[dragoon500ly]

Sources are Omaha A Flawed Victory by Adrian Lewis, D-Day by Steven Ambrose and D-Day by Tute, Costello and Hughes, Spearheading D-Day by Jonathan Gawne and the 6juin1944.com web site.

The story of the weather of D-Day is well known….but picture a heavily loaded LCVP making its way through 5-6 foot waves. Many troops were forced to bail out their boats in the long approach, the soldiers had little room to move and were drenched with freezing spray, when the ramps went down, some of the troops couldn’t move ashore, but stumbled and fell into the water. They had become so cramped because of the overcrowding that their muscles could not respond. They lay in the water for several minutes, until they had recovered enough to move ashore.

Not only were the rough seas an impact, but the strong off shore current played havoc with the landing plan. The 116th Infantry was scheduled to land four companies abreast, covering the Easy Green, Dog Red, Dog White and Dog Green beaches. One company was landed on target on Dog Green, two companies were swept into the Easy Green sector and the final company was landed on Fox Green and Easy Red in the 1st Infantry Division’s sector.

The landing plan for Omaha Beach called for 45,000 troops, 2,853 vehicles and 1,100 tons of supplies to be landed on June 6, 1944. The initial assault waves contained some 7,000 men. The official record of losses for D-Day state that there was some 1-1500 losses. As the years have rolled on and more and more records have been declassified, the estimates of the losses have moved upwards. The latest research places the losses on D-Day at closer to 5,000 men, killed, wounded and missing. The worst hit unit was Company A of the 116ht Infantry Regiment, which landed on Dog Green and in 10 horrific minutes, lost 90% of its personnel.