by Mehlo, Noel
The battalion identified the possibility of there being extensive minefields in the area. As a result, after the passed through the breaches, the companies fanned out in a column formation to conduct their climb. Much of the battalion was reported to have passed through the gap in the wire that had been blown by D Company. As the wire was blown, Captain Whittington motioned to advance. The men ran as they poured through the gap. The Captain then fanned B Company out as did the remainder of the battalion in order to navigate the remaining fields below the bluffs as the Company headed for the cliffs. The men knew and had been warned of the likelihood of mines. Squad Leaders such as S/Sgt Copeland sought out worn down paths through the field looking for sign of safe passages. Copeland told his biographer; “I thought the pathway was a good indicator of where the Germans knew to walk—we just followed the path which turned out to be the right decision.” He led his men by ten to fifteen feet so that if he struck a mine, his men would be protected. After the Company navigated the minefield they found a crevice along the bottom of the cliff. Copeland was too injured to climb, so he turned his command over to his subordinate NCO and headed for the seawall. At some point along the paths through the minefields, the Rangers ended up becoming somewhat protected from direct artillery and machine gun fire due to the topography surrounding them. D Company led off up the cliff, with B Company following them along their pathway up the slopes. Headquarters Company ascended some 50 yards to their right. Upon reaching the smoke, the Rangers found themselves in combat not only against the enemy but against the smoke on the bluffs.
17 D-DAY: OVER THE TOP
The hedgerow country the soldiers found themselves in atop the bluffs benefitted the defenders. Small groups of Germans amply outfitted with the MG-42 machine gun, mortars and ammunition were able to utilize the hedges as part of their defensive strategy. They were likewise able to call in decisive artillery fire for much of the day until the artillery units were overrun by US forces, or simply ran out of ammunition. The German defenses along the bluffs above Dog White consisted largely of lightly manned rifle pits connected by deep trenches at the crest. They also employed mortar positions that relied on pre-sighted panoramic sketches painted on the walls of the mortar pits enabling the mortar crews to quickly and accurately deliver fire. This information included ground features, ranges and deflections required for hitting targets. American attempts to outmaneuver a German position often resulted in becoming separated and lost from its larger parent unit. The Germans also made excellent use of snipers in this terrain. At 0745 hours the 916th Grenadier Regiment reported to the 352nd Infantry Division that three tanks were within the perimeter on the beach at WN 70 northeast of Vierville as the three tanks of the 743rd Tank Battalion came ashore.1
PFC Weast spoke of the fire and smoke on the bluffs. This is very similar to all of the 5th Ranger Infantry Battalion accounts I have seen. “Somebody hollered "Gas!” So we all put our gas masks on, but when I got up into the smoke and cracked the edge of my face piece, I could smell it was nothing but grass smoke, so I took my damn gas mask off and threw it away. That's the last time during the entire war that I ever carried a damn gas mask. It might have been stupid,-but the things were clumsy, they impeded your ability to move and breathe, so I simply got rid of the damn thing. What we were smelling was nothing but grass smoke.”2
As the Rangers ascended the bluffs in columns by Company formation, B Company went up right behind D Company, and some 50 yards to the left of Headquarters Company. Near the crest, D Company was fired upon by MG-42s in the trench systems located well to the left of WN 70 in the cliffs just above them. D Company took up defensive positions and engaged these positions killing the defenders. This temporary pause resulted in B Company topping the crest and enabled the company to remain together as a unit upon reaching the top. The majority of the Ranger battalion was up the bluff by 0830. Remaining intact, B Company quickly reorganized into regular platoon formation while briefly waiting for the remainder of the battalion once on top. Lt. Pepper commanded 1st Platoon and Lt Gregory commanded 2nd Platoon with only four or five wounded casualties between them and none killed in action.
It was while nearing the top that an event made famous by Cornelius Ryan through his interview with PFC Weast occurred. In his 1958 interview, Ryan asked; “Do you remember seeing or hearing anything that seems funny now, even though it may not have seemed funny at the time?” Weast responded to this "B" Company commander, Capt. George P. Whittington was one of the lead men in our advance off the beach and up the bluffs. Near the top of the bluff a grass fire was burning giving us smoke cover, a very happy accident: "Whit” came upon a German machine gun position from their rear, unnoticed. When one of the three Germans turned and saw "Whit”, a fierce looking fellow, he repeated the words "bitte, bitte, bitte." "Whit" shot the three of them, turned and asked, "I wonder what bitte means.”3 Weast later downplayed this event. Raaen wrote in his book, and shared with me that he believed the event to have occurred differently, indicating that Whittington killed these Germans when they could have provided valuable intelligence upon proper interrogation.
Figure 261: PROFILE VIEW OF BLUFFS, DOG WHITE, in the area where Company C, 116th, and the 5th Ranger Battalion assaulted the bluff. The picture was taken in June 1945 when vegetation had grown up heavily. View is toward east; beach flat shows in left rear. (CMH – Omaha Beachhead)4 Colonel Schneider assessed the tactical situation and determined that it was critically important to make contact with the 116th Infantry Regiment under Colonel Canham. The original plan had been to meet at a rally point southwest of Vierville. During the chaos of landing and the ascent of the cliffs, Colonel Schneider changed the plan to react to a fluid battlefield and passed the word. General Cota’s orders on the beach included assisting the 116th in establishing the beachhead. This effectively changed the orders for the battalion from meeting at the rally point and moving on to Point du Hoc. Schneider wanted to reestablish contact with Cota to discuss the next steps. During the move up the bluffs, not all the 5th Ranger Company Commanders received this change in orders. As a result, Lt. Parker’s A Company Platoon immediately moved to the rally point southwest of Vierville and ultimately on to Pointe du Hoc. They would be the only relief force from Omaha to reach Rudder on D-Day.
After reorganizing B Company, Captain Whittington ordered 2nd Platoon, 2nd Section Leader Staff Sergeant Walter N. “Mac” McIlwain to take a patrol to the west along the bluffs to locate and make contact with the Commanding Officer of the 116th Infantry to gather important information for Schneider as to the change in orders from the primary objective to their secondary objective. 1st Platoon eliminated several German positions in the trenches along the crest in the vicinity. Figure 262 shows a War Department produced map revealing the overall assault by the 5th Rangers.
Assuming the structure of B Company, 2nd Platoon was similar to that of the roster list from Camp Forrest, S/Sgt McIlwain served as the 1st Section Leader on D-Day. His soldiers included: Howard M. Goldberg, Rene R. Brunelle, Robert Jarke, Jr, Robert S. Goodwin, Theodore Webernan, Herbert S. Hull, Leroy A. Anderson, Bernard C. Akers and Johnnie E Bixler. Members of the 2nd Section included: Section leader Sgt Edward J. McEleney, Peter L. Cardineli, Thomas G. Devlin, Louis Banks, Francis J. Healey, Randall Ching, Albert F. Sweeney, Paul L. Winslow, Albert P. Gipson, Jr, Elmo E. Banning and Harvey M. Montgomery. Some of these Rangers might have fallen out of the Company between September 1943 and June 1944 to injury or failure to meet training standards. Locking down the final roster of men who made the D-Day assault warrants additional research. PFC Carl Weast, Company Messenger and PFC Jesse W. Johnson, Medic made the patrol according to accounts. Copeland remained on the beach reloading and cleaning weapons until he was evacuated to England. What I have not found out is if the entire 2nd Platoon made this patrol, or a combined force made up of members of both sections. What is certain is that members from both the 1st and 2nd Section made the patrol. It is uncertain if Lt. Gregory made this pa
trol as he is not referenced in regard to this patrol in various accounts of it except for those made by Carl Weast.
Figure 262: Official War Department mapping of assault of Omaha Beach near Vierville.4
Figure 263: WN 70 southeast of Vierville (NARA) The patrol took considerable time and care and worked the fields and hedgerows to the right of where they crested. The patrol eliminated German opposition as they went. They reached their objective approximately 600 to 700 hundred yards to the west of their landing position, near and above Hamel au Prêtre and in the vicinity of WN 70. There S/Sgt McIlwain’s patrol made contact with the 116th Infantry Regiment’s Colonel Canham, a few officers and enlisted men. Colonel Canham’s units were widely dispersed at this point and he did not have effective command and control over his forces. Canham was out of touch of his division, had no contacts with any of his battalion headquarters, did not know what was happening at the exits in the 116th one, and could only assume that the rest of the assault battalions were on their way to assembly areas.4 Canham’s command group had just come up the bluffs. They abandoned their first command post after taking mortar fire at the foot of the cliff. Colonel Canham later recorded that at that time “he had no contact with his units and did not know where they were located.” He asked the Rangers to stay with him to provide security to his command group. S/Sgt McIlwain told the Colonel that his previous orders were to report Canham’s position directly back to Captain Whittington as soon as possible and declined to remain with the Colonel. Various texts indicate that this is not the last time a small group from Company B would be requested to do this for Canham. In fact, B Company, 2nd Platoon would again be requested as security for Colonel Canham later in the morning. The patrol then headed off to the south, and east to rejoin their Company and report. At 0915 hours the 726th Grenadier Regiment reported to the 352nd Infantry Division that WN’s 65, 66, 67, 68 and 70 were in enemy hands. WN 70 is shown in Figure 263. By 0925 hours the 916th Grenadier Regiment requested an artillery and armored counterattack to the WN’s east of St. Laurent. Around this time a call was placed by a German observer for an artillery strike in the fields southeast of WN 70.
Importantly while this was going on in and around Vierville sur Mer shortly after 0900, the 2nd Ranger Infantry Battalion finally located the 155 mm guns south of Point du Hoc and destroyed them. Figure 264 documents the kill of the artillery weapon. The War Department publication Small Unit Actions documents this event:
Active patrolling was started at once on all sides of the thinly-held positions. About 0900, a two-man patrol from D went down the double-hedgerowed lane that ran south from the highway near Company D's outpost. About 250 yards along the lane, Sergeant Lomell and S/Sgt. Jack E. Kuhn walked into a camouflaged gun position; there, set up in battery, were five of the enemy 155's missing from the Point. They were in position to fire toward Utah Beach, but could easily have been switched for use against Omaha. Piles of ammunition were at hand, points on the shells and charges ready, but there was no indication of recent firing. Not a German was in sight, and occasional sniper fire from a distance could hardly be intended as a defense of the battery. So effective was the camouflage that Lomell and Kuhn, though they could later spot the guns from the highway, had seen nothing until they were right in the position. With Kuhn covering him against possible defenders, Sergeant Lomell went into the battery and set off thermite grenades in the recoil mechanism of two guns, effectively disabling them.5
Figure 264: Sergeant Len Lomell sits astride his trophy, one of the guns of Point du Hoc in June 1944. (NARA) Back on Omaha Beach, as the 5th Ranger Battalion, B Company patrol made their way back to B Company’s position at 0930, the patrol was hit by heavy artillery fire. The Rangers reported this to be 88 mm artillery fire. At the same time on the southern edges of the same open fields, Captain Raaen and members of his Headquarters Company recorded taking cover due to the incoming fire. “Suddenly, I heard a low whine, not at all like the noise the artillery had been making as it passed over our heads toward the beach. No, this noise was coming straight at us. We all hit the dirt as four or five shells detonated in our field about thirty yards away.”6 McIlwain’s patrol recovered from the shelling and they assessed their wounded. S/Sgt McIlwain was wounded in the arm with shrapnel, and PFC Bernard Akers, one of S/Sgt Hull’s BAR men was wounded. At this point, PFC Johnson sprang into action tending to the wounded, bandaging up S/Sgt McIlwain, who at first refused to be evacuated and PFC Akers with an unknown injury.
T-5 Elmo E. Banning was killed having been hit directly by the artillery fire. T/5 Elmo Banning would never again see his girl again that he had gone AWOL to see in Sedan, Kansas just prior to shipping to England. Elmo had spent as much time with his girl as he could for nearly his entire visit home. He even took his younger brother to the drive-in-theater on a date. When the local County Sherriff called on the Banning residence, it was a complete surprise to his mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Banning, that Elmo Banning had been AWOL. The Sheriff did not arrest the Ranger, but told him to get back to the post ASAP. Even after that, Banning spent one or two more days at home before returning to his post. The Banning family remembered his mother crying over him as he told her that he would be going on a dangerous assignment and he might never return. That was the last time they ever saw their son. His family would be devastated by the news concerning the loss of their son, particularly his parents. The family would receive more devastating news when they were informed that his brother Lyle had been severely wounded by a hand grenade shortly after Elmo died. Lyle had part of his leg blown off and injured his leg, and was sent home after being treated for these injuries. Figure 265 attempts to trace the path taken by 2nd Platoon during D-Day.
WN 70 0930 hours location of German artillery barrage on B Co, 2nd Platoon patrol and death of PFC Elmo Banning
0930 hours location of Cpt Raaen during German artillery barrage on B Co, 2nd Platoon
Figure 265: Path of 5th Ranger Infantry Battalion, B Company 2nd Platoon on D-Day overlain on German defenses mapping
After attending to their injuries and taking initial care of their fallen comrade, the patrol made their way back to their company. At this point, B Company had advanced to the coastal road between St Laurent and Vierville. The company was preparing to conduct their assault as the lead battalion element toward Vierville. When the patrol found Captain Whittington, he was at the head of the column with Lt. Colonel Schneider, so they reported what they found regarding Colonel Canham to both officers.
It is very important to note that various accounts recorded by Carl Weast after the war relay a very different chain of events that led to Banning’s death. The story presented above is a compilation of accounts from General Raaen, which is inclusive of discussions between he and McIlwain in the years following the war and also includes other sources. Weast recorded his accounts of the day both to Ryan and in an interview to the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans after the war. His accounts placed the platoon through Vierville near noon. He told of heading west with the Company and being held up by German fire. As a result of this machine gun fire, Captain Whittington ordered 2nd platoon south of Vierville to outflank the position. He went on to say that after some indecision by 2nd Platoon’s Lieutenant, the men were static in an orchard. Here is his story:
“We went through Vierville sur Mer, and proceeded on the coastal highway towards Point du Hoc. Now we had just gotten out of town towards the point, I suppose maybe four, five hundred yards, and the characteristic hedgerow configuration to our left along the road, suddenly stopped, and you had open fields to our left, and as our point men started to go down the road past this bare spot, they came under machine gun fire. Fortunately, these machine gunners weren't very good. They didn't hit anybody. These guys merely hit the ground and crawled back to the cover of the hedgerow. So we were at that point pretty much held up. Now this was, I suppose, I have no idea what time of day it was, none at all. But in any event, I'm' going to guess that it
might have been, oh, possibly noon or so.
Now, at this time, apparently A-Company of the 5th Rangers had actually made it past this open space without any problem, and of course, we were stopped cold by that machine gun. So I was present when a messenger came back from our company commander and he instructed our platoon officer to go down the hedgerow perpendicular to the road, get behind that machine gun, and get rid of it. OK, now this lieutenant that we had, I'm not going to mention his name, he had come in as a replacement for an officer who was injured in training, and he was a real goof-off. This guy was from somewhere else. But anyway, he was a platoon leader. So we started going down the hedgerow, supposedly, now I heard the orders. We were supposed to go down the hedgerow, get in behind the gunner to the flank other to the rear of it and get rid of it. So at that point, when the platoon had started down this hedgerow to accomplish this, I went to the rear of the platoon to inform the platoon sergeant what in the heck we were doing. When I got to the rear of the , I find out our platoon sergeant wasn't there. Nobody knew what happened to him. So I told Leroy Anderson, who was a section leader, what we were up to, and then I went back towards the head of the platoon. Now, instead of flanking, or getting that gunner from the rear, this lieutenant apparently went off his rocker, because we just kept going inland. I wouldn’t want to guess how far, but I know this-much: When we had come to the 1st and then the 2nd perpendicular hedgerow, which would have given us cover to get in behind this machine gun, he didn't take off to the right at all. He kept going inland. We finally came to a country road. It was unimproved gravel road, and our point man had come to the road, and halted the and came back and told the officer that we had run into this road. Well at the time, we were more or less static in an orchard.
