[John McGillivray]

One must remember that the other American Beach “Utah” had the weakest defences of the five D-Day beaches. It was the only beach where the bombings by the USAAF , conducted by medium bombers from low level, hit the beach defences. The result is that the troops landing there suffered the fewest number of causalities. They also had the shortest distance to travel inland to reach their final objectives, but failed to do so.

The landings on Omaha beach were almost a failure. It took the actions of two Royal Navy destroyers, which came in close to shore to blast the German defenders from almost point blank range, to get the Americans off of the beach.