7th FA on D-Day at Omaha Beach: First to Fire - Field Artillery

FA Journal, Nov-Dec, 2001 by Alfred A. Alvarez

The Enemy and Situation: "The 7th Field Artillery Battalion was assigned the mission of supporting the 16th Infantry in its assault on the northern Normandy coast in the vicinity of Collevillie-sur-Mer, 6 June 1944. This landing was accomplished against enemy coastal defense forces supplemented by a German infantry division that was in this particular beach sector on anti-invasion maneuvers. The enemy, firmly emplaced in built-in concrete fortifications on commanding ground overlooking the beach, directed artillery, mortar, machine-gun and small arms fire on attacking forces.

"The rough sea prevented many craft from immediately reaching the beach. While moving a shore in assault craft, violent seas hurled men and boats into intricate and almost impenetrable barriers of mine-capped underwater obstacles, bands of barbed wire and concrete walls..." (General Orders 200, Citation of Unit: 7th Field Artillery Battalion, 16th Infantry Regimental Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, 12 December 1945)

Sunrise came around 0600 that day. I remember it as a dismal, dark morning on the tossing English Channel. The motion of our ungainly LCT [landing craft, tanks] on the turbulent seas caused sprays to soak us through and through.

Wet and cold from our exposure on the deck, I devoured a hot cream of celery soup from our British field rations for breakfast. The ingenious self-heating can had a heating unit in the oversized soup can. Loading this mixture with ration crackers produced a hot mush that literally stuck to one's ribs.

We slowly edged toward the beach, but it was too dark and we were too far away to see the beach. A rolling thunder of awesome explosions from the large guns of the Navy's battlewagons broke over us and seemed to push us forward.

We entered smoke and heard strange snapping noises. The shore appeared and the LCT ramp clanked and came down. We began exiting the craft into the surf at Omaha Beach.

This article recounts the turbulent first 24 hours of 6 June 1944--D-Day-on Omaha's "Easy Red" Beach. The 7th Field Artillery (7th FA), the "Lucky 7th," was part of the assault force of the 16th Infantry Regimental Combat Team (RCT) to open up the draws of Omaha Beach and reach the Normandy plateau. I was a private first class serving as C Battery's radio/telephone operator.

We were to provide the 105-mm punch that would allow follow-up waves to proceed and drive inland from the beach. Our parent organization, the 1st Infantry Division, had the mission to take and hold 10 kilometers inland.

Getting from the beach to the top of the bluff at Omaha now seems miraculous--about as far as most of us got. Yet, we did it, and eventually were able to provide direct support (DS) to the "Dough Boys" of the 16th RCT from the high-tide mark. We fired the first land-based artillery support in Normandy.

D-Day Minus 2. Our artillery convoys motored down from our locked-in concentration camps in Dorset County, England, to Weymouth Harbor where we boarded LCTs and DVKWs (2 and 1/2-ton amphibious trucks, called Ducks). We were part of Assault Force O.

Our LCT wallowed around in the English Channel for 24 hours. A naval officer briefed us that we were the leading assault element for that coming morning on the coast of Normandy. The 1st Infantry Division--The Big Red One--was a prime, combat-experienced division chosen for the toughest of assignments: the amphibious assault of a built-up enemy beach. As history has recorded, the 1st Division already had participated in the North Africa and, later, in the Sicily amphibious assault landings. The 24-hour delay gave "the old sweats" time to regale us with war stories, telling us why the division was named the 1st--because we were always the first in... and last out.

Because I was curious, young and naive, I asked several probably stupid questions. This prompted Sergeant Alex Kowalski (Greenfield, Massachusetts), our Chief of Detail, to say, "Listen, 'John' [as in "John-Ass Recruit"], you just get up that #$@%& beachhead bluff and make sure that %$#@& radio goes with you." The sergeant later was captured with the battery commander, Captain Jack Wood, and a forward observer (FO), Lieutenant William P. Hill; he died of wounds in a German prison camp.

My radio was an important part of our artillery reconnaissance party with First Lieutenant Peter J. Hoffman in charge. Our party had officers, instrument operators and commo personnel. We had 610 radios (two portions each) and many extra battery cases. Private First Class Eddie King (Waltham, Massachusetts) and I were radio/telephone operators and Private First Class George Rosner (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) carried the batteries. Private First Class John R. Ulman (Connecticut) was the driver of the jeep that had the section's equipment in its trailer. As I now realize, we also were an FO party as we had Second Lieutenant Hill (an extra officer) from our battery. We were doubled up in all jobs: command, guns, survey and commo.

Our US Navy LCT was crowded with armor. Tanks and half-tracks backed in first, and the jeep backed in last. We were to lead the charge from our LCT by exiting first.