James T. Lingg - WWII
Page 10 - D-Day, Easy Red on Omaha Beach

Sometime around noon, or maybe 1:00 p.m., our ship stopped moving and we were told we would go ashore a little later. Our beach was known as Easy Red on Omaha. Easy Red had three exits that were supposed to be used. The Germans had a different idea, they had their beaches locked in good. By the time we got in, about 6 o'clock in the afternoon, there was only one exit operating. I believe the other exits were still blocked by the Germans.

The Germans had some artillery up in pillboxes and were shooting direct fire at the ships. They weren't bothering the Infantry, but behind the lines, they had artillery that was throwing rounds over and they were landing close to us.

When we reached the shore, we came off the LCI. This LCI dropped a ramp off of each side and our Platoon took off on one ramp. There was a rope like a triangle. It came off the LCI with each side ramp. A navy man took the middle of the rope in and buried that point with an anchor on the beach. We grabbed hold of that rope and went in on it.

The reason they had that arrangement was that when a shell lands it blows a lot of the sand out leaving a hole. A lot of the Infantrymen drown when they drop down into these holes. We were told if we went under water to just keep hold of that rope, keep walking and in a very short distance we would be able to come back above water. I was very fortunate; I didn't go under water once. One boy tripped right in front of me and he went down. We managed to get him back up and went on to shore with him. Later another soldier was hit in the ear and he returned to the Company about a month later, maybe a month and a half. He was the first casualty we took coming off the ship.

From there different casualties arose and we couldn't do anything about it. The only thing we could do was just follow the man in front of us or the way they were heading and try to keep from getting blown up. Every time we heard a shell coming in, we hit the ground and lay there until it went off. A shell sound is a tremendous sound coming in on you. The closer they land, up to the point of actually hitting you, the louder they get. The bigger they are, the more the sound like a big express train roaring in on you.

The main things I remember about the invasion are the bodies of soldiers who had landed before us who had died. Also there were LCIs and LCTs (Landing Craft Tanks). I don't know if they had any tanks aboard them or not but they had been hit and were not able to go back to sea. They were hung up on the beach; the water had gone out so far from underneath them.

That landing was very much one of the most strongly opposed points of the beach, from what we read in the paper later. We know we started out with the idea of walking 15 miles inland. Well, we could forget that right off the bat because we could see there was just so much enemy around we didn't even know where anyone was - friend or enemy.

We went to Exit 3, left the beach, assembled into the Platoon formation and held against the safety of the side of the hill for what seemed like hours. In reality, it was only minutes. We left the security of the reverse slope and started up over the hill between two white mine tapes. The mine area had only been cleared about four feet wide. We got into the minefield where we found bodies blown up around that area real bad. The engineers laid white tape on each side of the mines where they had cleared and got us through there. They cleared these places under fire so you can imagine the tremendous pressure these fellows must have been under.

The Platoon was a mile ashore that night. The enemy bombers came over and bombed the beach. We were sure thankful we were off that beach, because it sounded like they were really getting racked up down there. As daylight approached, we discovered that we were one platoon with no friendly contacts in any direction. The Germans were leaving some area via a road that was adjacent to one side of the hedgerow field. We fired on the vehicles with damage unknown. Late in the afternoon American soldiers from K Company came to our position. We were withdrawn and placed in reserve for the second night ashore and allowed to sleep.

The 16^th Infantry was critical so our initial mission of not getting into the war changed to the point that we were put on the left flank of the 16^th Regiment. We were put in a defensive position on the road south from St. Laurent to Formigny, with the Second Battalion closer behind, ready to attack through the Third Battalion position early in the morning.

Just to give you a fair idea of what the First Infantry Division (and also the 29^th, which was along side the First) went through making the landing, we managed to get 5 Regiments ashore by dark and the losses by midnight on Omaha Easy Red were figured in the neighborhood of 3,000 killed, wounded and missing, with most of the loss coming from the 16^th Infantry and the 116^th Infantry. They lost about 1,000 men each. Other loses were taken on troops that had to stay on the beach which, of course, was under fire all the time. You just can't keep from being wounded too long on a beach with shelling coming in.

Also on Omaha Easy Red, the Navy's tentative estimate of loss was given as 50 landing craft and 10 larger vessels, with a large number of all types damaged. You can imagine, this was from about 2 o'clock in the morning to midnight. You can say a 24-hour period; this was a terrible loss. Despite this destruction, we had accomplished our mission of getting ashore. We certainly weren't where we were supposed to be ashore, but we were there to stay. There wasn't any question about that.