the full fury of the defences. An immensely tall 31-year-old graduate of New York University who enlisted in March 1942, Salomon had ordered his men to go all-out for the cliff base, under no circumstances pausing for a casualty. Yet within seconds one of his sergeants, Oliver Reed, was hit and fell beneath the ramp. Salomon could not stop himself from seizing the wounded man and dragging him through the waist-high water to the beach. Some of the platoon overtook him as he floundered, and now he passed four already dead from a mortar burst. He himself fell hit in the shoulder. Convinced that he was finished, he called to his platoon sergeant, Bob Kennedy. Reaching into his field jacket, he said: ‘I’m dead. Take the maps.’ But then a machine-gun began to kick up sand in front of them, and Salomon found that he was not only alive, but could run. At the base of the cliff he counted nine survivors of his platoon, out of 30 who left the landing craft. His old sergeant, who had left the platoon on promotion, insisted upon joining them for the assault. Salomon had placed him last out of the boat to give him the best chance of making it. But Sergeant Goales was already among the dead. All told, some two-thirds of the company were casualties.
It was a tribute to the quality of the Rangers that despite losses on a scale that stopped many infantry units in their tracks on Omaha that morning, the survivors of C Company pressed on to climb the cliffs west of the beach with bayonets and toggle ropes, clearing German positions one by one in a succession of fierceclose-quarter actions with tommy guns and phosphorus grenades. Sergeant Julius Belcher charged headlong against one pillbox, tossed in a grenade and then shot down the garrison as they staggered out of the entrance. In their own area, they found later that they had killed some 60 Germans on 6 June. Yet they lacked the strength and the heavy weapons to press on westwards towards Pointe du Hoc. Towards the end of morning, Salomon stood in a captured German position, gazing down on the chaos below. ‘I was of the opinion that the invasion had been a failure,’ he said laconically. 5 He reflected that it was going to be a long swim home.
Corporal Bill Preston’s DD crew of the 743rd Tank Battalion watched five of their unit’s Shermans sink on launching offshore before it became obvious to the officer commanding their group of eight LCTs that the conditions were impossible. The remainder of the tanks were brought to within 250 yards of the beach before leaving the craft, very late. They glimpsed the cliffs shrouded in thick clouds of smoke as they ran in, then they were crawling out of the water among huddles of isolated infantrymen under intense small-arms fire. The tank commander, a Minnesotan farmer named Ted Geske, pressed the button to collapse their canvas screens, but nothing happened. He clambered out of the turret to do the job manually. At that moment, the waterproofing fell, and Geske was left cursing at his own vulnerability, perched on the hull in the midst of the battlefield. They saw that their tank was well to the right of its objective. They could see dead engineers floating beyond the beach obstacles, where so many wounded men also died as the tide came in over them. They later discovered to their dismay that they had run over one man, for they found his clothing jammed in their tracks. Then they saw the neighbouring platoon of Shermans brew up briskly one by one as an anti-tank gun caught them. Their battalion commander was hit in the shoulder as he stood on the sand, seeking to direct a tankdozer to clear a path for the armour through one of the beach exits.
It was obvious that something was very wrong. 21 of the unit’s 51 tanks were destroyed on Omaha, and the neighbouring battalion fared even worse. Preston’s crew simply took up position just above the high-water mark, and began to fire at such German positions as they could identify. These were not
It was a tribute to the quality of the Rangers that despite losses on a scale that stopped many infantry units in their tracks on Omaha that morning, the survivors of C Company pressed on to climb the cliffs west of the beach with bayonets and toggle ropes, clearing German positions one by one in a succession of fierceclose-quarter actions with tommy guns and phosphorus grenades. Sergeant Julius Belcher charged headlong against one pillbox, tossed in a grenade and then shot down the garrison as they staggered out of the entrance. In their own area, they found later that they had killed some 60 Germans on 6 June. Yet they lacked the strength and the heavy weapons to press on westwards towards Pointe du Hoc. Towards the end of morning, Salomon stood in a captured German position, gazing down on the chaos below. ‘I was of the opinion that the invasion had been a failure,’ he said laconically. 5 He reflected that it was going to be a long swim home.
Corporal Bill Preston’s DD crew of the 743rd Tank Battalion watched five of their unit’s Shermans sink on launching offshore before it became obvious to the officer commanding their group of eight LCTs that the conditions were impossible. The remainder of the tanks were brought to within 250 yards of the beach before leaving the craft, very late. They glimpsed the cliffs shrouded in thick clouds of smoke as they ran in, then they were crawling out of the water among huddles of isolated infantrymen under intense small-arms fire. The tank commander, a Minnesotan farmer named Ted Geske, pressed the button to collapse their canvas screens, but nothing happened. He clambered out of the turret to do the job manually. At that moment, the waterproofing fell, and Geske was left cursing at his own vulnerability, perched on the hull in the midst of the battlefield. They saw that their tank was well to the right of its objective. They could see dead engineers floating beyond the beach obstacles, where so many wounded men also died as the tide came in over them. They later discovered to their dismay that they had run over one man, for they found his clothing jammed in their tracks. Then they saw the neighbouring platoon of Shermans brew up briskly one by one as an anti-tank gun caught them. Their battalion commander was hit in the shoulder as he stood on the sand, seeking to direct a tankdozer to clear a path for the armour through one of the beach exits.
It was obvious that something was very wrong. 21 of the unit’s 51 tanks were destroyed on Omaha, and the neighbouring battalion fared even worse. Preston’s crew simply took up position just above the high-water mark, and began to fire at such German positions as they could identify. These were not
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