Carl Schwamberger wrote:The tanks or craft they were on came in anywhere from two to fifteen minutes after the first infantry touched the beach. judging from the various books on my shelf most were on the beach in ten minutes or less. Some describe tank crews backng their tanks into the water to "hide" them from the German AT fires. That sounds a bit odd, but It does reflect the numerous tanks that were hit by AT fires while on the beach.
"Some" are wrong...or, more likely, decided to disengage their brains to increase the drama of their account. It was the
tide coming in not the tanks backing into the water.
The 116th Infantry's initial four assault companies landed around 0630, while the three companies of the 743rd Tank Battalion landed at least 51 tanks and tankdozers about simultaneously, between 0624 and 0630.
In the 16th Infantry zone the two surviving DDs of the 741st Tank Battalion that launched landed at 0630 and were followed a few minutes later by three landed directly from their LCT. The wading tanks, A Company, landed at 0640 with another 12 tanks and 6 tankdozers having lost 2 tanks and 1 tankdozer when their LCT struck a mine in the night. So 21 operational tanks had landed by 0640. Unfortunately the timing of the assault waves is less well known because of the confusion of miss-landings, but most of the four assault companies were ashore between 0630 and 0640.
BTW, Tom, I hate to sound snippy, but you say you have my book and yet you seem to be unaware that
all of this is covered by me in it? :roll: You think my book at best "challenges" some notions (fainting with damn praise that) and yet you are unable to draw out the facts from it that can answer some of your rather basic questions? That's more than a bit cheeky on your part I think.
Pooring over the accounts of the infantry & engineers its clear the obstacle was the German MG & mortar fire. Those who found a break in the enemy fire did not have a lot of trouble actually getting to the bluff crest. The shingle/sea wall was seldom more than 1.5 meters high & in other places less than a meter. The Shingle was a obstacle to tracked & wheeled vehicals but not to footsoldiers. The wire beyond was not dense & the assualt teams were well equipped with wire cutters & bangalore torpedos. Some infantry described getting through the wire without either, and a few seem not to have encountered wire. The ground between the shingle & crests started as low sand dunes which increased in height until merging with the lower bluff. The dunes were covered with grass and patches of brush, as were the slope of the bluff. There are lots of photos available that show the beach, dunes, and bluffs in 1944 & today.
Pretty close to accurate, although the wire entanglements at places were quite dense, especially in the low swale behind the dunes between the D-3 and E-3 exit and the seawall was backed by well-placed antitank ditches and antitank mines. Worse though was that those antitank obstacles were well-covered by antitank gunfire.B Company, 743rd Tank Bn landed intact on DOG GREEN with 16 tanks, but lost seven within a few minutes to gunfire, mines, and bogging. Later, the battalion commander was killed trying to direct the fire of his tanks to take out the 88mm and 50mm at WN72.
The problem was that the strength was concentrated at the exits, the tanks had little room to maneuver against them or support the infantry, and most of those defenses were too strong for an armored assault, even with Funnies, especially since the short range of the Petard meant that they had little chance of getting within range of the defenses, especially those on top of the bluffs or protected by the seawall, marshy ground, antitank ditch, and antitank mine obstacles. Essentially it was a near perfect combination of firepower and obstacles that was present nowehere else on that day. On GOLD JIG the firepower was present and raised havoc in the first few minutes, but Bert Scaife was able to maneuver off the beach because the obstacles were not strengthened by the terrain (and because for some odd reason the 88mm that could bear and that should have raised holy hell, was in a WN manned mostly by Osttruppen who put up only a token resistance), and similar occurred at SWORD.
The second worst obstacle were mines, however the first infantry to inflitrate the dunes & bluffs found paths through them and losses to the mines were not a showstopper.
Yep, the AP minefields were mostly on the trails - the occasional one still turns up there - and on the landward perimeter of the WN - on top of the bluffs mostly - where a Crab could not have gotten at them. The AT mines were closely grouped around the approaches to the WN from the beach, reinforcing the natural and manmade obstacles there.
The fundamental problem was the German MG were not suppressed by the preperatory fires, or by any effective supporting fires for nearly two hours. The shingle made for a covered position beyond which it was difficult to leave. Many attempts to cut wire were driven back or killed. Some infantry found dead zones in the MG fire, others found cover from smoke of the brush fires, & possiblly some of the tanks did knock out some of the MG. At any rate small ad hoc squads & platoons were moving through the dunes by 07:00 & some had reached the bluff crest around 07:30. This number gradually increased as the German MG positions were slowly knocked out.
The five DD tanks that landed in the 16th Infantry zone played an early role in suppressing WN60 and WN61, possibly knocking out the 75mm and 88mm there. The 743rd had less luck, partly because the 88mm, 75mm, and 50mm guns controlling the western end of the beach around the Vierville exit were so well sited and protected.
The tanks that made it ashore were slowly picked off. Some witnesses blame their losses on a attempt to collect them together for a assualt on one of the draws. Other witnesses or post battle analysts describe them knocked out gradually by the German AT guns. It is not clear what effect they had on German fire during the first two hours. Perhaps the 75mm guns could not penetrate the concrete of the MG & cannon bunkers?
The tanks could and did have an effect, but the miss landings meant that many tanks landed where there was no infantry and vice versa. The only ones that could be described as collected together were those of the 743rd, which spent the morning attempting to suppress the guns at the Vierville and Les Moulins exit while supporting the assault by the 116th Infantry, 5th and 2nd (-) Rangers on the bluffs between, which finally cracked the defenses. In the 16th Infantry zone the tanks landed were simply much fewer and simply couldn't be collected in any meaningful way.
What is clear is the tanks could not make it over the shingle wall, or past the AT guns guarding the roads off the beach. There were 16 bulldozers sent ashore to build ramps over the shingle & otherwise clear obstacles, but those were all hors combat within the hour. How other 'funnies ' would have fared is questionable to me. The shingle, dunes, & bluffs were effectively impentrable to assualt vehicals. Those required hours of work to build vehical paths across. The draws or gulleys with their paved roads were guarded by AT guns, mines, barriers, & planned targets for the artillery. Nearly all were taken by flank or rear attacks from the bluffs rather than by the direct infantry/tank assualts originally planned. Perhaps flame thrower tanks could have approached the MG & AT gun bunkers at the draws? Armored engineer vehicals could have survived long enough to make ramps over the shingle, & trample some barbed wire, but that does not sound decisive Enough LVT could have got the first wave of infantry to the shingle wall faster with fewer casualties, but that is just half the battle. None of these get decisively at the problem of dozens of unsppressed German MG enfilading the beach. That requires real fire support, not more vehicals on the bare sand between the dunes & rising tide.
It's actually difficult to track how many of the tankdozers survived, but a few apparently did and one of the 743rd was recovered and put back into action on 7 June, but otherwise on 7 June the 741st only had seven tanks operational and one in repair, while the 743rd had 39 (including the recovered dozer and a recovered M4) and one in repair. That's from 32 M4 DD, 8 M4 Dozers, and 22 M$ wading tanks in each battalion.
Cheers!
, I didn't mean to diminish your achievement in finding so many new primary sources, I just felt the need to assert (after having been reminded all year by my Open University tutor) that historians should be careful when declaring a "problem solved", a "myth busted" or a "culprit identified". I realise I should keep my assertions to myself, and that it wasn't you asserting that you had "byth musted" and will now go away and find your book and give it the damn thorough reading it deserves. 