Utah Beach.
this is facing north from the LeClerc monument:
This is facing south. The point in the distance is Point du Hoc, the headland separating Utah from Omaha beach. The 4th ID came into this beach 800m south of the intended landing spot because of a fast off shore current and fortuitously avoided a lot of these bunkers. The area to the right behind the beach had been flooded into an extensive morass. But the 101st Abn seized two causeways across it (four were targeted) enabling the troops to penetrate inland without too much trouble other than traffic jams. There was an 11" gun that would fire, get suppressed, fire again, get shelled again, a sort of Wack-a-mole thing, up on the northern reaches of the beach.
Behind the coastal morass captured by the 101st "shallow" jump, 10 km away was Sainte Mere Eglise and behind that the flooded Merderet River, paralleling the coast, 400m to 800m wide with only two causeways across it...that was the target of the 82nd. More tomorrow.
