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    D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings
    D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings
    D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings
    Ebook215 pages1 hour

    D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings

    By Steven J Zaloga and Howard Gerrard

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    A highly illustrated and detailed study of the Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings.

    On their western flank, the Allied landings on D-Day combined a parachute drop by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions with an amphibious assault on “Utah” Beach by the US 4th Infantry Division. The landings came ashore in the wrong place but met weaker German resistance as a result. The heaviest fighting took place inland where the badly scattered paratroopers gradually gathered in small groups and made for their objectives.

    This book traces the story of D-Day on Utah beach, revealing how the infantry pushed inland and linked up with the Airborne troops in a beachhead five miles deep. Now the battle to break out and seize the key port of Cherbourg could begin.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJul 20, 2012
    ISBN9781782001478
    D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings
    Author

    Steven J Zaloga

    Steven J. Zaloga is a senior analyst for Teal Group Corp., an aerospace consulting firm, where he covers missile and drone technology as well as international arms transfers for clients in the aerospace industry and the government. He served for more than two decades as an adjunct staff member with the Strategy, Forces, and Resources division of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federal think-tank, retiring in 2021. He is the author of numerous books on military technology and history, including NVG 294 Allied Tanks in Normandy 1944 and NVG 283 American Guided Missiles of World War II. He currently lives in Maryland, USA.

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      D-Day 1944 (2) - Steven J Zaloga

      (NARA)

      INTRODUCTION

      The plans for the US Army at Utah Beach were a bold attempt to use airborne units to overcome the difficult terrain behind the beachhead. In the largest combat airdrop of the war so far, two airborne divisions were delivered at night behind enemy lines with the aim of securing the key bridges and access points. Due to the inherent risks of such a night operation, the paratroopers were very scattered and unable to carry out many of their specific missions. Yet in spite of these problems, the gamble paid off. The landings at Utah Beach were never in doubt, and within a day the US Army had a firm foothold in Normandy. The earlier book in this D-Day series on Omaha Beach ¹ provides a more detailed account of the planning and preparation for US Army operations on D-Day. This book is intended to complement it by providing a more detailed look at US Army operations subsequent to D-Day. With the capture of Cherbourg and the Cotentin peninsula, the Wehrmacht lost any hope that the Allies could be dislodged from France.

      THE STRATEGIC BACKGROUND

      Allied planning for Operation Overlord recognized the need for extensive port facilities to supply the armies for later operations in France. The German army presumed that the Allies would conduct their invasion in the Pas de Calais where there were many excellent ports. Consequently, the main German defensive effort was concentrated in this area, making it far less attractive to Allied planners, who turned instead to Brittany and Normandy. Brittany had several excellent ports such as Brest, but the Breton peninsula was more distant from English ports than either the Pas de Calais or Normandy. In addition, had the Allies landed in Brittany, German forces might have contained their advance by sealing off the relatively narrow exit from the Breton peninsula. As a result, Brittany was dropped from consideration. The Normandy coast had few large port facilities except for Cherbourg on the Cotentin peninsula. Nevertheless, Normandy was attractive for many other reasons including its proximity to the English Channel ports, and the relatively weak German defenses in the region, especially in mid-1943 when Allied planning started in earnest. A two-step solution was found to the problem of port facilities. In the short term, the Allies would rely on the creation of a pair of artificial harbors that would be located at the landing beaches. The next objective would be to seize suitable port facilities. This was a task assigned to the US Army: first, the seizure of Cherbourg and then the Breton ports. Utah Beach was selected with this objective in mind. It was the westernmost of the five D-Day landing beaches, at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, offering the best access toward Cherbourg.

      This propaganda photo of the Atlantic Wall was released by Germany in December 1943. The Cotentin peninsula, especially around Cherbourg, was one of the few portions of the Normandy coast with a substantial number of heavy coastal defense guns like these. (USAOM)

      German defense of the Cotentin peninsula was based on the mistaken assessment that the main Allied effort would be against the Pas de Calais. As a result, German defensive efforts in 1943 concentrated on creating the Atlantic Wall along this stretch of coastline. The Allied landings in Italy in 1943–44, particularly the Anzio landing in January 1944, convinced senior German commanders that the Allies would land in more than one location, using smaller landings to draw off German reserves and weaken the main defenses. As a result, the German strategy was to deploy second-rate units behind mediocre beach defenses on other areas of the French coast such as Normandy and Brittany as an economy-of-force approach. These forces would prevent an uncontested Allied landing and would be reinforced in early 1944 as resources permitted.

      1 Campaign 100: D-Day 1944 (1) Omaha Beach

      CHRONOLOGY

      1943

      July First draft of Overlord plan completed

      3 November Führer Directive 51 directs priority to reinforcing Western Front

      6 November Rommel appointed to lead Army Group for Special Employment

      1944

      1 February Operation Neptune plan adds Utah Beach to the Overlord operation

      28 May Landing zone for 82nd Airborne Div. shifted from St Sauveur to Merderet River

      3 June OSS teams drop into Normandy to set up beacons for pathfinders

      4 June Luftwaffe meteorologist forecasts rough seas and gale-force winds through mid-June

      5 June Eisenhower decides that break in weather will permit execution of Neptune on 6 June 1944

      D-Day, Tuesday, 6 June, 1944

      00.15 Pathfinders begin landing in Normandy to set up beacons for air drops

      01.30 Albany mission begins and 101st Airborne paratroopers start landing in Normandy

      02.30 Boston mission begins and 82nd Airborne paratroopers start landing in Normandy

      02.30 Task Force U arrives off Utah Beach, anchors in transport area

      03.10 Gen Marcks begins to move Kampfgruppe Meyer to counter paratroop drops

      04.00 Chicago mission begins and 101st Airborne gliders start landing

      04.07 Detroit mission begins and 82nd Airborne gliders start landing

      04.30 Cavalry detachment lands on St Marcouf island off Utah Beach, finds it deserted

      05.05 German coastal batteries begin engaging Allied warships

      05.50 Preliminary naval bombardment of Utah Beach begins

      06.05 Bomber attacks on Utah Beach begin

      06.30 Assault waves begin landing on Utah Beach

      09.00 Combat Team 8 (CT8) begins moving off Utah Beach via Exit 2

      21.00 Elmira mission delivers glider reinforcements to LZ W; Keokuk to LZ E

      POST-D-DAY

      7 June Galveston mission delivers gliders to LZ W at 07.00; Hackensack at 09.00

      7 June German counterattack on Ste Mère-Église repulsed with tank support

      8 June Rommel receives set of captured VII Corps orders, decides to reinforce Cotentin peninsula

      9 June La Fière causeway finally captured by 82nd Airborne Division

      10 June 101st Airborne seizes causeway leading to Carentan

      10 June 90th Division begins attempt to cut off Cotentin peninsula

      11 June Fallshirmjäger Regiment 6 (FJR 6) retreats from Carentan

      12 June 101st Airborne occupies Carentan in effort to link up with V Corps at Omaha Beach

      13 June Counterattack on Carentan by 17th SS-Panzergrenadier Division fails with heavy losses

      15 June Failure of 90th Division leads to substitution of 9th Division and 82nd Airborne Div. in westward attack

      16 June Hitler meets Rommel and Rundstedt in France, insists on last-ditch defense of Cherbourg

      17 June 60th Infantry, 9th Division reaches the sea at Barneville, cutting off Cotentin peninsula

      19 June Final drive on Cherbourg begins as a three-division assault

      21 June VII Corps reaches outer ring of defenses of Fortress Cherbourg

      25 June US infantry begin entering outskirts of Cherbourg

      26 June Senior Wehrmacht commanders in Cherbourg forced to surrender

      28 June Final outlying German positions in Cherbourg harbor surrender

      30 June Last pocket on Cap de la Hague surrender to 9th Division

      1 July 9th Division reports that all organized German resistance on Cotentin peninsula has ended

      OPPOSING COMMANDERS

      GERMAN COMMANDERS

      The Wehrmacht had developed a hard-won reputation for tactical excellence during World War II, due in large measure to a style of war epitomized by "aufsträgtaktik": senior commanders briefed their subordinate commanders on the goals of the mission, and then permitted them to carry out the assignment as they saw fit, allowing them considerable tactical flexibility. This flexibility was eroded as the conflict dragged on, particularly in the final year of the war. By 1944, the Wehrmacht’s capabilities in the field were degraded by an increasingly Byzantine command structure. At the strategic level, Hitler had gradually usurped more and more command authority due to his growing distrust of the professional army officers. He made all major strategic decisions, but interfered at the tactical level as well. Given the sheer complexity of modern industrial war, management of combat operations was beyond the capabilities of a single great commander as might have been possible in centuries before. Hitler’s interference was inevitably erratic and episodic. He would allow the usual chains of command to exercise control over most operations, but would become involved in some operations at his whim. Hitler’s leadership style was more feudal than modern, encouraging the dispersion of power away from professional organizations like the general staff and into the hands of enthusiastic amateurs like himself, cronies such as the Luftwaffe head Hermann Göring and the SS chief, Heinrich Himmler.

      Commander of Army Group B was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. It was Rommel’s initiative in the autumn of 1943 that set in motion the fortification of the Normandy beaches. (MHI)

      Field command was in the hands of the professionals, but with inefficient constraints on their freedom of action. Generalfeldmarschal Gerd von Rundstedt was the nominal supreme commander of western forces (OB West). In reality the Luftwaffe and Navy units in the West were outside his jurisdiction, and some occupation units were under the control of regional governors. Rundstedt’s control was further confused by Hitler’s decision in the autumn of 1943 to dispatch one of his favorites, Generalfeldmarschal Erwin Rommel, to command the amorphous invasion front. Rommel and Rundstedt attempted to cooperate under difficult circumstances. Rommel took it upon himself to reinvigorate the construction of beach defenses along the Channel coast. This had the greatest impact in Normandy, which had previously been neglected. Rommel was less certain than many senior commanders about the inevitability of landings on the Pas de Calais, and felt that even if the main attack did fall there, there still might be

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