Having established that the Omaha Bombardment Groups as a whole fired only a bit more than half of the projectiles it was supposed to have used on the beach defenses, it is now time to examine the performances of the individual ships. This installment summarizes to the pre-H-Hour bombardment activities of every ship in the Omaha Bombardment Group, identifying its fire support position, targets and expenditure of ammunition against it assigned targets.

Perhaps the single greatest failure at Omaha Beach was the bombardment plan. Despite the efforts of 16 bombardment ships and dozens of supplemental bombardment craft, German defenses emerged sufficiently undamaged to virtually stop the invasion at the shoreline for the first hours. Many reasons have been advanced for this failure, to included a shortage of bombardment ships, too short of a bombardment window and the failure of the heavy bombers to hit the beach defenses.

This three-part series examines the facts behind the bombardment controversy and attempts to separate the valid criticisms from the popular misconceptions. This installment, Part I, explores the operational environment and how it shaped the basic concept of the landings, as well as how that constrained bombardment operations. Part II will examine in detail the bombardment plan developed for Omaha Beach, and Part III will analyze how effectively that plan was executed.

Join me to see what really lies behind the popular versions of the Omaha bombardment failure.