Maneuvers and mishaps

The aftermath of Operation Tiger, a practice run 6 weeks
before D-Day at Slapton Sands

Various pre-invasion training maneuvers included:¹¹

• Constructing platforms similar to the landing craft that would be used in the invasion, complete with comps, so drivers could practice how to back onto the ramps then drive out into the surf
• Learning how to waterproof the tracks with a rubber substance
• Discovering and disarming booby traps and land mines
• Crawling across obstacle courses as live rounds of ammunition were fired overhead
• Testing gas masks in rooms filled with tear gas
• Boarding an actual LST (landing ship tank), shipping out into the channel and landing in the surf to give drivers a lesson in surfing the half-tracks.
• Practice firing at sleeves towed by airplanes.

The unit was shaping up well, as this passage from The Maverick Outfit attests:

When they first went to an English range they were told by their hosts to be ready when the plane came by and not waste time because gasoline, or “petrol,” was scarce. The plane could not afford to make a run and not have all the guns firing. As it turned out it was the gunners who had to wait for the plane, for as it came by on its first run, there was so much fire power thrown up and the shooting was so accurate, that the sleeve was shot right off the towing line. Then the plane released a second sleeve and a little while later that was shot down. Then the men twiddled their thumbs as the plane landed to get more sleeves. As the men began to realize that their shooting was so good, they also began to realize they were going to be well up front in the big show. This feeling became stronger when, at one of the firing ranges, they were visited by a group of big Army brass. In the midst of them they recognized Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley. It was learned many years later that he had personally inspected every outfit that was going to land on D-Day.¹²

Jack remembers seeing Bradley. “He was about 20 yards away from where I was standing,” he says. “And the firing results were just as described. Later we learned they decided which of the two AAA-AW units would go in on Omaha Beach and Utah by the flip of a coin. The one that went in on Omaha was so torn up the Army didn’t even rebuild it.”

As the 474^th completed individual training exercises successfully, it joined other Army and Navy units in a pair of landings called Tiger Exercises. These joint exercises revealed flaws but were costly in lives. Stephen Ambrose in D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II describes what happened:

In the rehearsal for the VII Corps at Utah, Operation Tiger, held on the night of April 27-28 at Slapton Sands, there were some missed schedules resulting in traffic jams and some naval craft arriving late at embarkation points. Much worse, German E-boats slipped through the British destroyer screen and sank two LSTs and damaged six others. Over 749 men were killed and 300 wounded in the explosions or drowned afterward. Lessons were learned that saved lives on D-Day. There had been no rescue craft in the Tiger formation. Naval commanders realized that they would be needed. The men had not been taught how to use their life preservers. After Tiger, they were. It turned out that the British were operating on different radio wavelengths than the Americans, which contributed to the disaster. That was fixed. What could not be so easily fixed was the weather. Visibility had been poor on April 27-28 and the American fighter planes had not shown up.¹³

Although no one from the 474^th was directly involved in the mishap, they were nearby. Captain James Herlihy, commanding officer of C Battery shared this description:

We sailed from Torquay, a resort town on the southern coast of England, on LSTs. I remember being up on the deck the night before the landing, enjoying all the activity and wondering how all of this activity on the water could be kept hidden from all those curious people on the French coast, which really was not all that far off. It must have been about 1 a.m. when I heard a roar of small boat engines. I saw nothing, but then an LST behind us blew up with a roar, and in the glare I saw several 2½ ton trucks rolling end over end into the red haze over the flaming ship. Less than a minute later, the same thing happened to the LST in front of us. The rest of the night was spent waiting for the same things to happen to us, but we landed and took up positions defending the landing area, ammunition dumps and roads leading away from the beach. When the time came for us to be relieved for a new mission inland, our relief had not arrived. I went to the beach master and asked where was D of the 435^th and when would they relieve us and was told, “They won’t be in.” They were on one of the LSTs which had been blown up.¹⁴

“I remember the Tiger exercises, too,” Jack adds. “A German plane woke me up in the middle of the night when he flew real low trying to duck the searchlight.”

The Utah Beach landing

This passage from The Maverick Outfit best describes what happened next:

A view of Utah Beach from a landing craft on D-Day 

The beach was littered with dead and wounded debris. Stricklen met another soldier and they were proceeding to the sea wall, a concrete structure about 200 yards from the beach. It was over five feet high and paralleled the beach. It was a natural place to establish headquarters. Stricklen and the soldier congratulated each other for getting to shore. The soldier was one and a half yards from the colonel when a piece of shrapnel tore off the soldier’s arm. Stricklen carried his unconscious comrade to an aid station. After, Stricklen set up his command post at the sea wall. He dug a three-and-a-half foot deep foxhole and then excavated an area underneath the sea wall. Stricklen’s units then began arriving. By 8 a.m., 32, or half of the battalion's half-tracks, arrived. The first elements of the battalion ashore on D-Day were reconnaissance parties from A and B Batteries, consisting of the battery commanders and platoon sergeants, who landed from LCVPs [landing craft, vehicle and personnel] At H plus 60 minutes. [The rest of] A and B Batteries landed at H-hour plus four behind the Fourth Infantry Division. They landed with airborne machine gun crews. One platoon of C Battery landed late on D-Day, while the other platoon of C Battery, D Battery and Headquarters Battery landed from LSTs on D plus one.

Jack’s memory varies from this slightly. H-hour was 6:30 a.m., according to Ambrose, so H plus four would have been 10:30 a.m. “I remember something about our particular half-track and 9 a.m.,” Jack says.

Capt. Herlihy picks up from here:

As we approached the shore, I could see GI trucks all over. One, full of jerricans of gasoline, was a roaring fire. It was about 9 a.m. when I saw three bursts in a line about three seconds apart, and admired the clearing of the minefield. But the next burst was in a truck, which went all over the area in pieces, and I had seen my first of many artillery actions in combat. To lighten the load of my jeep in the soft sand, I walked ashore, and although people were all around, I felt alone and naked. Utah Beach was about 300 yards wide, in front of a swamp at least a mile wide, with roads to the interior only eight inches above water.¹⁹

US troops arrive at Utah Beach on D-Day.

Jack adds, “There were some soldiers in foxholes on the beach as we passed by, although they were standing up and not moving, with their helmets tilted forward. There was no lack of incoming mail from the enemy, but it wasn’t landing on the beach next to the ocean. The gun crews kept hidden in the turrets to avoid being hit by enemy fire. To get off the beach, we had to wait until a tank equipped with a bulldozer blade pushed sand up against the wall so that another tank equipped with a 75mm canon could position itself and destroy an anti-tank position nearby; so much for the enemy gun.”

Back to Herlihy:

Although the 4^th Division was by now several miles inland, we were getting considerable artillery fire. We raced for a four-foot sea wall at the crown of the beach, and found that the medics were already lining up dead Americans. I lay beside a tall, dead American and wondered what it was like when he came in. While we enlarged a hole we found, an ammo truck went up near us. We separated then, to look for the 16 gun positions and command posts. Since we had been landed about 1,000 yards south of the intended position, all our beautiful detailed sketches and maps (1 to 5,000 as I remember) were useless. As I roved I found myself all alone, and from the constant diving into holes, I found my carbine jammed with sand. Finally as I passed a tremendous pillbox which had been knocked out by naval gunfire, I heard a noise behind me. It turned out to be a German corpse, dislodged by a burst or by my footsteps, rolling down the side of the pillbox. Collecting my entrails, I moved on.²⁰

Herlihy goes on to say that four Focke-Wulf 190s, German aircraft, strafed them that day. Jack remembers “four came down low and four ended up even lower. One of the pilots bailed out and the paratroopers took out after him.”

If you weren’t a casualty that day, you were witness to many, as Herlihy attests:

On D-Day, about noon, we saw a flight of C-47s head inland a mile or two, and as they slowed for a drop, much 20mm fire burst all over the wings and fuselages of the big, low, lumbering planes. We saw several burn and blow up. Flaming parachutes trailed down as the paratroops tried to escape the massacre. We all cried. As we explored the area inland just behind the swamp, looking for better positions, we followed a dirt road, and at a turn faced a farmhouse. An American squad of 10 or more from the 4^th Division had done the same thing before, but had apparently been mowed down by a machine gun in a window, for they lay in a pile in a ditch next to the road. While I was by the sea wall waiting for Lt. Nevins, a P-47 sputtered overhead in trouble, then flames came from the motor and the pilot bailed out, but his chute never opened. The plane crashed with a great roar and explosion, 75 yards from our command post after turning away at the last minute.²⁰

“I clearly remember the P-47 pilot who was flying very low, his plane’s engine making a very loud noise,” Jack recalls. “He ejected but his chute didn’t open, and both crashed into the swampy flooded area.”

Along about 11 p.m., all of Stricklen’s units had arrived, and not one had been killed. Battalion records for June 7—D-Day Plus One—show another busy day for the boys:

• 9:30 a.m.—B Battery destroyed an enemy plane.
• 10 a.m.—A and B engaged about a half-dozen FW 190s, with A destroying one and B another.
• 6:50 p.m.—A destroyed two Me 109s.
• 6:55 p.m.—B engaged three more and destroyed one.
• 8:35 p.m.—C engaged eight FW 190s in a battle.
• 8:40 p.m.—A hit two out of six FW 190s, while B fought off two more.
• 10 p.m.—A and C engaged eight FW 190s, hitting two of them.

Already the 474^th was gaining a reputation, which would later be confirmed in the Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for soldiers, as “the First in the First.”²¹ 

This video juxtaposes how Utah Beach looks today (including memorials) with actual photos taken on D-Day: