How can the invasions east and west of pointe du hoc be contrasted?

Answer 1

West of Pointe du Hoc there was only Utah Beach, one of the American beaches. Unlike Omaha Beach, the other American beach and the first one immediately to the east of Pointe du Hoc, at Utah Beach the terrain behind the beach was flat, and was actually a flooded marsh. The most significant problem faced by the troops of the US 4th Infantry Division who landed at Utah Beach was capturing the causeways, raised structures like long bridges above the flooded marsh. These were long and straight and with Germans at the inland end of them, able to fire down the length of the causeways at any troops trying to advance. They were aided in this by paratroopers who had been dropped in the hours before the sea borne forces landed with the purpose of capturing the inland exits from these causeways. There were few defenses on Utah Beach, the German plan having been to cover that area with the guns of the battery at Pointe du Hoc, which had not yet been emplaced. What few defenses there were the landing force actually missed, because they landed at the wrong place, about a mile from the intended landing spot, which turned out to be very fortunate. On Omaha Beach, east of Pointe du Hoc, there was a high bluff just back of the beach, honeycombed with pillboxes and machine gun emplacements, strung with barbed wire, and extensive mine fields. Numerous field artillery pieces could be brought to bear on the landing force, and were. Extremely heavy casualties were suffered before the landing force was able to fight its way off the beach, up the bluff, and clean out the pillboxes, gun emplacements, and bunkers. Further east were the two British and one Canadian beaches. The Canadians did have a serious fight to secure their beach. But on those three beaches the terrain had again leveled out to flat coastal plain, so the invaders were not faced with defenders entrenched in heavy fortifications on high ground, as was encountered at Omaha Beach.