CAS at Omaha Beach

Hello, new to the forums here....I'm a 49-yr-old just retired (2012) USAF Colonel.....with a passion for WWII history....

I've always wondered why the Allies couldn't have had some pretty significant CAS support for Omaha Beach.....a flight of P-47s down low would have been much appreciated. Were the ceilings that low to prevent effective CAS?

 

Interesting question, I have not seen it before, maybe others have.

Shooting from the hip, I'll check sources later...

I don't think there was any CAS planned so I don't think it was canceled by the weather conditions.

I would have to guess they thought the heavy level bombing and naval gunfire would be necessary and sufficient. Plus the fact there was a time constraint between first light and when they wanted the first elements ashore. Landing craft equipped with cannon -- "gunboats" -- were intended to fill the gap between lifting naval gunfire and landing the first elements. I suspect close air support could have filled that gap better than the "gunboats" that were utilized.

They may also have doubted the effectiveness of machine guns, rockets and "small" bombs on the fortified defenders. Even so I might trade effectiveness for the timing, accuracy and the terror effect of CAS. The 700 yards between the low-tide landing and the beach proper should have been a good safety margin for CAS.

I wonder if there was a shortage fighter-bombers with all the other air cover missions related to NEPTUNE/OVERLORD.


I have seen where First Army staff officers though UTAH would be tougher than OMAHA. This might have been from the hasty planning and small landing force at UTAH but they really seem to have under estimated the role of the bluffs at OMAHA.

 

There were good reasons why CAS was not used on Omaha beach on D Day.

1. Lack of suitable munitions. The USAAF lacked the munitions to undertake precision attacks on Germans dug with over head cover or occupying concrete bunkers. The Artillery staff of the 2nd British Army asked the air forces for a solution and found there was none. For all the hype about the capabilities of fighter bombers they could not be relied upon to achieve the accuracy that the Germans achieved with stukas.

2. Absence of conditions for safe use of CAS. CAS can only work effectively when the pilot can clearly identify the target and be sure that the target was not occupied by friendly forces. The trade of FAC was in its infancy in WW2. While there were air force "tentacles" manned by pilots capable of directing aircraft, ground to air wireless sets were bulky and tended to be fitted in vehicles. Omaha Beach on D Day wasn't a conducive environment to control aircraft from a jeep, if P47s had been used on Omaha beach on D Day they would have been likely to have hit more of the more numerous exposed Americans than the fewer Germans, operating from fortifications.

3. FGA were better employed against inland targets that could not be seen from the sea. The allies had lots of fire-power in the form of naval guns offshore. The German response was hampered by constant air attacks on German reinforcements. I have a target list somewhere.

4. The weather. Eisenhower is rightly praised for taking the decision to launch D day despite marginal weather conditions. However, this also meant that the attacks suffered the consequences. One of these was that aircraft were forbidden to attack targets closer than 1 km to the coast, thus the planned carpet bombing of Omaha beach and the obstacles did not take place.

 

This may or may not be helpful in addressing your question:

D-Day 1944: Air Power Over the Normandy Beaches and Beyond - Courtesy of Hyperwar

 

To all - Outstanding inputs on this topic, thanks!

 

My impression was that they generally tried to avoid flying CAS (or other AC) through volumes subject to frequent transit of artillery projectiles. As others have mentioned there was a lot of arty available off shore.

 

Flying though the trajectory of naval gunfire is one aspect of the problems of managing the airspace over the D Day invasion fleet. The air and artillery parts of the fireplans were separated with aircraft departing a a few minutes before naval guns opened fire.

They were also worried about the risk of the navy engaging allied aircraft as they had over Sicily.