The story of A Company of the 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, of the 29th Infantry Division, is a horrid one. We all got a glimpse of what happened with the beginning scene of the movie Saving Private Ryan, where men of the 29th Division could be seen marching up with the Rangers storming Omaha, where in reality these would have been the men of A Company, B Company, among others.
As such, today’s featured article is that of A Company, known as the Bedford Boys, the men of the 29th Division, who went on the first wave and managed to land directly where they were supposed to be, as compared to most other units on Omaha that day which landed either slightly or totally off. And yet, their attempt at storming the Normandy beach led to a slaughter-fest. This is their story.
The entire 116th IR was landing that day as the first few waves and first units of the 29th in conjunction with the 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red One) on Omaha Beach. In particular, A Company was stationed to land on Dog Green Sector with B Company, which was to land there as well on the second wave. To A Company’s right we’re the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions who were storming Charlie Sector and Point du Hoc. This scene here is what the opening Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan is based off of, between the Rangers and men of the 29th.
A Company’s objective along with that of B Company was to secure the Vierville draw in front of Vierville-sur-Mer in order to create an opening for more vehicles, reinforcements, materials, etc to be easily brought inland to expand the beachhead. The Company would be supported by men of the 104th Medical Battalion, some Rocket LSTs, as well as some Sherman DD tanks.
The boats that A Company were coming in were British LCAs crewed by British seamen, despite what it depicted in Saving Private Ryan where men came in LCVPs which American crew. The plan was to have the first six LCAs of A Company to come in first on the first wave, each having around 30-32 men, and one of the boats of which had the company commander, Captain Taylor Fellers, a Bedford Boy himself (Many of the original men of A Company were from the small town of Bedford, Virginia, as that is near where the 29th Division was stationed between Virginia and Maryland being a National Guard unit). These first six LCAs would land at their H-Hour at 0636. The seventh LCA contained company headquarters totaling 17 men, which was led by company second-in-command Lieutenant Elisha Nance, also a Bedford Boy. They would land in the second wave with the boats of B Company nineteen minutes after the first wave of A Company LCAs.
At around 0230 in the morning, the first wave men of A Company (aboard the British ship the Empire Javelin) boarded into their LCAs that were hooked up onto the ship, and then dropped into the water. Nance’s company headquarters boat was dropped down into the water and so they had to climb down the rope ladder to get into it.
The boats of A Company circled around in the water until the sun rose at around 0500, to which they began their journey to the entrance to hell itself.
The seas that day were notoriously rough, and as such the many engineers and DD tanks crept slower to shore than the boats of Company A. It seemed that they were going to be the first ones to hit the beach alone, at what would have been much to their disappointment. This disappointment only mounted, as the LSTs that were mounted with rockets that were supposed to soften the landing area for them, launched them into the sea in front of the Able Company men, 4000 yards off-shore.
As they kept approaching the men began to quiet down and stopped talking all-together as they began to anticipate the coming landing, even thinking whether they were going to get out alive or not.
1000 yards off-shore one of the boats floundered from having too much water, all the men surviving except one who drowned begging for help. The men would be later picked up.
Coming in 800-700 yds from the beach the German artillery and mortar rounds began to hit the water around them, however none hit them. When coming in 50 yards, one of the first wave boats either hit a mine or was hit by artillery right of the boat, to which the right side of the LCA caved in knocking out unconscious the flame-thrower operator of the boat Russell Pickett, as well as fatally wounding two men. The lieutenant on the boat, Edward Gearing, survived.
As they crept even closer, machine gun fire pebbled the boats.
Miraculously, unlike almost every other landing on Omaha that was made that day on the first few waves, the boats of A Company managed to land in the exact location that they were supposed to. Despite this achievement in going according to plan, all of it was about to unravel.
Some of the men in the boats could worryingly see that the pre-bombardment that was supposed to happen to soften the German defenses and create ditches in the beach for them to have cover, did absolutely nothing, worse yet, the only beach obstacles were ones in the water. They would have to pace a few hundred yards of nothing but beach In the face of German guns.
The plan for each boat was to have the senior officer of each boat to jump out first, and then for three columns of the men to come out, middle going forward, right and left spreading out.
They arrived and the ramps dropped at exactly 0636, their H-Hour. It wasn’t as quick as is usually thought. The British coxswains dropped the ramps, and the first few men jumped out forward into the water below. As they were coming out, German machine guns from each end of the beach aimed at the men coming out of the boats, and cut them down. Lieutenant Tidrick for example was shot through the throat as he jumped out. Those who weren’t killed made it into the water that was waist-deep to over the head. Then began the new struggle. The men tried to wade their way and tried hiding behind the obstacles in the water. Many drowned as they couldn’t sustain themselves with their equipment and armaments holding them down. As such some abandoned their rifles and even their helmets. The rough tides didn’t help much either. Others were shot in the water itself. Some stayed in the water, while others made it to sand, of which many crawled onto the shore to take a rest, popped in some morphine, and were then drowned by the oncoming tide.
Other men made it to the sand. Tidrick, who survived his wound, stood up to call out to Private Nash to advance with wire cutters, but in doing so made himself a target and was cleaved from head to pelvis by machine gun fire. The already accurate machine gun fire began to shoot onto the mass of men on the beach. It seemed to the men that the German snipers and machine gunners were specifically targeting the officers of the company.
Men could see Captain Feller’s boat having all of its men including Fellers himself killed and strewn all over in front of it.
Private Pickett, the flamethrower operator, finally woke up on the beach, having been drug to it from his sinking boat. He saw a dead man around twelve ft in front of him, maybe the man who drug him ashore. He didn’t have his flamethrower, and couldn’t move his legs and so couldn’t get up, as the waves were hitting his feet. He was stuck, and so could only sit there and watch things happen, without being able to complete his objective, taking out one of the pillboxes.
He saw as one of the Company’s men, nicknamed “Whitey”, was running on the beach. He was hit once, spun like a top, and ran again, then was hit a second time, knocked down to the ground, then got up holding his leg and managed to miraculously get off the beach.
A little after Pickett recognized a man by his size and voice who had his forehead pulled down over his face and running around, it was Lieutenant Ferguson. Ferguson was hollering for help and that he was blind. A man shouted to the Lieutenant to stop. He stopped. He then said to turn left and start running. Ferguson complied and started running. Unfortunately he was able to only get around fifty yards before being cut down.
Within the first seven to ten minutes, A Company had become a confusing, disorganized, leaderless, and disorientated mess that was now hellbent on survival and saving their comrades however possible. Most of the officers were either dead or would be killed. The inability of any of the rocket boats, naval guns, or bombers to hit the beach and German defenses completely unraveled what was initially a perfect landing. The only way for the situation now to be saved was for reinforcements to come in and save them, and/or for men to come around the Vierville defenses to take them out from behind.
The men of A Company’s headquarters section, led by Lt Nance, began coming in with B Company boats. Nance could see ahead of him a beach that had a cloud hovering over it.
They arrived at the beach at exactly the time they were supposed to, nineteen minutes after the first wave, at 0645. As mentioned, the senior officer of the boat was to go out first, and so Nance was up front ready to jump out. After a little trouble with the ramp, Nance and the British coxswain were able to get it down, and Nance jumped as far as possible out into the water. He began looking around him in confusing, where was everybody? He couldn’t see the men of his boat either. He managed to reach the shore just fine and looked back at the water and beach, and could see bodies strewn across the sand as well as the shallow water so thick in it that they were bobing and hitting against one another. He still didn’t see any men from his boat. Finally after some time some men showed up, to his right one of his runners, and to his left his radioman Clifton, who still had his radio on his back, a prime target. Nance shouted to spread out, to which then Clifton said he was hit. Nance asked if he could move, then ducked and never saw him again. Nance then saw some men of the 29th Reconnaissance hidden behind an obstacle. He shouted at them to spread out, but as the words left his mouth, a German mortar hit near them killing three and severely wounding the other. It wasn’t just A Company either. He could also see men of B Company being mown down as well.
At this point Nance ducked down in the sand trying to hide as much as possible. It was then German tracer fire from the bunker right of the Vierville draw (the building that can be seen in the photos in that spot) began trying to play cat and mouse with him. He turned to face the machine guns head on to provide less of a target, as the sand was kicking around him. The Germans however couldn’t zero him in, and so began picking another target. This game continued as Nance and a few other men slowly crawled their way up to the shingle. On the way, he felt as if Frank Drapper Jr (one of the Company men who played baseball), had sacked him in the heel with a bat. He was hit and bleeding. He had also been hit in the body elsewhere. No matter though, he some and were finally able to get a rest.
Few men of A Company survived that day. Of around the original 220-226 men, only around 42 were left. Even worse, all except two company officers (Lt Nance and alt Gearing) had survived, all others cut down. Most of the Bedford Boys themselves were dead, and so many reading this could imagine the horror of the little small town in Virginia receiving that many letters.
Even fewer men were able to actually somewhat achieve any of their objectives. Two company men, privates Schaefer and Lovejoy were able to work their way to the edge of a cliff, and were able to join up with a group of the 2nd Rangers to fight with them for the rest of the day. The men on the beach were saved by men of B and C Company who had midlanded to their left on Dog White and were able to make their way up and over. Ships such as the Battleship Texas had received word of the disasters on the beaches and began firing onto the shore to provide support.
It is such that was the story of Able Company of the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division on Omaha Beach. If you’d like to read more on the topic, one cannot start better than the Group Critique notes made just after the battle by a few of the surviving Company men. The next is Alex Kershaw’s the Bedford Boys. You can also see Alex detailing this in an interview about the book.
Then there is the memoirs written by one of the survivors,Lieutenant Elisha Nance himself.
Anyone who has seen Band of Brothers knows how much story there is to each and every Company during the war, and A Company’s participation on Omaha was just one part of theirs. It’s article, unfortunately unfinished with its story, along with the many articles linked with it, still has many other sources to look at, such as other books, interviews, etc.
if anyone would like to help finish theirs or anyone else’s story, maybe the story of your family during the war even, go check the article out and join the WWII Archives!