page_title: Omaha Beach
section_title: Initial assault
hierarchical_section_title: Omaha Beach / Initial assault
context_page_description: Omaha, commonly known as Omaha Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, during World War II. "Omaha" refers to an 8-kilometer section of the coast of Normandy, France, facing the English Channel, from east of Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to west of Vierville-sur-Mer on the right bank of the Douve River estuary. Landings here were necessary to link the British landings to the east at Gold with the American landing to the west at Utah, thus providing a continuous lodgement on the Normandy coast of the Bay of the Seine. Taking Omaha was to be the responsibility of United States Army troops, with sea transport, mine sweeping, and a naval bombardment force provided predominantly by the United States Navy and Coast Guard, with contributions from the British, Canadian, and Free French navies.
  The primary objective at Omaha was to secure a beachhead eight kilometers deep, between Port-en-Bessin and the Vire River, linking with the British landings at Gold to the east, and reaching the area of Isigny to the west to link up with VII Corps landing at Utah.
context_section_description: Despite these preparations, very little went according to plan. Ten landing craft were swamped by the rough seas before they reached the beach, and several others stayed afloat only because their passengers bailed water out with their helmets. Seasickness was prevalent among the troops waiting offshore. On the 16th RCT front, the landing boats passed struggling men in life preservers and on rafts, survivors of the DD tanks which had sunk in the rough sea. Navigation of the landing vehicles was made difficult by the smoke and mist obscuring the landmarks they were to use in guiding themselves in, while a strong current pushed them continually eastward.
  As the boats approached to within a few hundred yards of the shore, they came under increasingly heavy fire from automatic weapons and artillery. The force only then discovered the ineffectiveness of the pre-landing bombardment. The bombers, facing overcast conditions, had been ordered to implement a pre-arranged plan to compensate for decreased accuracy. The center of targeting was displaced inland to assure the safety of the landing allied troops. As a result, there was little or no damage to the beach defenses.
caption: Official history map showing first assault wave landings
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2002:10:02 13:12:52", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3399", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "847"}