WWII On This Day: June 6

June 6, 1941 · 12:00 · Operation Barbarossa

Political commissars are excluded from prisoner protection

The Commissar Order instructed German forces to identify Soviet political commissars captured with Red Army units and separate them from other prisoners for execution. Political office became a category for killing outside normal prisoner-of-war procedure. The order moved through the military command system before 22 June. Surviving records show uneven implementation between formations, while the policy itself was explicit and centrally issued. Together with the jurisdiction decree and SS-police arrangements, the Commissar Order linked the military campaign directly to the ideological destruction of the Soviet political system from the opening…

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June 6, 1942 · 12:00 · The Battle of Midway

Mikuma

Two heavy cruisers had collided while manoeuvring to avoid a submarine in the dark. Aircraft from Enterprise and Hornet found them and reduced Mikuma to a burning wreck. She sank that evening; Mogami survived and reached Truk. The photographs taken of Mikuma that afternoon are among the most reproduced images of the Pacific war.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

Operation Deadstick, the Orne bridges seized

Three Horsa gliders carrying D Company, 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, released at 5,000 feet and flown in silence, landed within yards of the Caen Canal bridge at Bénouville. Two more came down beside the Orne bridge 400 yards east. Major John Howard's men took both bridges in roughly ten minutes. Holding them denied 21st Panzer Division a direct route into the eastern flank of the landings and gave 6th Airborne a secure line of withdrawal. The canal bridge has been Pegasus Bridge ever since.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

US airborne divisions drop behind Utah

The 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions began dropping across the base of the Cotentin to seize the causeways behind Utah Beach and the crossings of the Merderet and Douve. Cloud broke up the transport formations, flak scattered them further, and the great majority of sticks came down away from their drop zones, some by miles. The dispersal that ruined the plan also worked in the Allies' favour. Reports of parachutists arrived from across the whole peninsula at once, and the German command could form no coherent picture of where the…

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

Operations Taxable and Glimmer

Aircraft of 617 and 218 Squadrons flew precise rectangular circuits towards Cap d'Antifer and Boulogne, dropping Window at calculated intervals to generate on German radar the echo of two large convoys advancing at seven knots. Small boats towing radar reflectors supported the illusion below. Coupled with the long-running Fortitude South deception, the effect was to hold Fifteenth Army in the Pas-de-Calais, waiting for a second and larger landing that never came.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

The Merville Battery is assaulted

Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway's 9th Parachute Battalion had planned the attack on the casemated battery above Sword Beach in meticulous detail. His battalion arrived so scattered that he attacked with roughly 150 of 600 men, without gliders, mortars, mine detectors or engineers. The position was taken at heavy cost and the guns disabled. German troops later reoccupied it, but it did not fire on the beaches during the landings.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

First town liberated

The 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment cleared Sainte-Mère-Église and cut the telephone cable running north to Cherbourg. It was the first French town freed in the invasion. The drop over the square had gone badly. A building fire drew the garrison into the open, and men descending into the light were shot as they came down; Private John Steele's parachute caught on the church tower and he hung there feigning death.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

Operation Neptune, the bombardment opens

Battleships, monitors, cruisers and destroyers of the Eastern and Western Task Forces opened fire on coastal batteries and beach defences. Close to 7,000 vessels of all types were at sea, the largest amphibious armada ever assembled. The bombardment ran between forty minutes and two hours depending on sector. Against concrete it achieved far less than planners hoped, and at Omaha the defences were substantially intact when the first wave touched down.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

H-Hour at Utah, landing in the wrong place

The 4th Infantry Division came ashore roughly 2,000 yards south of its intended sector, pushed by a strong current after two control craft were lost. The stretch it landed on was more lightly held than the one it had trained for. Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the only general officer in the first wave, reconnoitred forward, judged the error an advantage and redirected the follow-up waves onto the new beach: we'll start the war from right here. Utah cost around 200 casualties on the day.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

H-Hour at Omaha, the assault founders

Almost everything failed at once. Of 32 DD swimming tanks launched by the 741st Tank Battalion, 27 foundered in the swell far offshore. The aerial bombardment fell inland. Landing craft came in off-station, units landed intermixed, and the beach was overlooked along its length by bluffs held by the 352nd Infantry Division, a formation better and more forward-deployed than Allied intelligence had allowed for. The first waves of the 1st and 29th Divisions were pinned at the shingle under interlocking machine-gun and mortar fire. Engineers lost most of their demolition…

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

The Rangers scale Pointe du Hoc

Three companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel James Rudder landed beneath a hundred-foot cliff between Utah and Omaha and climbed it under fire using rocket-fired grapnels and extension ladders borrowed from the London Fire Brigade. The 155 mm guns they had come for had been withdrawn inland; a Ranger patrol found them unguarded in an orchard and destroyed them with thermite. The battalion then held the clifftop against counterattack for two days, reduced from roughly 225 men to about 90 effectives before relief arrived.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

H-Hour at Gold

The British 50th (Northumbrian) Division landed an hour after the American beaches, the tide running along the coast having pushed H-Hour eastwards. Hobart's specialised armour came ashore with the assault waves: flail tanks for mines, bridging and fascine vehicles, and the Churchill AVRE with its petard mortar for concrete. The armoured engineering made the difference at the sea wall. By evening 50th Division was three to four miles inland with patrols approaching Bayeux.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

H-Hour at Juno

The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division landed late, against an offshore reef and a rising tide that carried the leading craft into the beach obstacles rather than short of them. Nearly a third of the landing craft in the first wave were damaged or lost. Once through the seafront villages the division pushed further inland on 6 June than any other Allied formation, reaching the Caen to Bayeux road before halting for the night.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

H-Hour at Sword

The British 3rd Infantry Division landed on the easternmost beach with orders to take Caen on the first day. No. 4 Commando, and 177 men of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando under Commandant Philippe Kieffer, the only French troops in the assault, cleared Ouistreham. Lord Lovat's 1st Special Service Brigade pushed inland to relieve the airborne troops at the Orne bridges, arriving in the early afternoon. Congestion on the beach and the strongpoint at Hillman slowed the advance, and Caen, nine miles away, stayed German.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

Destroyers close the shore at Omaha

With the assault stalled at the shingle and casualties mounting, US and British destroyers ran in until they were nearly scraping their keels, some to within 800 yards, and engaged bunkers and gun positions over open sights on the bluffs. That fire, combined with small parties of infantry and engineers working up the draws on their own initiative under officers including Colonel George Taylor and Brigadier General Norman Cota, broke the deadlock. The first exits were opened before midday.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

The panzer reserves stay locked

The armoured reserve in France was divided between Rommel's Army Group B, Rundstedt's OB West, and an OKW reserve that only Hitler could release. Hitler was asleep at the Berghof and his staff would not wake him. Rundstedt had already ordered 12th SS Panzer Division and Panzer Lehr towards the coast on his own authority, and was overruled. Formal release came only in the afternoon, by which time both faced a daylight approach march under total Allied air superiority. Rommel, driving back from Germany, did not reach his headquarters until…

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

21st Panzer counterattacks to the sea

The only substantial German armoured counterattack of the day drove north through the gap between Sword and Juno. A battlegroup of 21st Panzer Division reached the coast at Lion-sur-Mer in the late afternoon, the only German unit to reach the sea on 6 June. At about 21:00 the gliders of Operation Mallard passed low overhead, bringing in 6th Airlanding Brigade. To the German commander on the ground it looked like an airborne landing across his rear, and the battlegroup withdrew rather than risk being cut off.

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June 6, 1944 · Operation Overlord

End of the first day

Around 156,000 men were ashore. Allied casualties on the day are usually estimated at about 10,000, of whom some 4,400 were killed; more than 2,000 of the total fell at Omaha alone. None of the day's principal objectives had been met. Caen, Bayeux and Carentan were all still German. The five beachheads were separate, none as deep as planned, the largest around six miles inland. Every beach had held, the lodgement existed, and the Allies could reinforce it faster than the Germans could concentrate against it by road.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:07 · Operation Deadstick

Cast off

The tugs released at about seven thousand feet over the coast. From that moment the gliders were silent, and the only navigation was a stopwatch, a compass, and timed turns read out by the second pilot with a torch strapped to his finger. Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork flew the leading glider. There is no going around in a Horsa: the approach is made once, and whatever field is underneath at the end of it is the field you land in.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:16 · Operation Deadstick

Chalk 91 stops twenty-two yards from the bridge

Wallwork and John Ainsworth brought the leading glider down in a field ringed with anti-landing poles, used the arrester parachute to stop it, and came to rest with the nose in the wire twenty-two yards from the bridge. Both pilots were thrown through the cockpit and Wallwork was briefly knocked out. Leigh-Mallory later called it one of the outstanding flying achievements of the war. Two more gliders came down within a minute behind it.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:17 · Operation Deadstick

The first man killed

Lance Corporal Fred Greenhalgh, a Bren gunner in the third glider, was thrown out as it came down and drowned in a pond beside the landing ground. He had not fired a shot and the Germans did not yet know anyone was there. He is generally reckoned the first Allied serviceman to die on D-Day. He was 24, and had joined the Ox and Bucks in 1942.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:18 · Operation Deadstick

Across the bridge

Lieutenant Den Brotheridge led his platoon over the bridge at a run, throwing a grenade into the machine gun pit on the far side. He was hit in the neck crossing the road and died of his wounds shortly afterwards. He is generally reckoned the first Allied soldier killed by enemy fire on D-Day. His daughter was born a fortnight later.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:19 · Operation Deadstick

The river bridge, taken without a shot

Two of the three gliders for the Orne bridge landed close to it. Lieutenant Tod Sweeney's platoon crossed and found the bridge undefended: the guard had gone. It was taken without a casualty on either side. The third glider was seven miles away and had no idea any of this was happening.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:21 · Operation Deadstick

The charges are not in the bridge

Royal Engineers went under the bridge with wire cutters expecting to race a firing party. They found the demolition chambers empty. The charges were in a shed nearby, not yet fitted, because the garrison commander had judged an attack unlikely and preferred not to leave live explosive on a working bridge. That decision, made by a German officer weeks earlier for reasons of routine safety, is why both bridges survived the night.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:26 · Operation Deadstick

Ham and Jam

Howard's signaller sent the two code words that meant both bridges were captured and intact: Ham for the canal, Jam for the river. It had taken ten minutes from the first glider touching down. The signal was repeated for hours because nobody was certain it had been received. It had. It was the first news reaching England that the invasion had begun.

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June 6, 1944 · 00:30 · Operation Deadstick

The first house in France

The café at the western end of the bridge was run by Georges and Thérèse Gondrée, who had been passing information to the resistance. Thérèse spoke German and had listened to the garrison talking in the bar. The family was in the cellar with their two daughters when British voices arrived above them. It became the aid post. Georges Gondrée dug up ninety-eight bottles of champagne he had buried in the garden in 1940 and opened them for the wounded. Their daughter Arlette, four years old that night, still runs…

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June 6, 1944 · 00:40 · Operation Deadstick

The fourth glider, seven miles away

Glider number four had been released on the wrong bearing and came down beside a bridge over the River Dives, seven miles east. Lieutenant Hooper's platoon believed for some time that they were at the right place. They fought their way back west over the following days. Their absence meant the river bridge was taken by two platoons instead of three, which turned out not to matter because there was nobody defending it.

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June 6, 1944 · 01:30 · Operation Deadstick

The parachute drop, scattered

The 7th Parachute Battalion dropped to reinforce the bridges and came down badly scattered across flooded ground and hedgerow. Of about six hundred men, roughly two hundred had reached the bridges within two hours. They took over the defence of Bénouville and Le Port on the west bank while Howard's company held the bridges themselves. The rest of the battalion arrived through the night in ones and twos.

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June 6, 1944 · 02:00 · Operation Deadstick

The first armour comes down the road

Two German tanks moved up from Bénouville towards the canal bridge. Sergeant Wagger Thornton stopped the leading one with a PIAT at about thirty yards. Its ammunition cooked off and it burned in the road for hours, blocking it. The noise and the fire convinced the Germans that something much larger than a company was holding the crossing. No further armoured attempt was made on the bridge that night.

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June 6, 1944 · 05:25 · Omaha Beach

Low water exposes the obstacle belt

The assault was timed around low water so demolition teams could see and attack the rows of stakes, ramps, gates and steel hedgehogs. The price was distance. Assault troops would have to cross several hundred yards of wet sand before reaching the shingle or sea wall, while the rising tide steadily reduced the time available to clear lanes for following craft.

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June 6, 1944 · 05:50 · Omaha Beach

The naval bombardment opens

Battleships, cruisers, destroyers and smaller fire-support craft opened on the coastal positions before H-Hour. The bombardment damaged some positions but did not neutralise the resistance nests covering the five exits. As infantry later stalled, destroyers would abandon prearranged fire patterns and move much closer to engage visible targets directly.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:00 · Omaha Beach

Heavy bombing falls behind the beach defences

Eighth Air Force heavy bombers crossed the coast through cloud with release procedures designed to avoid dropping short onto the approaching landing craft. The result at Omaha was poor. Bombs fell mainly inland and the coastal strongpoints survived to meet the assault. Naval histories note that the beach itself received essentially none of the cratering the infantry had expected to use as cover.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:10 · Omaha Beach

The 741st Tank Battalion's DD launch becomes a disaster

The 741st Tank Battalion launched its swimming Shermans far offshore into rough water. Twenty-seven of twenty-nine DD tanks in the swimming group sank before reaching the beach. The 743rd Tank Battalion's landing craft made a different judgement and carried most of its DD tanks much closer to shore. Those surviving tanks gave the western assault a firepower reserve the 741st sector largely lost at sea.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:25 · Omaha Beach

Landing craft make the final run

LCVPs and larger landing craft moved through smoke, shell splashes and strong lateral current toward assigned beach sectors. Many boats arrived east of their intended positions. Units therefore landed opposite unfamiliar terrain, frequently separated from supporting tanks, engineers or neighbouring companies.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:30 · Omaha Beach

H-Hour

The first infantry wave reached Omaha. German machine guns, mortars and artillery fired across the tidal flat while many assault companies landed in the wrong sector. The image attached here, Robert F. Sargent's 'Into the Jaws of Death,' records men of the 1st Infantry Division leaving an LCVP and wading toward the beach on 6 June.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:30 · Operation PLUTO

The invasion is fuelled without PLUTO

Packaged petrol crossed the beaches in jerricans and drums, while coastal tankers and ship-to-shore systems supplied bulk storage as the lodgement developed. No PLUTO line was operating. The marine pipeline had been removed from the initial assault plan and was expected to support a more established beachhead.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:30 · Pointe du Hoc

The wrong headland

The guide craft steered for Pointe de la Percée, three miles east, and the flotilla ran along the coast under fire before turning back west. About forty minutes were lost. One landing craft was swamped and sank on the way, and a supply craft was lost with most of the spare ammunition. The force that eventually reached the cliff was smaller than the one that had set out.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:30 · The Transportation Plan

The test is whether German reinforcement can reach Normandy

By D-Day, Allied headquarters rated 51 of 80 northern rail centres Category A. Army Air Forces accounting put the bomb tonnage on the rail-centre system above 71,000 tons. German military movement had not stopped. Trains moved slowly, used detours and increasingly travelled at night. The battlefield was harder to reinforce quickly, which was the operational result Eisenhower had required.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:35 · Omaha Beach

A Company, 116th Infantry is shattered at Dog Green

A Company landed in front of the Vierville exit and immediately came under concentrated fire from positions covering Dog Green. The company suffered catastrophic losses within minutes and ceased to function as the coherent assault unit envisaged in the plan. Other western companies were scattered or pushed east, deepening the breakdown of regimental control.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:40 · Omaha Beach

The demolition teams enter the obstacles

Sixteen Army engineer and naval demolition groups were assigned lanes through the obstacle belt. Landing errors, missing equipment and direct fire broke up many teams before they could assemble their charges. Only five initial gaps were opened, and the rising tide soon hid obstacles that had been visible at dawn. Naval Combat Demolition Units suffered 31 killed and 60 wounded among 175 personnel at Omaha.

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June 6, 1944 · 06:50 · Omaha Beach

The eastern assault is also broken into fragments

The 16th Infantry's assault battalions landed across Easy and Fox sectors under the same drift and fire that hit the western beach. Losses were severe, but surviving groups were closer to several routes up the bluff and began pushing through wire and minefields earlier than the beach-wide crisis reports suggested.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:00 · Omaha Beach

Survivors collect behind the first cover

Across much of Omaha the shingle, sea wall and base of the bluffs became improvised assembly areas. Men from different companies and even regiments mixed together after crossing the open beach. The cover was temporary rather than safe. Mortar and artillery fire reached it, heavy weapons had been lost in the surf, and vehicles could not simply drive over the shingle.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:10 · Omaha Beach

The second wave lands into the wreckage

Follow-on infantry, engineers, weapons and vehicles arrived before the first wave had opened the exits. Craft piled into a beach already crowded with wreckage, casualties and units out of position. The reinforcement was essential, but it also made control harder. The assault timetable had become a traffic problem under fire rather than a sequence of intact formations passing inland.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:10 · Pointe du Hoc

Rockets, ropes and ladders

The Rangers landed on a strip of shingle a few yards wide and fired rocket-propelled grapnels up the cliff. Many fell short because the wet ropes were heavier than in training. The fire brigade ladders bogged in the shingle and could not be raised properly. Men climbed on the lines that held, on ladder sections held against the chalk, and in places on the cliff itself. Germans above cut ropes and dropped grenades over the edge.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:15 · Pointe du Hoc

Satterlee and Talybont close the cliff

The destroyer USS Satterlee and the British destroyer HMS Talybont ran in close and fired directly at the clifftop, driving the defenders back from the edge at the moment the Rangers were most exposed on the ropes. Naval gunfire at that range and that angle is dangerous to the people it is supporting. It was asked for and it was given, and it is the reason the climb succeeded.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:30 · Pointe du Hoc

On top, in five minutes

The first men were over the edge within five minutes of landing. The ground they found was cratered almost beyond recognition by weeks of bombing and that morning's shelling, which broke up the German defence as effectively as it broke up the ground. Small parties moved between craters towards the casemates. The garrison fought from bunkers and tunnels rather than in the open.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:35 · Omaha Beach

Small groups begin getting above the beach

The picture was already becoming uneven. While large parts of the assault remained pinned, small parties on the eastern and central sectors found paths through wire, mines and thinly held slopes between resistance nests. These penetrations were too small to look decisive from offshore, but they began turning the problem around: once men were on the heights, the strongpoints could be approached from directions they were not designed to dominate.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:40 · Pointe du Hoc

The guns are not there

The casemates were reached and found empty. In place of the 155 mm guns stood telegraph poles, set at an angle to look like barrels from the air. The position had been taken at cost, against an objective that did not exist on it. What the Rangers did next is the reason this action is not simply a mistake.

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June 6, 1944 · 07:45 · Pointe du Hoc

The signal goes out late

Rudder sent Praise the Lord from the clifftop. By then Force C had waited past its deadline and turned for Omaha, where it landed and had to fight its way along the coast. Rudder was left with about 225 men instead of the roughly 500 the plan had allowed. He was wounded twice during the day and kept command.

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June 6, 1944 · 08:00 · Omaha Beach

The tanks that reached shore keep firing

The DD disaster did not mean Omaha had no tanks. Shermans landed by craft or survived the swim in other sectors and fought from the beach, firing at embrasures, houses and suspected strongpoints. Their crews had little room to manoeuvre before exits opened, but tank fire joined naval gunfire and infantry weapons in suppressing positions that the pre-assault bombardment had left intact.

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June 6, 1944 · 08:15 · Pointe du Hoc

Patrols reach the coast road

Small parties pushed half a mile inland through hedgerow to the coastal road, the lateral route by which German reinforcement would move between Omaha and the Cotentin, and set up blocking positions across it. Cutting that road was the second objective of the operation and it is the one usually forgotten.

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June 6, 1944 · 08:30 · Omaha Beach

Offshore headquarters sees a beach in crisis

Reports reaching senior commanders described closed exits, damaged landing craft and units pinned near the water. Follow-on movement was checked while beach control tried to prevent more vehicles from being fed into blocked sectors. Bradley considered delaying or diverting later forces if Omaha could not be made usable. That was a contingency for reinforcement, not a decision to evacuate the men already fighting ashore.

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June 6, 1944 · 08:45 · Omaha Beach

Taylor pushes the 16th Infantry inland

Colonel George Taylor reached the crowded beach and ordered men away from the cover they had found and toward the bluffs. His famous statement about the dead and those about to die survives in variant wording. The operational meaning is clearer than the exact quotation: remaining at the waterline was more dangerous than attacking uphill.

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June 6, 1944 · 08:50 · Omaha Beach

Cota and the Rangers move through the wire

Brigadier General Norman Cota helped organise men at Dog White and directed Rangers and infantry toward breaches in the wire. The phrase 'Rangers, lead the way' became the regiment's motto. More important on the ground was the example: stop waiting for the planned exit to open, make a breach and climb the bluff.

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June 6, 1944 · 09:00 · Omaha Beach

Spalding, Dawson and other small-unit leaders find the way up

Lieutenant John Spalding, Captain Joseph Dawson and other junior leaders took mixed groups through gaps and up the bluff line in the eastern sector. Their routes were not the vehicle draws marked as the assault objectives. They were infantry paths through terrain that had been less heavily fortified because German defence planning expected vehicles to use the valleys.

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June 6, 1944 · 09:00 · Operation Deadstick

Gunboats and snipers

German gunboats came up the canal from Ouistreham and were engaged from the bridge; one was disabled and its crew taken. Snipers worked from the church tower at Le Port and from the houses, and mortar fire fell on the bridges through the morning. Staff Sergeant Geoff Barkway, who had flown the third glider, was mortally wounded and treated in the café cellar. He lost an arm and died later of his wounds.

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June 6, 1944 · 09:00 · Pointe du Hoc

Two sergeants find the guns

First Sergeant Leonard Lomell and Staff Sergeant Jack Kuhn, following a track marked by wheel ruts, found five of the six guns in a hedged orchard, camouflaged, loaded, aimed at Utah Beach, with ammunition stacked and nobody guarding them. Lomell destroyed the traversing mechanisms and sights with two thermite grenades and smashed the sights of the rest with his rifle butt. A second patrol arrived minutes later and finished the job. The battery was out of action before it had fired on the beaches.

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June 6, 1944 · 09:30 · Big Week and Air Superiority

Air superiority measured over Normandy

On 6 June Allied air forces flew 12,015 sorties in support of the invasion and the wider air plan. The captured German wartime study records 319 Luftwaffe sorties for both day and night operations. Josef Priller and Heinz Wodarczyk's low pass over the beaches in two Fw 190s became famous because it compressed the imbalance into a memorable scene. It should not be mistaken for the whole German effort: fighter, reconnaissance and other Luftwaffe missions were flown elsewhere during the day. Nor can the ratio be credited to Big Week…

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June 6, 1944 · 09:30 · Omaha Beach

Destroyers close to direct-fire range

U.S. destroyers moved to roughly 800–1,000 yards from the beach, in some cases inside waters considered dangerously shallow for the ships. With shore fire-control parties disrupted, crews engaged targets they could identify visually: gun flashes, embrasures, houses and positions firing on the beach. Naval History and Heritage Command treats this close fire as a critical contribution to recovering Omaha.

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June 6, 1944 · 10:00 · Omaha Beach

The attack changes direction

Instead of driving directly up the fortified vehicle exits, infantry groups climbed between them and spread along the crest. This bypassed the strongest frontal fire. Strongpoints that had dominated the beach could now be isolated or attacked from above and behind while surviving tanks and destroyers continued firing from seaward.

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June 6, 1944 · 11:00 · Omaha Beach

Fighting reaches the villages behind the beach

Elements of the 16th Infantry reached the outskirts of Colleville while other penetrations pushed toward Saint-Laurent and Vierville. The parties were understrength and often lacked normal artillery, mortar and radio support, but their presence inland proved the beach defence had been penetrated even though the planned exits were still not fully open.

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June 6, 1944 · 12:00 · Omaha Beach

Resistance nests are attacked from the rear

American groups on the heights began working along the bluff line and down toward strongpoints that had been nearly impossible to attack frontally from the sand. The German system had been built to cover the beach and draws with overlapping fire. Once penetrations appeared behind it, individual resistance nests became increasingly isolated.

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June 6, 1944 · 13:00 · Omaha Beach

The exits begin becoming vehicle routes

Infantry attacking from inland and engineers working from the beach began opening parts of the draw system. Mines, walls, wreckage and direct fire still restricted movement. Tank-dozers and engineer equipment widened passages enough for vehicles to leave the sand. The beach could now begin functioning as a route inland rather than only as a firing line.

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June 6, 1944 · 13:00 · Operation Deadstick

The commandos arrive, behind a piper

1st Special Service Brigade came up from Sword Beach under Lord Lovat, with Bill Millin playing the bagpipes at Lovat's instruction and in defiance of standing orders against pipers in action. They crossed the bridge under sniper fire. Lovat is said to have apologised to Howard for being a few minutes late. The company had held both bridges for about twelve and a half hours.

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June 6, 1944 · 14:00 · Pointe du Hoc

Counterattacks begin

Elements of the 916th Grenadier Regiment moved up from the south and attacked the blocking positions on the road through the afternoon and into the night. The Rangers were short of ammunition, had lost their supply craft on the run in, and had no artillery of their own. The road position was held into the evening and then given up. The survivors fell back onto a shrinking perimeter around the point.

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June 6, 1944 · 15:00 · Omaha Beach

Landing traffic starts to recover

As lanes and exits became usable, beach-control parties pushed more infantry, ammunition, guns and vehicles ashore. The original timetable had been lost and the beach remained under fire in places, but the logistical direction of the battle had changed: reinforcements were now feeding a lodgement rather than accumulating behind a sealed obstacle line.

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June 6, 1944 · 17:00 · Omaha Beach

A shallow beachhead replaces the morning crisis

American positions were still fragmented and far short of the planned D-Day objective line, but German coastal strongpoints no longer controlled the entire landing area. The most important change was continuity. Troops, tanks and supplies could keep coming ashore, while units on the heights could hold ground through the night.

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June 6, 1944 · 21:00 · Operation Deadstick

The evening lift

Operation Mallard brought in around 250 gliders in daylight over the landing zones beyond the Orne, carrying the rest of the airlanding brigade with anti-tank guns and transport. The men on the bridges watched it come in over their heads. Several described it as the moment they were certain the invasion had worked. The eastern flank was now held in strength.

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June 6, 1944 · 23:59 · Omaha Beach

Omaha survives D-Day

About 34,000 U.S. troops had landed at Omaha by the end of 6 June. The lodgement was shallower than planned, the exits and roads were congested and major inland objectives remained untaken. The beachhead nevertheless held and could be reinforced. That distinction is the outcome of the day: the assault plan failed in several of its opening mechanisms, while the landing itself succeeded.

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