The Royal Air Force At Omaha Beach

Introduction

http://omaha-vierville.com/index2omaha.htm

These are extracts from a large dossier compiled by Vierville resident, Yves Cordelle, and translated into English and edited by David Heathcote, admin to The RAF at Omaha Beach website.  M. Cordelle was 8 years old when D-Day took place in 1944; his final entries to the dossier were in 2020.  As of 2024, we have received confirmation from the Deputy Mayor of Vierville-sur-Mer that M. Cordelle is still alive and is being well looked after by his family.  Where possible, we have attempted to contact whoever now owns the original intellectual property: in the meantime, all rights are acknowledged.  M Cordelle’s email address is yves.cordelle@gmail.com but the account does not appear to be active.

This feature brings together numerous documents relating to the landings on Omaha Beach, especially on the beaches of Vierville: Charlie, Dog Green and Dog White sectors, with chapters devoted to Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer and Colleville-sur-Mer.  This is very much work in progress, but it is anticipated that translated extracts will eventually address the following:

  • The build-up to D-Day and D-Day itself, 6 June 1944, in Vierville
  • D-Day+1, 7 June 1944, in Vierville
  • The events in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer
  • The events of Colleville-sur-Mer
  • The history of Omaha Beach’s Mulberry1 harbour from its construction through to its dismantling, and the operation of the “Omaha Beachhead” from June to December 1944
  • Later appendices show various images and documents:
    • Vierville and Omaha Beach after the Americans left,
    • the explosion at Asnières in 1945,
    • aerial views from 1947,
    • the events at Pointe du Hoc (St -Pierre-du-Mont, Cricqueville, Englesqueville,
    • and at Trévières.

 

Special links connect this file to a site dedicated to the heritage of the Vierville-sur-Mer commune and surrounding area, there you will find numerous images from before and after the war.

War is a waste. Men, equipment – and generals – are expendable products as long as their destruction can contribute to victory.

At Omaha Beach, they were spent lavishly.

Hundreds of young people were killed there, despite long training, and most of them before being able to fire a single shot.

The material losses were incredible. Hundreds of tanks, trucks, machine guns, jeeps, landing craft of all models, were drowned or destroyed on the beach by German artillery. Thousands of radios, rifles, machine guns, boxes of ammunition, K and D rations, Browning automatic rifles, bazookas, flamethrowers, gas masks, hand grenades and other equipment were destroyed, abandoned or drowned.

(Author unknown}

For anyone keen to read the accounts not yet posted in English, you can consult the original French.  The link is posted at the top of this page.

Vierville under German occupation

The German Defence System in 1942 (edited from “Operation Aquatint” by Gérard Fournier and André Heintz)

On 20 October 1941, the German Field Commander at Caen declared a “prohibited coastal zone” throughout the north of the Calvados department.  Only Calvados residents who could provide a certificate of primary residence issued by the local mayor were authorised to enter the zone. Those who did not belong to this category were only allowed to go there upon presentation of special authorisation issued by the German authorities.

In Vierville-sur-Mer, and many other coastal towns, the Germans prohibited access to numerous villas, second homes often belonging to Parisians, occupied by them for only a few months a year. Several were requisitioned by soldiers of the Wehrmacht or the Luftwaffe, stationed in the sector, as indicated by a certificate from the mayor of Vierville dated 3 April 1942. On that date, nine homes were occupied by three officers and around 90 NCOs and troops, and another 16 homes remained available with the potential for housing 200 German soldiers.

Warned by those locals who could still go to the beach at certain times of the day, several owners were informed that their villas had suffered damage, or theft, and complaints were pouring in. Mayors relayed them to the Sub-Prefecture who forwarded them to the German District Command Office, but they were mostly unheeded.

At the end of 1941, the strategy of the German army was profoundly modified after the United States entered the war. From offensive, it became defensive as confirmed by Hitler’s December 1941 Directive, which ordered the building of a line of defence along the western coasts of Europe.

Hitler’s Directive No. 40 on 23 March 1942, Küstenverteidigung (Coastal Defences), followed by Directive No. 41 on 13 August, ordered the “Atlantic Wall”, authorising the construction of a wall to protect the coasts of France, Belgium and the Netherlands from any external aggression. The Directives required the construction of 15,000 concrete blockhouses on the coast of the Atlantic, the Channel and the North Sea, to be completed by 1 May 1943.