The Real Story: First Wave at Omaha Beach (1960) | Hacker News Reader

The Real Story: First Wave at Omaha Beach (1960)

theatlantic.com

37 pointscurtis6 comments

Here's a relevant piece from the (incredible) story:

<blockquote>Inland from Vierville about five hundred yards lies the Château de Vaumicel, imposing in its rock-walled massiveness, its hedgerow-bordered fields all entrenched and interconnected with artilleryproof tunnels. To every man but Taylor the target looks prohibitive. Still, they follow him. Fire stops them one hundred yards short of the château. The Germans are behind a hedgerow at mid-distance. Still feeling their way, Taylor's men flatten, open fire with rifles, and toss a few grenades, though the distance seems too great. By sheer chance, one grenade glances off the helmet of a German squatting in a foxhole. He jumps up, shouting: "Kamerad! Kamerad!" Thereupon twenty-four of the enemy walk from behind the hedgerow with their hands in the air. Taylor pares off one of his riflemen to march the prisoners back to the beach. The brief fight costs him three wounded. Within the château, he takes two more prisoners, a German doctor and his first-aid man. Taylor puts them on a "kind of a parole," leaving his three wounded in their keeping while moving his platoon to the first crossroads beyond the château.</blockquote>

The chateau looked untakeable, and perhaps it was. But they tried anyway, got lucky and escaped largely unscathed. Had they not tried, they would never have gotten lucky.

This is an engaging read, but the text doesn't square with the introduction. Marshall starts by saying that "disproportionate attention was paid to the little element of courageous success in a situation which was largely characterized by tragic failure."

Perhaps at the time (this was written in 1960) the account contradicted the common view, but the second half of the piece seems to me an example exactly what Marshall criticizes in the introduction.

31 paragraphs detail the men who tried and died, while the last 13 paragraphs are more positive, detailing a group of men who tried and lived. I'm not clear how you feel that he is paying disproportionate attention to courageous success. That he wanted to end the article on a positive note meets my approval if not yours. Frankly, I needed a little uplift after those first 31 paragraphs.

I would additionally add that, while he spent a while talking about one of the positive outcomes for a while at the end, even the tone of that section really points out the utter luck that was involved in a lot of the successes.

It was a horrific day, but a pivotal one for at least the next 40 or so years of history. Had the Allied forces not been able to break into Normandy the outcome of the war was no certain thing, even with the success in Italy.

I thought it was a great article, I just found the introduction a bit incongruous. The title of the piece is "First Wave at Omaha Beach," but all discussion of the first wave is concluded by 40% of the way through.

By the conclusion, which should be wrapping up the thesis of the article, the first wave seems forgotten and those final 13 paragraphs could have been lifted straight from the writings that are critiqued in the introduction.

That's my perspective today. In 1960 this might have been much more of a break from the established narrative, and even fairly shocking.

I still don't understand how anybody could survive on the beach. Where did they hide?

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