It was never intended that the 8th or 9th AF would bomber the beach defences themselves.,Bombers were generally tasked with hitting targets on land that could not be easily engaged from the sea. Because of the cloud cover a 1000yd safety margin was applied to minimise the risk of bombs falling on friendly troops. The D Day fire-plan had several sets of targets,. There were the defences on the sections of the beach that were to be assaulted. These were subjected to drenching fire from SP artillery, warships and supporting craft. The amount of explosive was roughly comparable to that which supported the infantry attack at El Alamein. C 0.1 Lb explosive/.sq yard. Coastal defences which could deliver flanking fire onto the assault troops were to be targeted by destroyers and fighter bombers. The coastal batteries and artillery positions which could engage the invasion fleet and beaches were targeted by bombers and the heavier warships - cruisers, monitors and battleships. . . The 9th AF made pre D Day raids on some coastal batteries, including at Pointe de Hoc. They also made a pre H Hour bombing raiids conducted at first light with navigation supported by pathfinder bombers using radar direction findign aids The 9th AF bombed one of the batteries on the Cotentin at a much lower level than usual and achieved a dramatic effect. . The 8th AF was targeted on the coastal batteries. You can see the craterign from the bombing raids, for example the Mont Fluery battery on Gold beach was hit by bombs and naval artilelry shells. These are visdible on the D Day arial photographs and can be seen as undulations in the fields today. Not all of the german artuillery batteries were correctly locations. For example the artillery of the 352nd Division had arrived relatively recently to the coast and were deployed in field posiitons and reliced on camouflage rather than concrete for protection. These were the guns which engaged the infantry at Omaha beach - in addition to the mortars and machine guns around Omaha beach..
Any figures for the German artillery fire onto the beaches? I read somewhere that the Allied Navy managed to lure the artillery to fire at them instead of the beaches.
The German artillery fire was from the undetected batteries of AR No 1352. None of these appear to have been detected by the allies before D Day. Only the German Coastal Batteries - such as the battery of HKK 1260 at Pointe Due Hoc were equipped with the range finding and technical expertise to engage ships at sea. The field artillery of the 709, 176 and 352nd infantry divisions lacked the fire control equipm,ent or training to engage moving ships. German coastal defence doctrine was for these to engage the beaches, The most famous German on Omaha Beach Heine Server;the was the brew bitch (BC's Driver) for Lt Ferking and his party at WN 62. Their targets appear to ahve been the dead ground behind the shingle sea wall where the US troops sheltered after crossing the beach. They fired their ammunition (C 250 rounds per gun) within a couple of hours. .
Yeah...wow.! A bomber travels at about...120-150 MPH.? They could not have had more than 1-2 seconds to drop their bombs I would think. That is...flying straight in...the beach and bunkers would be what...about 1k yards maybe...1/4mile.? Not much time to get the bombs on target if there were clouds to deal with. I suppose in 2 seconds you would be past the "target".?
The weather was overcast with 10/10 cloud cover at 10,000 ft, well below the normal attitude from which the heavy bombers normally bombed, and patches of clout at 1000ft. . On this occasion the heavy bombers used blind bombing techniques - bombing en mass on the command of the lead bomber which used H2X air to ground radar. . The bombers approached north to south and 1,000 yards was added as a safety distance. An east West bombing run would have posed less danger to ground troops, but exposed the bombers to less AA fire. Some of the scientific advisers were very worried about allowing the 8th USAAF anywhere neat the allied fleets or assault forces! . Some of the bombing was very effective. One of the targets which was not offset for safety reasons was identified in the fire plan as "88mm battery" 1000m West of Tailleville at Grid 993818 which was 3500 yards inland. German accounts mention that 8 Company of GR 736 was returning to this location after a fruitless search for parachutists but disappeared under an allied bombardment which they assumed was a naval bombardment. I have been trying to work out which warships might have been responsible but could not find warships firing at this grid square. Perhaps, two squadrons from the 3rd Bombardment Division which for obliterating this unit.
Excellent info...Thank You. So the weather was murderous (for bomb sighting) at Omaha. Some of those planes must have just crossed their fingers and hoped they hit something German.
