Posted on 06/11/2007 12:17:14 AM PDT by LibWhacker
FOR Hein Severloh the ‘Longest Day’ meant nine hours constantly machine-gunning American soldiers as they attempted to land on Omaha Beach.
One image still brings tears to his eyes. A young American had run from his landing craft and sought cover behind a concrete block. Severloh, then a young lance-corporal in the German army in Normandy, aimed his rifle at the GI. He fired and hit the enemy square in the forehead. The American’s helmet flew away and rolled into the sea, his chin sank to his chest and he collapsed dead on the beach.
Tormented by the memory, Severloh now weeps at the thought of the unknown soldier’s death.
Severloh was safe in an almost impregnable concrete bunker overlooking the beach. He had an unimpeded view of the oncoming Allied forces. He was the last German soldier firing, and may have accounted for about 3,000 American casualties, almost three-quarters of all the US losses at Omaha. The Americans came to know him as the Beast of Omaha.
He had been saved from the waves of Allied bombing by the poor weather. The US aircrews were worried that if they allowed their bombs to fall too soon they might destroy their own landing ships. As they flew over they lingered before releasing their weapons, meaning the bombs often landed far behind the Nazi bunkers.
The Germans joked that the ‘Amis’ - their slang for the US forces - had merely bombed French cows and farmers rather than the German installations.
Alerted by the bombers, Severloh and the 29 others in his bunker rushed to their firing holes and prepared for the onslaught. Severloh, then just 20, gasped when he saw the ocean. He was confronted by what seemed to be a wall of Allied ships. He said: "My God. How am I going to get out of this mess?"
The veteran explained: "What could I do? I just thought that I was never going to make it to the rear. I thought that I was going to shoot for my very life. It was them or me - that is what I thought."
As the landing ships neared the beach, Severloh listened to the final orders from his commander, Lieutenant Berhard Frerking. They wanted to stop the Americans while they were still in the water and could not move easily. But if he fired too soon - while the soldiers were still some way out in the water - he risked missing them.
Frerking explained: "You must open fire when the enemy is knee-deep in the water and is still unable to run quickly."
Severloh had seen little action before. His previous stint on the Eastern Front had been cut short by tonsillitis. But he was anything but enthusiastic. Severloh said: "I never wanted to be in the war. I never wanted to be in France. I never wanted to be in that bunker firing a machine gun.
"I saw how the water sprayed up where my machine gun bursts landed, and when the small fountains came closer to the GIs, they threw themselves down. Very soon the first bodies were drifting in the waves of the rising tide. In a short time, all the Americans down there were shot."
He fired for nine hours, using up all the 12,000 machine-gun rounds. The sea turned red with the blood from the bodies. When he had no more bullets for the machine-gun, he started firing on the US soldiers with his rifle, firing off another 400 rifle rounds at the terrified GIs.
A leading German historical expert of the Second World War, Helmut Konrad Freiherr von Keusgen, believes Severloh may have accounted for 3,000 of the 4,200 American casualties on the day.
Severloh is less sure about the number, but said: "It was definitely at least 1,000 men, most likely more than 2,000. But I do not know how many men I shot. It was awful. Thinking about it makes me want to throw up. I almost emptied an entire infantry landing craft. The sea was red around it and I could hear an American officer shouting hysterically in a loudspeaker."
Lt-col Stuart Crawford, formerly of the Royal Tank Regiment, and a defence consultant, said it was entirely possible that a single German soldier had killed so many GIs.
He said: "I have fired that machine-gun. I did it as part of my training, and it has an extremely high rate of fire. He was in a position which was almost impervious to the weapons which the Americans could bring to bear on him. The Americans made the mistake of not landing tanks with the first wave of troops, so they had no support or protection."
Laura Ingraham, on one of her radio shows, paid tribute to the military of the D-Day invasion. She talked about how they were young men, they saw those in front of them step out into the ocean, and get blown away- the blood, the screaming of the fallen, gunfire, and she wondered how the men could- one after the other- just keep stepping out into that chaos knowing they would most likely die...she was choking back tears in talking about it.
( IMO -there are few who do a better tribute to the military than Laura I).
The article jogged my memory of that show.
Don’t forget his great success at Market-Garden.
It’s been strongly argued by several people that the naval pre-landing bombardment plan was botched by Bradley at Omaha Beach.
The USAR in Europe was strongly colored by amphibious ideas emphasizing “surprise” leading to rather short and ineffectual bombardments. If you compare the total number and tonnage of pre-landing shells fired at Omaha to various Pacific Islands, there’s not even the remotest comparison.
One unfortunate aspect of “Saving Private Ryan” is that the important fact that the Omaha landing was saved by US Destroyers almost running aground coming in close and blazing away with direct fire with 5 in. guns, is completely ignored.
There were a handful of Shermans on Omaha Beach. Most sank in the choppy water.
Yeah, where his great idea left the 82nd and 101st US Airborne holding the bag when the operation went South.
There were ~2,500 total ALLIED deaths on D-Day including Sword, Juno and Gold.
They weren’t annihilated like the British 1st Airborne, however.
It’s so hopeless fighting the battle to remind people that “casualty” doesn’t mean “dead” and that it includes wounded, I don’t even bother anymore. It’s universal in the media to itterpret casualty as dead, and by 90% of the general population.
And most of them are still out there in the waters off France. Complete with some of their crews - who couldn’t get out.
From Wikipedia:
The main use of DD tanks occurred on D-Day. They were also used in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France, on 15 August 1944. Limited numbers were also used during Operation Plunder, the British crossing of the Rhine on March 23, 1945.
[edit] D-Day
The DD Sherman was used to equip ten tank battalions of British, Canadian and American forces for the D-Day landings. Tank landing craft or LCTs, each carrying four tanks, would launch the DDs from around two miles offshore. They would swim to the beaches and overpower German defences unprepared for attack tanks. In the event, the tank’s record was a mixture of success and failure, although they are mainly remembered for their disastrous failure on Omaha Beach.
On the British Sword Beach, at the eastern end of the invasion area, the DD tanks worked well, as the sea was reasonably calm. The DD tanks were launched two and a half miles (4 km) from shore and 32 out of 34 tanks successfully reached the beach, where they covered the assault troops as planned. This contributed to the comparatively light casualties on this beach.
On Gold Beach, the sea was rougher and the LCTs were ordered to land the tanks directly on the beach rather than risk launching them at sea. Consequently, instead of being the first units ashore, the DD’s landed at the same time as the infantry and the other specialist assault tanks. German anti-tank guns caused heavy losses in some sectors of the beach but the assault was successful.
On the Canadian Juno Beach, The Fort Garry Horse and the 1st Hussars were equipped with DD tanks, but only those of the 1st Hussars could be launched. They were assigned to the 7th Canadian Brigade, on the western end of the beach. Twenty-nine tanks were launched 800 yards (700 m) from the beach, twenty-one reached the shore. However, they only arrived after the first wave of infantry which consequently suffered heavy losses. Despite this, the tanks were able to destroy German defensive positions and Canadian troops soon advanced several miles inland. The 8th Canadian Brigade, on the eastern end of the beach, was forced to land without DD tanks because of rougher seas. They suffered heavy initial casualties, but were still able to make good progress.
On Utah Beach, four of the DD tanks were lost when their LCT struck a mine and sank. The remaining 28 arrived on shore successfully. However, on the way in, they were overtaken by the faster infantry landing craft and so only arrived 15 minutes after the initial infantry landing. Despite this, the DD tanks were one of several factors that contributed to the light American casualties on this beach.
At Omaha Beach almost all of the tanks launched offshore were lost, contributing to the high casualty rate and slow progress at that beach.
There were 112 tanks assigned to the first wave at Omaha Beach, with 56 tanks in each of the 741st and 743rd Tank Battalions. Each of these battalions had 32 DD Shermans and 24 other Shermans (including many Sherman bulldozers for clearing obstacles). Starting at about 0540, the 741st Tank Battalion put 29 DD Shermans into the sea, but 27 of these sank and only two made the long swim to the beach. Some of the crews of the sinking tanks managed to radio back and warn following units not to launch as far out. The remaining tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion and all tanks of the 743rd Tank Battalion (except for 4 tanks aboard one LCT that was hit by artillery fire just off the beach) were landed directly on the beach, starting at about 0640.
The DD Tanks were designed to withstand waves up to 1 foot (0.3 m) high; however, on that day the waves were up to 6 feet (2 m) high. These were much worse conditions than the tanks had been tested in and thus they were swamped with water. Also, the tanks of 741st Tank Battalion were released into the sea too far out,[3] about 3 miles (5 km) offshore. Considering the inherent difficulty in steering a 35 ton modified tank, it is a tribute to the crews that they got as far as they did. The crews were equipped with emergency breathing apparatus capable of lasting 5 minutes, and the tanks were also equipped with inflatable rafts.[4]. Although some sources claim that these life-saving measures were ineffective,[5] this view is contradicted by the testimony of survivors.[6] In fact, most of the crews were rescued, mainly by the landing craft of the 16th RCT (Regimental Combat Team)[7] although five crewmen are known to have died during the sinkings.[8]
True. Monty was forever in love with the concept of the deep strike and what we now call vertical envelopment, wasn’t he?
Thanks to a British Genius and Guderian’s “New Man” reportedly maligned among the British but much appreciated among the American’s Percy Hobart and his “Funnies” were everywhere but... as you can see below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart’s_Funnies
“The comparatively light casualties which we sustained on all beaches, except Omaha, were in large measure due to the success of the novel mechanical contrivances which we employed, and the staggering moral and material effect of the mass of armour landed in the leading waves of the assault.”
Dwight Eisenhower
I visited Normandy in 1983 (roomed at a Bed & Breakfast in St. Lo) and you hardly want to talk above a whisper there. A few years ago I was on a job in the western suburbs of Philly and I met a man and his wife who wouldn’t let me leave their house until I sat down in the kitchen with them for a tuna fish sandwich.
The Iraq war was imminent at that time and the conversation steered that way. The wife then mentioned that her husband, sitting next to me, had been in the D-Day landing at Normandy. My eyes widened and I asked the man to tell me about it, which he did. His story - - similar to so many other stories from that day - - kept me mesmerized and left me thoroughly humbled. And the gentleman was so matter-of-fact about it....
Recommend reading the “Blitzkrieg Myth” and other books by Mosier on WWI and WWII for an fresh view of those wars. I did not agree with everything Mosier opined, but he did change my mind on Monty’s value in WWII. Per Mosier, the Allies succeeded on D-Day because of Monty’s advice and changes to the original D-Day battle plan - which was based on his past victories fighting the German Army.
Total American CASUALTIES on the beaches (killed, wounded and missing was around 5,000. The fate of most of the missing was later determined as units later sorted themselves out. Eyewitnesses confirmed the deaths of many whose fate was unknown. A large number died from drowning and did not make it to shore.
Mosier has been discredited on a number of issues, as well as getting caught out on primary sources; this is why he no longer has a complete bibliography in any of his books and instead has an “essay” on his sources - making it impossible to trace back to the real source materials.
Any “historian” that ‘forgets’ to do proper footnoting or at least full disclosure of primary sources in what is supposed to be a scholarly tome is instantly suspect.
I agree. That is why I completely separated the posts listing the casualties and those killed on the beaches.
Now, at the risk of further confusion, there are several studies ongoing which MAY increase the total number of American dead on D-day to just under 2,500. Some by including inland forces and some by revising the number killed in the landings.
May God bless all those who died there. These brave men were asked to enter a human cuisinart and only those God chose to spare emerged alive.
As for this man, I do not blame him. I doubt he’s had a good night’s sleep in 60 years.
bttt
ping
Well said...
My heart goes out to this tormented man.
May he someday find peace.
He is one more victim of the monstrous madman Adolph Hitler.
Why is the world again standing idle as another hideous monster carries Hitler’s banner? I am of course speaking of Amahdinejad.
Are we to be forced to repeat the history of the 30s-40s :-(
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