7th FA on D-Day at Omaha Beach: First to Fire.

The Enemy and Situation: "The 7th Field Artillery Battalion was assigned the mission of supporting the 16th Infantry in its assault on the northern Normandy coast in the vicinity of Collevillie-sur-Mer, 6 June 1944. This landing was accomplished against enemy coastal defense forces supplemented by a German infantry division that was in this particular beach sector on anti-invasion maneuvers. The enemy, firmly emplaced in built-in concrete fortifications on commanding ground overlooking the beach, directed artillery, mortar, machine-gun and small arms fire on attacking forces.

"The rough sea prevented many craft from immediately reaching the beach. While moving a shore in assault craft, violent seas hurled men and boats into intricate and almost impenetrable barriers of mine-capped underwater obstacles, bands of barbed wire and concrete walls..." (General Orders 200, Citation of Unit: 7th Field Artillery Battalion, 16th Infantry Regimental Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, 12 December 1945)

Sunrise came around 0600 that day. I remember it as a dismal, dark morning on the tossing English Channel. The motion of our ungainly LCT [landing craft, tanks] on the turbulent seas caused sprays to soak us through and through.

Wet and cold from our exposure on the deck, I devoured a hot cream of celery soup from our British field rations for breakfast. The ingenious self-heating can had a heating unit in the oversized soup can. Loading this mixture with ration crackers produced a hot mush that literally stuck to one's ribs.

We slowly edged toward the beach, but it was too dark and we were too far away to see the beach. A rolling thunder of awesome explosions from the large guns of the Navy's battlewagons broke over us and seemed to push us forward.

We entered smoke and heard strange snapping noises. The shore appeared and the LCT ramp clanked and came down. We began exiting the craft into the surf at Omaha Beach.

This article recounts the turbulent first 24 hours of 6 June 1944--D-Day-on Omaha's "Easy Red" Beach. The 7th Field Artillery (7th FA), the "Lucky 7th," was part of the assault force of the 16th Infantry Regimental Combat Team (RCT) to open up the draws of Omaha Beach and reach the Normandy plateau. I was a private first class serving as C Battery's radio/telephone operator.

We were to provide the 105-mm punch that would allow follow-up waves to proceed and drive inland from the beach. Our parent organization, the 1st Infantry Division, had the mission to take and hold 10 kilometers inland.

Getting from the beach to the top of the bluff at Omaha now seems miraculous--about as far as most of us got. Yet, we did it, and eventually were able to provide direct support (DS) to the "Dough Boys" of the 16th RCT from the high-tide mark. We fired the first land-based artillery support in Normandy.

D-Day Minus 2. Our artillery convoys motored down from our locked-in concentration camps in Dorset County, England, to Weymouth Harbor where we boarded LCTs and DVKWs (2 and 1/2-ton amphibious trucks, called Ducks). We were part of Assault Force O.

Our LCT wallowed around in the English Channel for 24 hours. A naval officer briefed us that we were the leading assault element for that coming morning on the coast of Normandy. The 1st Infantry Division--The Big Red One--was a prime, combat-experienced division chosen for the toughest of assignments: the amphibious assault of a built-up enemy beach. As history has recorded, the 1st Division already had participated in the North Africa and, later, in the Sicily amphibious assault landings. The 24-hour delay gave "the old sweats" time to regale us with war stories, telling us why the division was named the 1st--because we were always the first in... and last out.

Because I was curious, young and naive, I asked several probably stupid questions. This prompted Sergeant Alex Kowalski (Greenfield, Massachusetts), our Chief of Detail, to say, "Listen, 'John' [as in "John-Ass Recruit"], you just get up that #$@%& beachhead bluff and make sure that %$#@& radio goes with you." The sergeant later was captured with the battery commander, Captain Jack Wood, and a forward observer (FO), Lieutenant William P. Hill; he died of wounds in a German prison camp.

My radio was an important part of our artillery reconnaissance party with First Lieutenant Peter J. Hoffman in charge. Our party had officers, instrument operators and commo personnel. We had 610 radios (two portions each) and many extra battery cases. Private First Class Eddie King (Waltham, Massachusetts) and I were radio/telephone operators and Private First Class George Rosner (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) carried the batteries. Private First Class John R. Ulman (Connecticut) was the driver of the jeep that had the section's equipment in its trailer. As I now realize, we also were an FO party as we had Second Lieutenant Hill (an extra officer) from our battery. We were doubled up in all jobs: command, guns, survey and commo.

Our US Navy LCT was crowded with armor. Tanks and half-tracks backed in first, and the jeep backed in last. We were to lead the charge from our LCT by exiting first.

D-Day and Hell. The first indication that we were approaching landfall and H-hour on D-Day was strange pinging on the side of the LCT. The smoke from the burning beach engulfed us. The beach bombing and shelling must have been horrific, but as we later found out, it had not been as effective as we had hoped. We heard loud scraping noises as the LCT rammed some underwater obstacles. Finally, the LCT ramp slowly started down.

At this time, the vehicles in the craft were revving their engines and the carbon monoxide and diesel fumes were overcoming us. We wanted out.

The jeep went out and down. The ramp clanked, and we jumped out on both sides into five and one-half feet of surf. The jeep had a one-foot high exhaust and could operate submerged and loaded with all baggage and equipment and still hold three people: the driver and the two lieutenants.

The rest of us trudged out into the water carrying heavy loads. I had "long johns," impregnable "goo" to preclude contact with chemical gas, woolen ODs, gas flaps on my neck and wrists, a field jacket and netted helmet, web equipment, two canteens, three first aid pouches (one on the helmet with morphine syrettes), a Haversack, grenades, extra ammo, an M1 carbine enclosed in plastic taped with banana clips and one mag in its stock, an assault jacket with many pockets, a plastic-enclosed one-quarter mile reel of wire, a telephone and the 610 radio wrapped in a life preserver--we were overloaded.

I'm five feet, seven inches tall and only had my nose out of water. I inflated the radio's life preserver as I stepped into the surf and rode it in. (I encountered Sergeant Kowalski later that morning, and he noted my radio was intact.)

The life preservers had explosive cartridges that inflated a rubber doughnut around your waist. Our combat-assault veterans had told us to wear our rubber gas mask cases inflated under our chins to keep our heads up and out of the water.

Unfortunately, the soldiers of the 116th Infantry RCT from the 29th Infantry Division assaulting the beachhead section to our left were inexperienced in beach landings. Many drowned when their inflated waist life preservers caused their heads to go underwater. Their bodies with their blue-and-grey shoulder insignia sadly lined the beach tidemark the next day.

I trudged out of the deep and into waist deep and then knee deep water. Later, my readings of this remembrance explained that these changing depths were "wave runnels." But what was fortunate for me was a death knell for others.

Eddie King and I got separated as we both hid behind large metal boat obstacles. However, both of us had identical portions of the radio, so when we got together, we had no commo; we needed Rosner with the battery packs.

After what seemed hours, we finally left the comparative safety of these large metal beach obstacles. Then crawling and dragging our stuff, we emerged and hid behind a berm lined with literally hundreds of soldiers.

Eddie King went back into the surf to pull in wounded, drowning soldiers. When he returned, he pointed to his head where blood trickled down his face. There in the center of his helmet was a bullet hole where a round had gone through it. I had the unenviable task of sticking my hand in his helmet and feeling mush, but it was only his hair soaked in blood. Luckily, the bullet only creased his head.

Someone called a medic over, and he sat down with his back to the enemy to bandage Eddie. A bullet struck the medic in the back. Eddie and I tried to bandage him and called for other medics to help, but we were unable to save him.

We spotted Rosner submerged with the battery box and finally got him out of the surf. Sergeant Kowlaski then married us up with a battery officer Lieutenant Merrill Ferrara. This officer earned his second Silver Star as he led us up the beach and up the bluff that day.

I remember seeing signs with skulls and crossbones--"Achtung Minen"--indicating a German minefield. There were wooden steps leading up the bluff interspersed with American bodies. I didn't know if they were victims of sniping or mines. We gingerly groped our way up, carrying equipment weighing about 75 pounds.

Arriving at the top, we realized Lieutenant Ferrara had been hit in the groin, and he was bleeding profusely from his crotch. I still recall how embarrassed we were as he lowered his trousers for us to apply a battle dressing. Later, when we had to renew the dressing, I recall how neatly I dug a small hole and buried the first dressing. I had some weird thought of being fastidious on the battlefield.

The top of the bluff was covered with smoke and, in comparison, was amazingly safe. All the firing was going over our heads onto the beach or out to sea.

We could see machine-gun fire and artillery rounds continue to land on the packed personnel on the beach--living and dead--and masses of equipment in the surf, all lined up at the high-water mark. Landing craft now steadily attempted landings. The 16th Infantry RCT Commander Colonel Taylor's memorable words were prophetic: "Get off the beach because only the dead and those going to die will remain!"

Meanwhile, the officers of the 7th FA were organizing groups of all available soldiers and fighting as infantrymen, aggressively attacking the German pillboxes and machine-gun positions. Someone pointed out Lieutenant Colonel George Gibbs, our battalion commander, standing up, probably trying to inspire the troops.

Captain Robert W. Woodward, our battalion commo officer, led a group of battery personnel and wiped out a machine-gun emplacement. Technician Fourth Class Dock, who was the horizontal control officer of the battalion fire direction center (FDC), commandeered an abandoned US tank and silenced an annoying German pillbox.

On our smoking bluff, the only disturbing problem was a sniper's round occasionally zinged by our heads. We countered the snipers by organizing into hunter teams in the German trenches.

Meanwhile, our firing batteries were encountering countless difficulties coming through the surf They were riding on DVKWs overloaded with 105-mm M101 towed howitzers, ammo and 10 personnel.

The two DS artillery battalions--7th FA for the 16th Infantry RCT and the 111th FA for the 116th Infantry RCT--did not fare well. The 111th lost all 12 of its guns to counterfire and rough surf, although one gun was salvaged. The 7th FA did a little better, losing only six of its 12 guns.

The 7th FA rescued the 111th's last gun, forming its now historical "seventh gun battery." I believe Sergeant Lester McPherson of Runford, Maine, 1st Section Chief, salvaged the seventh gun and made C Battery the unique seventh gun battery. At about 1600 on 6 June, the 7th fired the first land-based artillery support in Normandy.

Initially, the DVKW survivors, approximately 60 personnel, were reported as missing in action (MIA), but they eventually straggled into their batteries.

This momentous day ended with a spectacular strafing by some German fighter planes--every son-of-a-&%$# on the beach fired his weapon, and for us on the top of the bluff above, it was time to hide.

Our battalion, the 7th FA, was recognized with the Presidential Citation. The French upgraded our World War I Fourreguerre from Croix de Guerre status to the Medaille Militaire level identified by a yellow and green lanyard device on our left shoulders. Lieutenant Colonel Gibbs, Captain Woodward and Technician Fourth Class Dock were all awarded Distinguished Silver Crosses for their moming's exploits. Silver Stars were awarded to seven officers and 23 enlisted men for their gallantry on the beach that day. Purple Hearts for the wounded and killed in action (KIA) on 6 June eventually totaled 27, with Lieutenant Hoffman and Private Ulman missing in action (MIA). All the members of the 7th Artillery Battalion were awarded the assault landing "Arrowhead" to wear on our European Theater of Operations (ETO) ribbons.

On 12 June 1944, the 7th Field Artillery Battalion was at Caumont, France, some three miles farther inland than the nearest US forces on the Allies' Normandy front and two miles farther inland than the nearest British forces. The location of our battalion prompted the 1st Infantry Division Artillery Commander Brigadier General Clift Andrus, (who later became the division commander) to ask, "How did the artillery get out in front of the infantry?" The answer was simple: it was the 7th Artillery.

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Alfred A. Alvarez was a Radio/Telephone Operator for C Battery, 7th Field Artillery Battalion, 16th Infantry Regimental Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, and landed on D-Day, 6 June 1944, at Omaha Beach on the Normandy Coast of France. He participated in the following campaigns during World War II Normandy, Northern France, Central Europe, Rhineland and Ardennes. In 1949, he went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Riley, Kansas, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery. He was a Forward Observer and then Infantry Platoon Leader in the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team in Korea in 1951-1952 and commanded three batteries in the 11th Airborne Division (Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, Firing Battery and Service Battery) in both Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Augsburg, Germany. In the 82d Airborne Division, he was Secretary to the General Staff, serving for 18 months in the Dominican Republic Campaign in 1965; he also served as a US Observer in Boliv ia with the 7th Special Forces in 1968 and G1 of the Qui Nhnon Support Command in Vietnam. After 32 years in the Army, he retired in 1974 at Fort Bragg as the XVIII Airborne Corps Adjutant General. Lieutenant Colonel Alvarez lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina.