medium bombers had heavily and repeatedly bombed key railroad yards and road centers. French patriots added to the confusion behind the German lines by sabotaging communications and transportation, cutting telephone lines, blowing up bridges on roads and railways, ambushing convoys, and destroying precious fuel.
To prevent the arrival of additional reinforcements for the Cherbourg defenders and to forestall any orderly withdrawal of troops for the Cherbourg area, the VII Corps attacked west across the base of the peninsula. The 90th Infantry Division met stubborn resistance as it led off this attack, but the drive gained momentum with the commitment of the 82d Airborne and 9th Infantry Divisions. On the evening of June 17th, the troops of Major General Manton S. Eddy's 9th Division reached the west coast near Barneville sur Mer, isolating the enemy forces on the Cotentin Penninsula.
As the VII Corps pushed west and then north, responsibility for holding the
defensive fronts to the south passed to VII Corps. Successively, the 101st
Airborne, the 82d Airborne, and the 90th Infantry Divisions were transferred to
that command.
Now our Corps Commander could turn his full attention to the capture of
Cherbourg, important to the Allied cause as a seaport to supply the forces
ashore. With the 4th, 79th, and 9th Infantry Divisions and the 4th Cavalry
Group, the Corps attacked north. The brunt of the German resistance was borne by
Major General Raymond O. Barton's 4th Division, while the 79th and 9th
Divisions, attacking farther west, met much lighter opposition. Soon the
defenses of Cherbourge were ringed by the attacking divisions.
When a ultimatum calling for the surrender of the German forces defending Cherbourg was ignored, the assault on the fortifications was renewed with attacks by hundreds of medium and fighter-bombers and the methodical reduction of the defenses by the ground troops. Naval gunfire joined field artillery fires and air attacks in supporting the advance into the city itself, and on June 27th the last resistance was eliminated.
Then turning its attention to the northwest, the 9th Infantry Division pushed the only remaining enemy forces into the Cap de la Hague area, where long range enemy guns were still firing. Resistance was stubborn, but it was a hopeless battle for the isolated enemy, and on July 1st the campaign ended with their surrender.
Thus closed the first campaign of the VII Corps, a campaign studded with success, in which a beachhead had been secured, a vital port had been seized, and practically the entire garrison of a key enemy coastal bastion had been captured or destroyed. A total of over 39,000 prisoners were taken by VII Corps units in this operation, against the cost of 2,800 Americans killed, 13,500 wounded, and 5,700 captured or missing. Most important of all, the way was now clear for an unlimited drive into the enemy's vital inland areas.