D-Day_ The Battle for Normandy - Antony Beevor [59]
Although Cota’s ‘bastard brigade’ and other troops were inland by midday, no tanks had yet appeared up the Vierville draw from the beach. A US Navy warship had been bombarding the exit: ‘Smoke, dust from the shattered concrete and the acrid tang of cordite from the exploded shells hung low.’ Soon after 12.30 hours, when the shelling stopped, Cota led a patrol down the draw from above, taking the surrender of various dispirited Germans on the way. They also heard from French civilians in Vierville, whom they found drinking milk in a store, that 400 Germans had abandoned the village when the naval guns opened fire. At the bottom there was an anti-tank wall and a small minefield. One of the German prisoners was forced to go through first, then everyone followed in his exact footsteps. Out on the promenade, they could see the bodies across the beach, the shot-up tanks and men still sheltering in the lee of seaside villas. Cota told their officers to get them moving and the engineers to blow the anti-tank wall.
Further down the beach he found more men cowering in the lee of the bluff. There was an abandoned tank with dozer blades nearby. He shouted at the soldiers that he had just come down the draw from above: ‘There’s nothing but a few riflemen on the cliff, and they’re being cleaned up. Hasn’t anyone got guts enough to drive it?’ He finally found a man to take it down to the Vierville exit with its supply of urgently needed TNT. Cota carried on towards the next beach exit near Les Moulins, where his own headquarters staff had gathered. He issued a stream of orders.
Cota continued his eastward progression to find Brigadier General Weyman, the deputy commander of the 1st Division. Weyman cannot have looked very military, for he was huddled in a blanket after all his clothes had been soaked on landing. It was confirmed that the 116th would continue clearing the area to the west of Vierville towards Grandcamp and the 115th Regiment, the 29th Division’s follow-up combat team, which had begun landing on Fox Green beach at 11.00 hours, would advance inland towards Longueville. Cota returned to his own command post. He was clearly not pleased by some of the sights: ‘Some of the 6th Engineer Special Brigade troops who had dug themselves shallow trenches as protection from the artillery, were calmly eating K rations, while around them were bodies of the dead and dying.’ But nobody could fault the medics, who were carrying back men wounded by anti-personnel mines on the bluff above.
The build-up of forces soon accelerated. By 12.30 hours the Americans had landed 18,772 men on Omaha. Half an hour later, a company from the 1st Division’s 16th Infantry Regiment, supported by men from the 29th Division’s 116th Infantry, began to attack Colleville-sur-Mer. A couple of accounts state that many of the Germans in Colleville were drunk, some finding it hilarious to shout orders in English. The Americans fought their way in, but then found themselves bombarded by their own naval guns and suffered eight casualties. The cordite fumes became so intense that all of G Company, including the aid men attending the wounded, had to carry on in gas masks. Yellow signal flares failed to stop the fire, but eventually the warship ceased its bombardment. Not until some time afterwards did the headquarters of the German 352nd Infanterie-Division discover that the Americans had surrounded the village, having received a message that the ‘wounded can no longer be sent back’.
The 1st Division’s 18th Infantry came through, bypassing Colleville while the fighting there still continued. The 29th Division’s 115th Infantry had also pushed inland