Paul Woodadge Battlefield Tour – Normandy- Omaha Beach – Day One.

The battlefield season has started, and I am so looking forward to the next three weeks. I am joining a weeklong battlefield tour with Paul Woodadge of WW2TV. The Tour runs from Saturday the 1^st April 2023 to Thursday the 6^th of April. I will then be travelling back to Ypres and the Somme for more World War l battlefields. I will be joined by Jo Hook for a couple of days looking at the Dorsetshire Regiment and the 36^th (Ulster) Division.

Paul’s Battlefield Tour is to follow the Normandy Campaign, starting with the beaches, Omaha as the example, then a day following British Commandos, and then a day looking at the change in terrain from the rolling open fields west of Caen to the Bocage and the fight for Saint Lo. The fourth day is looking at US Airborne and the battles for the hills around La Haye Du-Puits. The fifth day will be looking at Operation Cobra or the Pivot and the final day we will look at Falaise Gap. The goal is to look at battles not often covered by the main tours and to obtain a better understanding of this three-month campaign.

My pages for this week will be a little more visual as I am on the battlefield from early morning to early evening.

Omaha Beach – Paul Woodadge Battlefield Tour.

Today is the 1^st April 2023 and it is the first day of Paul’s Battlefield Tour in Normandy. The idea was to look at the landings on D-Day and to look at the terrain of Omaha Beach, how the troops landed, what went well and what went wrong. To walk the top of the bluffs and view the draws which were utilised by the troops to get off the beach and neutralise the Widerstandnestern positions.

Omaha had numerous widerstandnestern (Resistance nests) numbered from WN60 to WN74. Paul was keen that we walk some of these positions and understand why they were positioned where they were and how some were captured.

We started on the beach for an understand of the events on the morning of June the 6^th. How landing craft were launched many miles from the beach, arriving after a long journey not together with most soldiers feeling seasick. The DD Shermans at the western end, mostly arrived intact while more were lost to the sea on the eastern end. As landing craft were not arriving en masse it allowed the Germans to concentrate their fire on each landing craft as it hit the beach.

We looked at WN72 which is located on the western end of Omaha. It was a casemate housing a PAK43, with a West to East firing line. It protected Draw 1 below Vierville. It had been hit by naval shelling, but you could see that the shot which took out the gun, had a very low trajectory, so was more than likely from a Sherman.

We then travelled to WN60 on the far eastern bluff of the beach. The view from here was amazing. You could fully understand the commanding position the Germans had chosen and how they were able to reap carnage on the beach. The mortar Tobruk’s are still intact and trench lines still visible. The position was the first of the WNs to be taken by the Americans. It was Jimmie Monteith and his men who founds a way up the bluff and attacked from the rear. WN 60 was continually counter attacked by the Germans and Monteith was killed. He was awarded the Medal of Honour posthumously for this action.

We then walked along the top of the bluffs for a mile or so and stood within Cota’s Draw. General Norman Cota is famous for rallying men on the beach and with the use of Bangalore Torpedoes leading those men up the bluff taking the fight to the Germans. He met with Max Schneider, commander of the 5^th Rangers, Cota asked “What outfit is this?” Someone yelled, “5th Rangers!” In an effort to inspire Schneider’s men to leave the cover of the seawall and advance through a breach, Cota replied, “Well, God damn it, if you are Rangers, then get up there and lead the f’ing way!”  “Rangers lead the way” became the motto of the US Army Rangers, obviously with the swear word removed. He was also meant to have stated to men on the beach, “Gentlemen, we are being killed on the beaches. Let us go inland and be killed.”

We finished the day in Port-En-Bessin, which was a lead into day two, Commando Day.

Port En Bessin was liberated by No. 47 (Royal Marine) Commando was who landed on Gold beach on D-Day. Near the town of Asnelles. They lost over seventy of their men during the landings. Their initial strength was 420 men. They fought through La Rosiere and dug in near Escures. On the 7^th June, they started their assault on Port En Bessin which has been chosen for PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean)

They captured the Port with heavy fighting and by the 8^th June, had 19 officers and 259 other ranks. It proved the expert qualities of the commando especially in an urban environment.