Utah Beach - Normandy, France - a photo on Flickriver

Utah Beach - Normandy, France.

Utah beach is the codename for the westernmost of the 5 Allied landing zones during D-day. It is the only beach on the Cotentin peninsula and closest to the vital harbour city of Cherbourg. Together with Omaha beach it is the sector where the American forces were disembarked. The amphibious assault, primarily by the US 4th Infantry Division and 70th Tank Battalion, was supported by airborne landings of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division. These Airborne troops were dropped on the Cotentin penisula.

In stark contrast with Omaha beach where the landing turned into a near disaster with most of the troops pinned down for hours with heavy losses in both men and material the landings at Utah went relatively smooth. This does not mean the GI's came ashore unopposed: some 200 casualties were suffered by the 4th division.

One of the factors that contributed to this success was that the preliminary bombing of the target areas here was accurate and the German forces - in contrast with what happened at Omaha beach - were in disarray at H-hour, 06:30, when the first wave of 20 landing craft approached the beach. The GI's of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry landed on Uncle Red and Tare Green sectors. What they didn't know initially was that pushed to the south by strong currents they landed some 1.8 kilometres south of their designated landing spot!

Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was the first high ranking officer that landed and , not discouraged by the dviation, he decided to "start the war from right here". He ordered further landings to be re-routed. As it was this was a good decision because the Americans landed on a relative weak spot in the German defenses. Only one "Widerstandsnest" (WN5) opposed them and it was severely affected by the preliminary bombardments. It took the GI's about an hour to clear the defenses. Today the remains of this German widestandsnest can still be seen and are partly incorporated into the Utah beach museum. Well worth a visit.

After the succesful landings the real difficulties started because of the inundated areas behind the beach and the increasing German resistance which lead to weeks of fighting on the Cotentin peninsula.

On the Photo:
Uncle Red sector - view towards the south and the area west of the village of Grandcamp-Maisy in the far distance.

Tonemapped using three (handheld) shots made with a Fuji X-T3 and Fujinon 16mm f/1.4 lens, september 2019.

A set of photo's with notes of Utah Beach and the Cotentin peninsula with the Airborne sectors.">

Here's the complete set of photo's made on Pointe du Hoc over the past years

My Omaha beach photo's with several viewpoints, panorama shots and notes on the fighting

These are my photo's and notes of the British and Canadian sectors: Gold, Juno and Sword.

Taken in: France / Normandy / Arrondissement de Cherbourg / La Madeleine (show map)

Taken on: September 3, 2019

Tags:

D Day

Utah Beach

WWII

Atlantic Wall « less

Sets appears in: • Utah beach and the Cotentin Penisula

Camera: Fujifilm X-T3, f/9.0, 1/1250 sec, 16mm (=24mm), ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Fujifilm X-T3
Lens:	XF16mmF1.4 R WR
Aperture:	f/9.0
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/1250)
Focal Length:	16mm (35mm equivalent: 24mm)
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto bracket
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 9.4 (Windows)
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