D-Day: First to Fall at Omaha Beach | History Traveler Episode 46

I've been pretty fortunate to be able to go to a lot of cool historic places every once in a while you go to a place that has so much gravity and so much weight that it just overwhelms you and I happened to be at one of those places today this is Omaha Beach [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] so Omaha Beach has the reputation of being the spot where some of the most violent conflict and fighting took place on d-day this sector that I'm in right now the beach is divided up into technically four different sectors so there's Fox easy dog and then at the far end Charlie well Fox and easy are in the 1st Infantry Division sector we'll get to the 29th Infantry Division sector of dog later and this spot right here that I'm at is at Fox red so what we're looking at out in front of me is the Fox sector of Omaha Beach and on d-day ships landed at about 6:30 in the morning at least that's whenever they were scheduled to and there was all kinds of confusion a lot of units were way way off target and included in that was a mixed group of the 16th Infantry Regiment that was attached to the 1st Infantry Division and one hundred and 16th Infantry Regiment which was with the 29th Infantry Division but attached to the 1st for d-day well companies I and L landed way way too far to the east and also landed late they were supposed to have armored support but most of the armor ended up sinking in the channel and a few managed to make it so you can imagine these guys landing and then having to traverse this whole section of beach now there was one guy by the name of lieutenant Jimmy Monteith I think I'm saying that name right Monty if he landed along with his group everybody was all mixed up and landed in the wrong spot it turned out to be fortunate because they had the protection of these Bluffs from a German resistance nest that's up on top of the hill that we'll take a look at later so Monteith makes it to this Bluff and then makes his way down the beach with his men a lot of them had been cut down on the beach and what they were looking for was a draw called the f1 draw that was going to give them access to the interior of the German defenses [Music] I'm standing here at the water's edge just trying to imagine what this must have been like absolutely can't do it unbelievable now once Monteith and his men made it on the beach they did the same thing that a lot of people did here on d-day they landed in the wrong spot and they improvised so Monteith was up and down the beach he was organizing his men putting together you know whoever was left the few tanks that did make it on the beach he was organizing fire for them telling where to go going through minefields I mean the guy was just all over the place and up on top of this hill there was an element of German soldiers that were manning mortars and machine guns and artillery and they were covering the far east end of the beach here so Monteith grabbed some guys and they started making their way right up through here and something called the f1 draw to take out this nest of German soldiers that was breaking the beach with fire [Music] [Music] okay well this is the upper end or the top of the f1 draw and over here on the far eastern edge of Omaha Beach this beater stun nest 60 this is a veter stun nest it can also be translated resistance nest or strong point and these are just the positions that the Germans took up where they would have machine-gun nests and mortars and gun emplacements and things like that so this is the one on the easternmost edge of Omaha Beach and Monteith and as men would have approached up that draw that that we just saw and then attacked from the south or from the rear so we're gonna go in here and try and find some of these gun emplacements into brooks from Vitas Don nest 60 okay so here we are approaching the meter son nest 60 and yeah right off the bat you can really see why they set up a resistance nest here because oh my gosh that offers quite the commanding view of the beach so here we got a few more turtle Brooks that are set up and you can still see the remnants of the trenches that they used to go back and forth between these places yeah that's definitely a mortar Tobruk you can tell from that little platform in there these would also be used as a machine-gun nest but this particular one is for a mortar we're actually going to get down in here I can't come all the way to Omaha Beach and have a mortar Tobruk and not go in it I'll probably slip and fall oh my gosh okay okay see you see little door here a little room rather for ammunition storage and then come up here that's where the mortar would have set also a place where you could keep ammunition or mortar rounds on hand and then yeah here you go okay so we're just making our way through the trenches now so amazing to be here Wow Oh son of a gun old JD about took a spill there it is super slick and muddy and then yeah here's the entrance to the other Tobruk now let me come up here and we can get another view from the top so whenever you're standing here I talked about the f1 draw okay so that's going to be just right here over the lip of this Bluff so these eighty millimeter mortars that the Germans had were designed to catch any of these troops that were trying to advance on their position pretty crazy and here on the backside of this resistance nest here's another Tobruk and I think that this one might have had a French tank turret attached to it so if you look down in here it doesn't it doesn't have that mortar stand like the other two did so I think this is where the French tank turret was and then over on the other side kind of down towards the draw a little bit more they also had a 75 millimeter gun there too it'll stay with like essays we you won't cuz death is gonna get you they that was pretty darn cool so strongpoint 60 your Vitas unmess 60 ended up being the very first strong point to fall on d-day thanks to the leadership of Jimmy Monty and bravery of the other men that were with him now unfortunately the Germans launched a counter-attack mid-morning and tried to retake this position and want Tia was crossing an open position and was shot and killed if I understand correctly that happened right here so he was one of the many who gave his life right here in Normandy on d-day and for his actions and for his leadership under fire Monteith was awarded the Medal of Honor so we'll talk a little bit more about that at another time but as for now that was Peter stun nest 60 [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 293,198

Rating: 4.9242687 out of 5

Keywords: history, history travel, history traveler, travel, history underground, wwii, ww2, world war II, world war 2, dday, d-day, omaha beach, normandy, june 6, monteith, medal of honor, wn60, german, german defense, bunker, fox green, fox red, fox, jd huitt

Id: 92mmPOO51h4

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 23 2020