The preliminary naval bombardment at Vierville

Images of the naval bombardment on Omaha Beach
(from a movie, but was this film well shot in Omaha Beach??)

Naval bombardments

The assault barges arrived under the comforting thunder of the fire of the navy parts as well as tanks and self-propelled howitzers firing from their LCT.
There was no reaction from the large German coastal batteries at Omaha Beach. Up to a few hundred metres from the waterfront, the soldiers had reason to hope that the shore defences could have been neutralized. But very quickly, many leading boats found themselves under an automatic gunfire and artillery that increased in intensity. At H time, it was clear that the German fortifications had not been destroyed.

The experience of heavy landings on the Pacific Islands had shown that preparations for naval artillery and multi-day aerial attacks were necessary to effectively weaken well-hidden and protected defences. On a continent, the necessary surprise effect required a very rapid approach.
Many artillery positions and strong points have thus escaped artillery fire. Well camouflaged locations were even difficult to spot later in the day, with much better visibility and conditions. Tanks and artillery firing TCLs by agitated sea could not be accurate. According to most of the reports of the assault troops, the LCT(R) rockets offered an encouraging spectacle, but they generally missed German positions.

The enemy guns and machine guns had been arranged to cover each part of the beach, but there were areas (part of Dog White in particular, as every time American troops were luckyly away from the WN) where units landed without any fire. Among the small barges carrying the assault infantry in the first two hours, only a few were hit by artillery before landing their troops, and none was shot, and in only a few cases the damage was serious. On the other hand, the larger boats, especially the LCI, were favorite targets and suffered much more.

See the memories of Michel Hardelay, Pierre Piprel and Families De Loys and Colibeuf on the results of this naval bombing in Vierville and Gruchy.

M7 "Priest" howitzers in action from LCT (film extract)

Seen from Montcalm