by Michael Eckenfels, 7 August 2025
When the beach landings began, the men huddled together in their churning landing craft, unable to speak much nor to contemplate anything other than the ear-shattering din that stretched out across the coast in front of them, laid out like a grand Wagnerian operetta and unfolding like no other battle ever fought on Earth.
The landing craft pitched and rolled in the seas, making more than one occupant sick, but also ended up missing out on some planned rendezvous points. The swabbies driving the craft had no intention of going in with the men in their care, and when the bullets started pinging off of the landing craft ramp, their hurry was made worse. With all semblance of order gone, the men were landed on the beach in disarray and in piecemeal order.
They landed in three areas; roughly, these were at the southern end of the beachhead (south), northern end of the beachhead (north), and middle of the beachhead (middle). The southernmost units immediately came under a withering attack from the beach defense bunker at the south end of their beachhead. A second joined in soon after, setting up a crossfire from which few men would be able to survive. The southernmost access point (one of two, the other of which was in the northern area) was flanked on both sides by heavy defenses.
The beach defense bunkers they faced were squat, ugly things looking more at home on an alien world than cut into the cliff face of France.
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Sprouting blooms of deadly machinegun fire and bristling like a porcupine, these bunkers would be sheer suicide to take on from the front end. The southernmost troops tried, managing to reduce the bunker to about three-quarters its strength before the men were wiped out, except one. He nursed his wounded body and failing morale as he limped over to the beach access path where it met the bottom of the cliff, momentarily out of danger.
The men in the central area had a tougher time; they were more exposed to small arms and shelling than that of the men on their flanks, and the Coastal Gun lay in front of them, massive and sinister. The gun wasn’t an anti-personnel weapon, fortunately, so a straight-on attack after closing to point-blank range would work perfectly against it. After some concentrated fire, the Channel Gun was neutralized, and the men in the middle sector huddled beneath the cliffs, out of harm’s way for the time being.
And in the north, the men fared slightly better. The two beach defense bunkers that flanked the northernmost access path were easily assailed; the one immediately to the south of the northern path was actually forward of the path a bit, meaning that any man that could reach the shelter of the cliff face were going to be safe from the hellish fire it spewed forth. The northernmost bunker, however, had a clear line of fire to them until they reached the base of the path. From there, they could take a breather and take stock of their situation.
In the south, the men there were massacred. The central group, meanwhile, had managed to take out the Coastal Gun but they too were pinned down by heavy artillery fire that poured from rearward German positions like a torrential tropical storm. In the north, the men managed to get cohesive quicker and had a more or less easier time than either of the groups to the south.
After attaining the top of the pathway, scattered machinegun fire made a half-hearted effort to dissuade them, but it was quickly eliminated. Once finished off, the men could turn their attention to the northernmost beach defense bunker. When approaching it, the men discovered a smaller pillbox built to defend its larger companion, but neither were up to surviving the concentrated fire brought to bear on them.
Once this was cleared, the men turned to the south to advance into the town immediately behind the cliff face. Buildings burned merrily, outshining the fitful dawn rays that struggled to pierce the gloom. The shadows they cast made for movement in every nook and cranny. The men advanced slowly at a Walk pace to be sure that nothing was missed.
The commander chose a five-story building near the north edge of town to take up shelter in, in case the enemy tried a counter-attack. However, as they approached it, they were taken under fire by a German rifle squad hiding in that very building, lying in wait. The men took casualties but the building proved to take more punishment than they did. Soon, it collapsed to the ground, a smoldering ruin of concrete and flesh.
That was enough for the Germans. The US troops advanced into the town, and were immediately brought under vicious counterattack. The Germans were mowed down, thanks to a particularly lucky hit or two by their supporting mortar battery, and soon German resistance in the northern part of the town evaporated.
The northern group advanced until they came across an open area that bordered what looked to be some kind of military camp. The men took shelter in a building overlooking this area, and had a perfect field of fire should more Germans come boiling out from there. They were ordered to ambush and lay in wait.
The central group, meanwhile, came under sporadic artillery attack. More and more reinforcements hit the beach, and while some were eliminated the ranks of this group swelled. To the south, the smaller group that had destroyed the Channel Gun were incorporated into this already-large body, making for a high-powered attack force.
A short distance down the beach from the smoking ruins of the Channel Gun was one of the three remaining beach defense bunkers; the large group of soldiers had little choice but to attack it straight on, as crossing its path would mean severe casualties. The flamethrower squads and engineers among them rushed forward to blister the bulbous structure into oblivion. Their path to the south was thus cleared.
When the group hit the top of the cliff, the Germans poured a hot stream of lead into their ranks. An SDKfz 233 armored car sped up to the front, positioned itself, and immediately added its machinegun fire to the din. The US soldiers took the brunt of the attack and methodically laid waste to the German defenders.
The men then turned their attention on the southernmost beach defense bunker, which was destroyed quickly. The men turned north and hurried towards the southern end of the complex that the men to the north had already spotted. From this complex two SDKfz 233 armored cars and several German rifle squads came out to meet the Americans, but the mortars again won the day be shredding the German armored cars as easily as they shredded the enemy troops. Once resistance was neutralized, they advanced warily into the camp, searching for the command bunker that needed to be destroyed. It was on the northern end of the complex, and defended lightly; a few well-placed mortar rounds turned it to dust and yet another mission objective was completed.
All that remained was one beach defense bunker, the one that lay immediately south of the northernmost access point. From the rear, it was child’s play to take out as German resistance had been effectively squashed by this time.
As the last round was fired and the final German fell, the beach became quiet as the cacophony died into the distance. The last men standing praised their luck and their deities for having brought them this far, but little did they know it would take another year of fighting before this war would end.
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