Beach Invasion

Jordan Hendy
US History II Honors
Mr. McCrystal
Journal Entry: D-Day Landing
1/31/13
I was on the 69
th
Brigade in the 50
th
Infantry Division, assigned to Gold Beach,
the codename for the central beach between Omaha and Juno Beach. Gold Beach was
about 8km wide, causing us to divide it into four main sections from West to East: Jig,
King, and Love. My objective was to establish a beachhead between Arromanches and
Ver-sur-Mer and afterwards, head south towards Route Nationale 13 linking Caen with
Bayeux. In other words, I was to invade it with one of the front lines, create a temporary
advantage line for the rest of the military units, and proceed inland. I didn’t know what to
expect. When I first touched down on that wet sand, my legs felt as though they were
nailed to the ground; for a split-second, I couldn’t move. But as I got out of the Higgins, I
remember my duty, and proceeded with the rest of my division. In the west, the 231
st

Brigade as well as the 56
th
Brigade took position. Following behind them was a regiment
of DD tanks. To the east were my brigade and the 151
st
Brigade with a row of DD tanks
following us as well. Gosh did I feel good running in with those behind my tail. We
suffered 400 casualties while locking our beachhead. It was no easy task but our
accumulative strength of nearly 25,000 men proved to be extremely effective. One of our
main threats was pillboxes and concrete defenses that the German defensive units
employed. However, there still weren’t many. I was surprised to see that there were more
defensive positions built into the houses of the villages that lined the Norman coast. The
houses were very susceptible to naval and artillery fire.
Timing seemed to be the trickiest of tasks. Our landing on Gold Beach was one
hour after the landings on the beach to the west. The poor weather caused the tides to be
higher than expected, and caused disruption later in the day as landing craft started to
struggle on the beach defenses. Additionally, the DD tanks assigned to Gold Beach
arrived late because they needed to be carried all the way to shore to avoid the rough sea.
I later learned that the German’s original plan was to launch a powerful counterattack on
Gold Beach; however, they were not successful.
Overall, once we broke the first line and got inland, we advanced fairly quickly
without many casualties. General Kraiss, the commanding officer of the German 352
nd

division originally posted around Bayeux, ordered his reserves to respond to paratroopers
landing to his west because he didn’t know how many offensive troops he would be
dealing with. That was his huge downfall; four hours later, he changed his mind and
ordered them back towards the battle on the beaches, sending one battalion to Omaha and
the remaining two to Gold. Confusion surrounded the German troops and Allied air
power delayed the reserves from reaching the beaches to launch a counterattack. Instead,
the German soldiers were forced to be posted as defensive lines.
All in all, we fought a good fight. We weren’t able to complete our entire
objective, that is, to capture Bayeux or cut the Bayeux-Caen road. But we had joined up
with the Canadians on Juno Beach to form the biggest single beachhead established on D-
Day. We only lost about 400-500 men, and that was mainly during the establishment of
the beachhead.