To make matters worse, an aerial bombardment did little damage to the strongly fortified German positions, rough surf wreaked havoc with the Allied landing craft and only two of 29 amphibious tanks launched at sea managed to reach the shore. The troubles for the Americans began early on, when Army intelligence underestimated the number of German soldiers in the area. troops turning up dead, wounded or missing. Surrounded by steep cliffs and heavily defended, Omaha was the bloodiest of the D-Day beaches, with roughly 2,400 U.S. By noon, his men had linked up with some of the paratroopers, and by day’s end they had advanced four miles inland, suffering relatively few casualties in the process.Įxplore how the battle unfolded in our interactive timeline of the day. Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the son of former President Theodore Roosevelt, shouted upon realizing the mistake. Luckily for them, this area was actually less well protected. forces landed more than a mile away from their intended destination, due in part to strong currents. Forced to improvise, they nonetheless succeeded in seizing the four causeways that served as the beach’s only exit points. Those who landed, meanwhile, often found themselves outside of their designated drop zones. One even hung from a church steeple for two hours before being captured. Weighed down by their heavy equipment, many drowned in the flooded marshlands at the rear of the beach, and others were shot out of the sky by enemy fire. paratroopers dropped inland behind enemy lines. In the predawn darkness of June 6, thousands of U.S. The westernmost of the D-Day beaches, Utah was added to the invasion plans at the eleventh hour so that the Allies would be within striking distance of the port city of Cherbourg.