Utah Beach

▪ World War II

Introduction

      the westernmost beach of the five landing areas of the Normandy Invasion of World War II. It was assaulted on June 6, 1944 (D-Day of the invasion), by elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division and was taken with relatively few casualties. In the predawn hours of D-Day, units of the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions were airdropped inland from the landing beach. They suffered many casualties from drowning and enemy fire but succeeded in their aim of isolating the seaborne invasion force from defending German units.

The landing beach

 Located on the eastern shore of the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, Utah Beach was a late addition to the areas scheduled for invasion. The original plan for Operation Overlord (Digest of Operation Overlord) did not call for a landing on the Cotentin, but General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Eisenhower, Dwight D.), supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, added it to ensure an early capture of the port of Cherbourg at the northern tip of the peninsula.

 The Utah landing area was approximately 5 km (3 miles) wide and was located northwest of the Carentan estuary on sandy, duned beaches. Compared with German fortifications at Omaha Beach, the defenses at Utah, based on fixed infantry positions, were sparse because the low-lying areas immediately behind the landing area were flooded (flood) and the Germans could control the flooding with locks. Four causeways exited the beach through the flooded lowlands and severely restricted movement inland. Indeed, all land traffic was restricted to established routes, especially through the important crossroads towns of Carentan and Sainte-Mère-Église. Defenses along the causeways consisted mostly of strongpoints equipped with automatic weapons. Some 3 km (2 miles) inland were coastal and field artillery batteries. The defending forces consisted of elements of the German 709th, 243rd, and 91st infantry divisions.

  The assault sectors at Utah Beach were designated (from west to east) Tare Green, Uncle Red, and Victor. The invasion was planned for Tare Green and Uncle Red, with the number 3 causeway almost in the middle of the landing area. H-Hour (that is, the time at which the first wave of landing craft would hit the beach) was scheduled for 0630 hours. The beach was to be assaulted by the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. The plan was to cross the beach and seize control of the coast roads, link up with airborne troops who were to have been dropped inland five hours earlier, and then be prepared to attack toward Cherbourg. The 8th Infantry Regiment was to attack first; supported by 32 special amphibious Sherman tanks (Sherman tank) in the first wave, it was to land opposite Les-Dunes-de-Varraville, a well-fortified area.

  The landing plan went wrong from the beginning. Strong currents beset the landing craft, and the area was obscured by smoke from the preceding shore bombardment. But the main problem was the loss of three of the four designated control craft to mines. The fourth control craft eventually rounded up the confused landing craft looking for directions and, using a bullhorn for communication, led them in. The force landed 1,800 metres (2,000 yards) east of the designated landing area, in the less-defended Victor sector and almost astride causeway number 2.

  The assistant division commander, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., quickly realized the error. Uttering his famous remark “We'll start the war from here!” he ordered the division to advance. Three hours later exits 1, 2, and 3 had been secured, and by 1200 hours contact had been made with paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division around the town of Pouppeville. By the end of the day the 4th Division had pushed inland about 6 km (4 miles), and its westernmost units were within a mile of the 82nd Airborne's perimeter near Sainte-Mère-Église.

  For an assault that had begun with such terrible confusion, the Utah Beach landings ended as a spectacular success beyond the most optimistic expectations. The 1,800-metre error had placed the landing force away from the heavily defended area of Les-Dunes-de-Varaville and into a less-defended section of beach. Twenty thousand troops and 1,700 motorized vehicles had landed at Utah with surprisingly few casualties—fewer than 300 men.

 The Germans had not counterattacked the seaborne assault, owing to the success of the Allied airborne troops in holding the roads that led to the beach approaches and also to confusion among the German commanders as to exactly where the main attack was taking place. The Germans, however, were in a position to counterattack in the Cotentin Peninsula at the end of D-Day.

Cotentin Peninsula air-assault zones

 Paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd and 101st airborne divisions were night-dropped inland on the Cotentin in order to support the amphibious assault at nearby Utah Beach. The drop zones for the 101st Division were labeled A, C, and D and were in the vicinity of roads leading from Utah Beach. Drop zone A was to the west of Saint-Martin-de-Varreville, while D and C were west and southwest of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. Drop zones for the 82nd Division were labeled N, O, and T; they were positioned north of the Douve River and on either side of its principal tributary, the Merderet—all to the west of Sainte-Mère-Église.

  German forces in the Cotentin capable of countering the airborne divisions were two regiments from the 91st Division (including one battalion of tanks) and the 6th Parachute Regiment. The main defense of the Cotentin, however, was natural: the flooding of lowlands and marshes, as controlled by a lock near the mouth of the Douve River at La Barquette, just north of Carentan. The commander of German forces in Normandy, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Rommel, Erwin), had ordered the lock at La Barquette to be opened at high tide in order to flood the area and closed at low tide to hold the waters in. The entire lowland of the Douve and Merderet rivers was thus a constant marsh.

  The objective of the 101st Airborne, commanded by Major General Maxwell Taylor (Taylor, Maxwell Davenport), was to seize the inland sides of the four causeways leading from Utah Beach in order to allow the 4th Infantry Division to exit the beach during the dawn invasion. In addition, they were to destroy two highway bridges and a railroad bridge north of Carentan on the only good routes across the swamp that the Germans could use to move to the flank of the invasion area. Finally, they were to seize and hold the lock at La Barquette.

  To the west, the objective of the 82nd Airborne, under Major General Matthew Ridgway (Ridgway, Matthew Bunker) and Brigadier General James Gavin (Gavin, James Maurice), was to destroy two bridges on the Douve, capture the crossroads town of Sainte-Mère-Église, and secure the west bank of the Merderet River and hold a bridgehead there.

  Beginning at 2215 hours on D-Day minus 1, more than 900 C-47 aircraft began to transport 13,000 men of the two divisions from England to the Cotentin Peninsula. The drops of both divisions suffered from scattering—due to a lack of navigational aids as well as enemy ground fire, which forced transport pilots to take evasive action. Many paratroopers were killed by fire before they hit the ground, and many more were drowned upon landing in the flooded zones. Those who survived were forced to find one another on the ground and then move and fight in small groups, many unrelated by unit, rather than in organized battle formations as planned. Many men fought under strange leaders for unfamiliar objectives. Despite such setbacks, the scattering of the paratroopers had the one advantage of confusing the Germans, who had great difficulty in determining the size and scope of the force and then moving to counter it.

  By the end of D-Day, few objectives had been seized, though the four exits from Utah Beach were held by the 101st Airborne, and a linkup with the 4th Division had been achieved. The lock at La Barquette was in American hands, as was the town of Sainte-Mère-Église—but the Germans were counterattacking there, and control was tenuous. The road and rail bridges over the Douve were still in enemy hands, and the 82nd Airborne had not made contact with forces from the beach. The western flank of the Normandy Invasion therefore was anything but secure. Losses had been heavy, each division having suffered some 1,200 casualties.

Ronald J. Drez

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