What did Utah have to do with D-Day’s Utah Beach assault? Not much, as it turns out.
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Utah Beach was the codename for the westernmost beach American troops landed on in the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
But what did Utah have to do with Utah beach? Not much.
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According to a 1994 Associated Press report, the original codename for Utah Beach was “Oregon Beach.”
The Oregon name was picked because it was familiar to Americans and it wouldn’t be confused over the radio with Omaha, the other beach on which American troops landed in Normandy.
Per the AP report, historian Samual Eliot Morison, who studied codeword selection during World War II, said that the U.S. Army changed the Oregon codename to Utah the during planning phase of the operation.
An explanation was that although Utah sounded similar to Omaha over the radio, it would produce less confusion for the troops as they crossed the English channel into deadly fire from entrenched German positions.
In all, the AP report concluded that the Utah codename was picked for the beach more or less at random.
Utah Beach was one of five Normandy beaches the Allied forces invaded by air and sea on June 6, 1994. The invasion led to the liberation of France from Nazi control and the Allied victory in World War II.
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Defense, the five-mile stretch of beach saw the fewest casualties of any of the five major landing beaches. Out of 23,000 troops, only 197 men were killed or wounded. Utah Beach was divided into three zones: Tare Green, Uncle Red, and Victor.
The National Museum of the U.S. Navy states the assault force on Utah Beach consisted of minesweeper, assault, escort, bombardment, and shore party groups. Navy Rear Admiral Don P. Moon led Task Force 125 for the Utah Beach assault, while Maj. Gen. Raymond O. Barton led the U.S. Army’s 4th Division.
“This was an important assignment in the effort to seize the deep-water port of Cherbourg as quickly as possible,” states the website of Liberation Route Europe, a trail connecting WWII remembrance sites across the continent.
Five hours before the first seaborne landings, U.S. airborne troops were dropped behind the coastal defences. Fighting their way towards the beach, they cleared the enemy positions that threatened the Allied exit from the beaches. The paratroopers managed to prevent any significant counterattacks.
The German strongpoint on the beach of La Madeleine was composed of various shelters and bunkers, a grenade launcher and four canons assigned to cover an antitank zone. These modest defences could not withstand the terrible air and naval bombardments of D-Day. They offered little resistance to the American assault forces, even though many units landed nearly 2000 metres to the southeast from the original plan.
At the end of the day, the assault was a total success, with relatively few American casualties. Because the Germans had destroyed almost all port facilities along the Atlantic coast, the beaches had to take over their crucial logistic role. From June to November 1944, an almost endless stream of men and supplies were brought in via Utah Beach.
https://www.liberationroute.com/pois/289/utah-beach
Among those who fought on Utah Beach was Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt.
He was the only general to land by sea with the first wave of troops on D-Day. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion force.
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