D-Day +75 Years-- Part 11 "Fire Rained Down On Us"

In heavy seas, only a handful of tanks made it to the beach, and the bombers who were to take out German batteries dropped their bombs too far inland.  Such was the situation at Omaha Beach.

"The plans made back in England just didn't exist in reality when we hit the beach," Sergeant Harry Bare of Philadelphia told an interviewer.  "Fire rained down on us, machine-gun, rifle, rockets from the bunkers on top of the cliff."

Frank Colacicco, a major in the 1st Infantry Division, saw the slaughter from a landing craft that was taking his unit in.

"We could see it all," he told Max Hastings, author of the book "Overlord" that takes interviews from men who were there to p[ice together the story.  "We knew that something was knocking the tanks out, but we kept asking, 'Why don't they clear the beach?  Why aren't our people getting off?' "

A Mess on Omaha Beach.  --GreGen