Omaha Beach
The Allied army had many flaws in its planning and execution in the storming of OMAHA beach on June 6, 1944. "OMAHA beach, where, for several hours, the situation appeared to hover on the brink of disaster."(Belchem 90) There was discrepancies with selecting OMAHA beach in reference to its terrain. The air troops who paratrooped from the sky just hours before the first infantry troops arrived on the beach. Unexpected problems with the infantry arouse and were handled erroneously. Finally, there were problems with the Allied tanks and artillery that took part in the invasion. The decision to storm at OMAHA beach was poor. "The western third of the beach was backed by a ten foot high seawall, and the whole beach was overlooked by cliffs one hundred feet high"(MacDonald 1) The Germans could place themselves in a perfect firing position to wipe out the Allied soldiers. Adding to the dilemma the soldiers franticly tried to hide behind anything they could to avoid the heavy German fire. "The German weapons were fixed to cover the entire beach with fire as well as the plunging fire from the cliffs. OMAHA
"(Hastings 91) The men trenched across the beach with the impression that they were being backed by all their tanks and heavy artillery. When the plans went awry chaos broke out and heavy casualties occoured. Also, the engineers were under heavy fire while performing these tasks. This left the companies confused and intermingled. "(Belfield 91) This caused a major problem for the airborne troops to specifically hit the target which they were assigned to hit. "(Patrick 47) This led to a major disturbance in the timing of the invasion. "(Hastings 188) This slight disadvantage was another hurdle which the Allied army had to overcome. The disadvantage was in the Allied army's vision. "There would be more then two thousand casualties on the beach that day. The timing was a very important part to a mission such as OMAHA beach. "All of the German small arms enjoyed a significant advantage over their Allied counterparts. "(MacDonald 3) This was an massive problem for the Allies. "Unfortunately for the infantry many of the twenty-nine "DD" tanks (amphibious Sherman tanks fitted with flotation screens) that were supposed to support them sank in the English Channel.
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