...Once troops came ashore it became clear that
bombardment had been ineffective and defences remained largely undamaged. Although undermanned, German defenders included veterans of the Russian Front.
The “DD” tanks had been released 3 miles from shore and couldn’t stay afloat in the heavy swell. Of 32 tanks attached to the 1st Division only 2 of them landed. This left infantryexposed on the open beach without armoured support.
Official Unit Report, Company A, 116th Infantry, 29th Division...
"As the first men jumped, they crumpled and flopped into the water. Then order was lost. It seemed to the men that the only way to get ashore was to dive head first in and swim clear of the fire that was striking the boats. But, as they hit the water, their heavy equipment dragged them down and soon they were struggling to keep afloat. Some were hit in the water and wounded. Some drowned then and there... but some moved safely through the bullet fire to the sand and then, finding they could not hold there, went back in to the water and used it as cover, only their heads sticking out.
Those who survived kept moving with the tide, sheltering at times behind underwater obstacles and in this way they finally made their landings.
Within ten minutes of the ramps being lowered, Company A had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and Sergeant had been killed or wounded. It became a struggle for survival and rescue.
The men in the water pushed wounded men ashore, and those who had reached the sands crawled back into the water pulling others to land to save them from drowning, in many cases only to see the rescued men wounded again or to be hit themselves. Within twenty minutes of striking the beach Company A had ceased to be an assault company and had become a forlorn little rescue party bent upon survival and saving lives."
Those troops who had survived the initial landing found themselves pinned down on the beaches unable to find a way forward and taking heavy casualties from artillery, mortar and machine gun fire...
