Easy Red

I stand on Omaha Beach, Easy Red sector, where elements of the 1st and 29th Divisions landed on that Tuesday morning. As the soldiers came ashore from their landing craft they were met with a wall of direct fire from machine guns, mortars and artillery. Specially equiped Sherman tanks called Duplex Drive, could ride in water via floatation collars that would keep them from sinking. Unfortunately they were dropped off too far from the beach and while trying to fight a current that pushed them away from their objective all but one of the 49 DD tanks sank in the channel.

The one tank that made it ashore was quickly knocked out. The Commanding Officer of the invasion, General Omar Bradley, considered landing the other soldiers on Utah Beach to the East. Instead, he had Navy destroyers approach the land so close that they were "scrapping bottom" and they neutralized German fortications with their guns. Below is a photo looking out of one of the German pillboxes in that sector and a picture taken on top of the bluff that overlooks Easy Red looking east towards Pointe du Hoc.