Flotilla 4, Tare Green Sector, Utah Beach.
My Father was a Navy corpsman on the USS Quincy at Utah Beach.
Made the landing several times picking up the wounded.
My dad was a LT JG, detonating mines on Omaha beach so troops could land. After he and his team cleared their stretch of beach, he went into the water and hauled out men who were foundering in the surf.
Find someone who can name all five landing beaches...
The Asst. DC of the 4th was General Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. He badgered the Div. Commander until he finally got permission to land in the first wave, the only general officer to do so.
And it's a good thing he did. After reconnoitering where they were, Teddy made the on the spot decision, "we'll start the war from right here!" He rejected any suggestion to re-embark and land again to the north. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
I believe even Rommel took a couple of days off thinking the allies couldn’t invade in such weather.
The story seems to confuse Omaha and Utah Beaches. It quotes veterans of the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions, but they landed at Omaha. The 4th Infantry Division is correctly identified as landing at Utah.
The 4th ID took 197 casualties on June 6, 1944.
That's because bombers were used as bait starting in January 1944. The idea was to lure the Luftwaffe fighters up so American fighters could destroy them. It worked quite well. Before January 1944 fighters were tied to the bombers. After that, they went on ahead on search and destroy missions. One of the benefits of this new strategy was bomber losses fell significantly. Thank Jimmy Doolittle for this.
They achieved tactical surprise because they landed at the wrong place.
My much older brother was in the Coast Guard, attached to the Navy.
He drove landing craft onto Omaha Beach. IIRC a Virginia Natl Guard regiment.
Took extreme MG fire. When he dropped the ramp the Germans were mowing the soldier down.
He talked freely about the War, but his oldest son, my nephew took him the the movie Saving Private Ryan.
He couldn’t take the opening scenes and left.
Became a Presbyterian minister.
And once the landings had been made a spy named Garbo kept the Germans from counter attacking with forces from Calais.
The father of a family friend was a Lt. who landed in the first wave on Omaha Beach. The only reason that his LC reached the shore was that he pulled his .45 out and put it to the head of the British rating who was piloting it. In the first wave at Omaha, most of the Brit pilots went chicken and drowned their GIs by stopping well short of the beach and dropping them into water over their heads.
bookmark
Did we HELP Europe..?
Just LOOK at Europe today.
It’s a good place..?
No, it’s not.
And our ally was JOSEF STALIN.