Reason bombers missed at Omaha Beach

Hi Bigredoneala37

As has been explained already, the decision not to bomb the beaches themselves but apply a 1000 yard safety zone was the result of the decision to g9 ahead with the invasion despite poor weather. Eisenhower has rightly been praised for taking the decision to go ahead.. But there were consequences.,The allies would have to forego the effectiveness of their aerial firepower, and suffer additional delays as high seas hampered landings.

Using the strategic bombing forces in close support of the D Day Landings was quite risky. Bomber Command and the 8th AF were used to bombing targets the size of city districts in places where collateral damage was unimportant. They were not developed to provide close air support, nor had they practised that roie. Professor Blacker, a British scientist advising the Royal Navy was horrified when he found out and tried to get the bombing cancelled. It would be an understatement to say that Strategic bombers were not ab;le to guarantee to bomb in the right place. In the event the US Bombers in particular seem to have bombed accurately - 1000 yards South of any coastal targets,.

There was a difference in the effectiveness on the German defences. On Omaha beach the German defences were all close to the coast. You have been there and will understand why. Further East the ridge of high ground passes inland and German depth positions on Gold< Juno and Sword beaches were 1-2,000 yards inland. Some of the bombs fell on German batteries,some may have obliterated an entire company that had been sent to round up paratroops. The only significant friendly fire from the bombing was when a group of British paratroops assembling about 1000 yards shorr of the Franceville Battery, and in the wrong place were bombed - causing dozens of casualties, includign the death of the para dog buried in Ranveille Car cemetery., .

 

This is with 50% cloud cover. As opposed to the 90-100% cover they faced.

http://ww2-weapons.com/Aircrafts/Bombers/information/Bombing-Accuracy.htm

 

Hi Sheldrake,
Thank you very much for the kind explanations.
Thanks to al of you.
Kindest regards,

 

Note that the scatter of 30 % within 1000 ft (300m) implies the majority of the rest over the surrounding grid square with some outliers - e.g. the outliers from the bombing of the Monastery at Cassino hit a hospital 40km away.

But to put the operation in context. The landing at Omaha beach was a great success.

his was an obvious invasion beach, with strong features that favoured the defence. It was strongly defended with more gernas in the front line than anywhere else faced on D Day. Plan A did not work,. but few plans survive contact with the enemy,. The troops on the ground found a Plan B that worked. It was an achievement that is a tribute to the initiative, training and skills and leadership of the troops who landed.

It is right to be aware of the scale of the casualties. But any attack on a well defended position will have a cost

V US Corps reported 2,300 casualties on D day and D+1 out of 35,000 men who landed on Omaha Beach on D Day. That is around 7% losses, and lower than suffered by the 8th US Air Force on many of its missions. The 46 days of the Argonne offensive (26 September-11 Nov 1918) cost the US Army 114,000 casualties including 44,000 dead; an Omaha Beach every day for six weeks in a successful drive to end the war. On 9th April 1917 The Canadian Corps stormed Vimy Ridge. Their losses in this successful assault were 10,000 casualties out of the 100,000 in the Canadian Corps. This is the similar proportion to the Allied Losses of 10,000 casualties from 130,000.

To see If you want to see failure, visit Newfoundland park,Beaumont Hamel a couple of hours up the coast. On the opening day of the battle of the Somme 1st July 1916 the British 29th Division lost 5,200 casualties out of C,9,600 men committed to the assault from the division of 20,000 men. These were only part of the 60,000 lost that day.

After D Day there were few operations which committed the same number of soldiers at the same time. D Day was the day with the heaviest allied casualties. However, over the 90 days of the campaign the Allies suffered just under 210,000 casualties - of which 36,000 died. That isn't far off the Argonne/Meuse figure close to an Omaha beach a day. it can have been no consolation for the next of kin of the Bedford Boys to know that they sons were unlucky to bear disproportionate cost. But the drama of D Day sometimes obscures the bigger picture. The story of the men who fell after that day is just as important.

 

By "bombed from the sea" do you mean the bombardment by the naval guns? They were not very successful either. Since you have been to Normandy you must have noticed that most of the German positions are designed so that the embrasures are not visible from the sea. Instead, what the ships could see, if even that, was a very thick concrete wall impervious to all except the heaviest guns.

All the beaches were "bombed". From the air, from the sea by the navies, and from the landing craft as they approached. But with little real effect because of the way the German fortifications were built.

It was not a disaster, big or small. It was a hard-won success.

OMAHA was the only beach where casualties approached the expected level.

You are welcome.

 

Those figures are often quoted, but are as much out of context as are those usually quoted for the other beaches, which are also usually in error. This is from the draft of Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall, so is slightly different from the published version. (BTW, the number landed is also unclear, but was likely lower than the 35,000 usually cited.)

American Casualties on OMAHA:
The 1st Division recorded 1,190 casualties in the V Corps History. However, the 1st Division G-1 recorded losses for D-Day and D+1 as 1,036 on 8 June and the After Action Report (AAR) for June recorded 186 KIA, 620 WIA and 358 MIA, for a total of 1,164. In the same report the number of MIA returned-to-duty in June was given as 70. Internal evidence suggests that the “actual” number MIA on 6 June was about 312.[SIZE=10pt][1][/SIZE] Thus the likely total casualties for the 1st Division on 6 June were 1,118. The most recent detailed history of OMAHA, by Joseph Balkoski, gives a total of 1,346 for the 1st Division.[SIZE=10pt][2][/SIZE]

Figures for the 29th Division are even more difficult to puzzle out. The V Corps History recorded 743 total casualties for the Division, while Joseph H. Ewing in the postwar, 29 Let’s Go: A History of the 29th Division reported 390 KIA, 511 WIA, and 27 MIA, for a total of 928.[SIZE=10pt][3][/SIZE] The somewhat fragmentary reports made by the infantry regiments give a total of 366 KIA, 265 WIA, and 27 MIA, for a total of 658, while Balkoski gives a total of 1,272.

The V Corps History also recorded 441 casualties for the V Corps Troops. However, those reported were only for units assigned to the corps and so did not include many additional casualties suffered on OMAHA by troops attached to the corps. It appears that most of those were suffered by the 741st and 743rd Tank Battalions, which reported cumulative casualties as of 15 June of 14 KIA, 20 WIA and 154 MIA, with the remainder mostly being incurred by the two Engineer battalions attached to the 1st and 29th Divisions.

However, the losses of the 5th and 6th Engineer Special Brigade (ESB) and the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions do not appear to have been included as part of the V Corps casualties; technically they were only attached to V Corps, but were assigned to First Army. And yet their losses were substantial. As of 15 June the 5th ESB reported casualties of 13 KIA, 106 WIA and 59 MIA, those of the 6th ESB were 23 KIA, 70 WIA and 111 MIA. The 2nd Rangers incomplete report gave 255 total casualties, while the 5th Rangers reported 30 KIA, 70 WIA and 18 MIA. The 'final' accounting of the casualties in the two Ranger Battalions done in July 1944 reported 98 KIA, 211 WIA and 39 MIA, although it is impossible to tell now how many were lost on 6 June and how many in the few days immediately after D-Day. Unfortunately only the losses of HQ Detachment, D, E, and F of the 2nd Rangers, along with the attached detachments from the 293rd Joint Assault Signal Company (JASCO) and 165th Signal Photo Company, which together made up the Pointe du Hoc force, appear to be firmly established. They suffered 42 KIA (including 1 DOW 14 June), 43 WIA (including both Lieutenant Colonel Rudder and Lieutenant Colonel Trevor, a British Commando attached to the Ranger Force), 22 MIA (all of whom but three survived and rejoined later), and 1 captured. Overall, it appears that as many as 550 additional casualties may have been incurred by the Engineer Special Brigades and Rangers on D-Day.

Finally, the NCDU lost 24 KIA, 32 WIA, and 15 MIA, while the two Naval Beach Battalions attached to the 5th and 6th ESB suffered 41 KIA and 87 WIA.

Overall the highest casualty figure is the 4,385 given by Balkoski. However, it appears that he may have over counted the divisional casualties by about 572, mainly due to the use of higher missing in action figures, the inclusion of the casualties at Pointe du Hoc with those on OMAHA “proper”, and other possible duplications or overestimates. If so that would still gave a total of 3,686, significantly higher than the losses on any of the Commonwealth beaches and in fact slightly greater than the assumed total of Commonwealth casualties on all three of those beaches as found above, 3,604.

Cheers!


[SIZE=10pt][1][/SIZE] Postwar accounting show only 60 men actually captured between 6 June and 24 July.


[SIZE=10pt][2][/SIZE] Joseph Balkoski, OMAHA Beach, pp. 350-352.


[SIZE=10pt][3][/SIZE] Joseph Ewing, 29 Let’s Go: A History of the 29th Division in World War II. (Infantry Journal Press: Washington D.C., 1948) p. 306.

 

Rich - thanks for that explanation.


A couple of questions:-

1. Can you confirm what happened to the MIA of the tank battalions? .The total losses look a little short of 200, with 154 MIA the crew of 30 tanks. How many of the crews of the DD tanks were drowned at sea as opposed to picked up by some boat and lost in in the system?

2. Does this mean that 1st Army understated their total losses on 6th June by around 1,500?

However, even with casualties of 3,600 the total losses were still only 10% of the troops landing that day. Tough on those 3,600, but still lower than the planners worst case and some way short of abandoning the second front.. .

 

Hi Sheldrake,

Most of the MIA in the 741st and 743d Tank battalions were eventually reclassified as RTD...IIRC about 30-odd of those were eventually classified as dead through a finding of death. Unfortunately though, unit casualty accounting is really only good for campaign periods in the US Army because of limitations built into the system.

No, it means that most people reading the casualty reports don't realize what they are reporting. For example, the V Corps only reported casualties for units assigned to the Corps as "corps troops" in its total of 441. There is no "First Army" report for 6 June BTW, the first recorded casualties for the Army was cumulative as of 11 June and was for the period 6-10 June.

Probably closer to 12% given the number landed was probably significantly overstated (it may include troops landed on the morning of 7 June). Either way though, for a division-sized operation that is significant...division averages hovered around 1% per day and much more would be considered pretty intense.

Cheers!

 

From one beancounter to another, nice job, Rich. To get an approximate battalion strength for an upcoming Civil War battle, I once used company straw requisitions (used for bedding), which were authorized on the present for duty count.

FUSA's published history has daily casualties for D thru D+10. For June 6: 1465 KIA; 3184 WIA; 1928 MIA; 26 POW. With that many MIAs it certainly has to include airborne. Wish we had the raw data they used to compile the summary (so sharp counters like you could spot the discrepancies, later corrected).

The table includes the daily pre-invasion casualty estimates, and, consistent with your statement, for June 6, their actual is just a tad over half of projected. Their actual thru D+10 is close to those projected for D+2.

 

Oh, you mean that First Army report. :mellow: The one in the First U.S. Army Report of Operations? The problem with it is the provenance of the figures is unknown, while it is also all inclusive...everyone assigned and attached to First Army on 6 June is included so it is impossible to separate OMAHA from UTAH from the airborne landings and from Pointe du Hoc. Given it reports prisoners of war (IIRC, confirmation via the Red Cross was usually a requirement for that coding), I suspect it was compiled long after the invasion, probably by the 13th or 32d MRU. It is possibly the most accurate for the army as a whole on 6 June, except it has all those MIA which are not reconciled.