D-Day

They fought up through the bunkers and killed everyone inside, and they throw smoke gernades to alert the p16 fighters to bomb the beach thus securing it

Here is a quote about their action on Omaha Beach.

Four groups had assignments on OMAHA for D-day. The 37th Engineer Battalion Beach Group supported the 16th Regimental Combat Team, 1st Division, and the 149th was behind the 116th Infantry. The 348th was to facilitate the landing of the 18th Infantry, following the 16th on the eastern end of the beach. The 336th Engineer Battalion Beach Group was scheduled to arrive in the afternoon to organize Fox Red. All the groups were under 5th Engineer Special Brigade control until the assault phase was over; the 149th Engineer Battalion Beach Group would then revert to the 6th Brigade.

The task of opening Exit F-1 belonged to the 336th Engineer Battalion Beach Group, which was scheduled to land after 1200 on D-day at Easy Red near E-3 and then march east to Fox Red. Some of the advance elements went ashore on E-3 at 1315 and made their way toward their objective through wreckage on the beach, falling flat when enemy fire came in and running during the lulls.

Wading ashore at Dog Green about 1500, troops of the 336th Engineer Combat Battalion assembled at the shingle bank and began a hazardous march toward Fox Red, more than two miles away. The unit moved in a long irregular column, followed by a D-7 tractor that towed an Athey trailer loaded with explosives. As the battalion made its way around bodies and wreckage through smoke and gunfire, it witnessed the awful panorama of D-day on OMAHA. Artillery fire had decreased at Exit D-1 after destroyers knocked out a strongpoint on Pointe de la Percee about noon. It grew heavier as engineers approached Exit D-3, several times narrowly missing the explosive-laden trailer. At E-1 the fire let up, but congestion on the beach increased. Bulldozers were clearing a road through the shingle embankment, and the beach flat was jammed with vehicles waiting to join a line moving up the hill toward St. Laurent.

The worst spot they encountered on the beach was at Exit E-3, still under fire as they passed. There the 336th Battalion's column ran into such heavy machine-gun fire and artillery shelling that the unit had to halt. The commander sent the men forward two at a time; when about half had gone through the area, a shell hit a bulldozer working at the shingle bank. The dozer began to burn, sending up clouds of smoke that covered the gap and enabled the rest of the men to dash across. As the troops proceeded down the beach, they saw a tank nose over the dune line and fire about twenty-five rounds at a German machine-gun emplacement, knocking it out; but artillery barrages continued hitting the beach in front of E-3 every fifteen or twenty minutes.

At the end of its "memorable and terrible" march across OMAHA, during which two men were killed by shell fray meets and twenty-seven were injured, the engineer column reached the comparative safety of the F-1 area at 1700. The surrounding hills had been cleared of machine-gun nests, and although enemy artillery was able to reach the tidal flat, it could not hit the beach. The first job was mine clearance: the area was still so heavily mined that several tanks, one of them equipped with a dozer blade, could not get off the beach. The men had only one mine detector but were able to assemble several more from damaged detectors the infantry had left on the beach. More were salvaged when the last elements of the battalion came in from Dog Green around 1730.

Quoted from: http://www.history.army.mil/reference/Normandy/TS/COE/COE15.htm

In summary, this unit landed on D-Day around Noon(12:00). Their job was to clear the beach and make roads so other heavier equipment could be brought to the beach and driven directly to the front lines.

Links that list Units that were at Normandy:

http://www.army.mil/d-day/forces.HTML

http://www.sproe.com/o/Omaha-beach.HTML

Major Dick Winters was a veteran of Company E, 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. His story was told in the book and HBO TV series "Band of Brothers".

Dick Winters died right after New Years 2011. His family didn't announce his death until after his funeral, which was on January 3, I believe.

Dietrich von Choltitz..look him up

Precision

Von Choltitz told the reasons why he bisobeyed Hitler's order of destroying Paris, he also explained it in his book - Soldat unter Soldaten (a soldier among soldiers)

First, he had met Hitler for the first time just few days before, he understood Hitler had gone mad.

Second, he was an "old-school" soldier, descending from the prussian aristocracy, with the traditional code of honor. Destroying a city without military reasons was, so, unthinkable.

Third, Raoul Nording, the Swedish vice-consul in Paris had been playing an overriding role during the occupation, for example by ensuring Red Cross access to prisoners of war. And his major role in the negotiation with Von Choltitz to avoid the bloodshed and the destruction of the city (where is was born) during the uprising of the french resistants