Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy

By Joseph Balkoski. 2d ed. 1989; reprint, Mechanicsburg,

PA: Stackpole, 1999. $14.95 softcover.

Lt Col Harold E. Raugh, Jr., United States Army (Retd) reviews this book exclusively for DJ.

The Battle of Gettysburg is considered by many to have been the decisive battle of the American Civil War.  Shortly after it was fought, participants recognized it as particularly significant, and over the years Gettysburg has assumed a special aura and has come to symbolize the entire Civil War.  In a similar manner, from the American perspective D-Day (6 June 1944), and especially the assault landings at Omaha Beach, have come to represent America’s singularly outstanding achievements in the worldwide conflagration of World War II, and to symbolize the selfless sacrifices of an entire generation.

Elements of two U.S. Army infantry divisions — the 1st and the 29th — conducted on D-Day the assault landings at Omaha Beach, considered the most heavily defended of all Normandy beaches.  The 1st Infantry Division (the “Big Red One”) was the oldest and one of the most experienced units in the U.S. Army, veterans of combat in North Africa in 1942 and Sicily in 1943.  The 29th Infantry Division (the “Blue and Gray” Division), on the other hand, when mobilized in February 1941 consisted of National Guardsmen from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.  The Second World War history of the 29th Infantry Division, from mobilization at Ft. George G. Meade, through unit training, deployment to the British Isles, preparation for and the actual cataclysmic assault landings at Omaha Beach, and the capture of St. Lo (18 July 1944), is significant and chronicled in exceptional detail.

Author and historian Joseph Balkoski considers his book Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy, to be “a compilation of a thousand stories, piece together like a jigsaw puzzle into a larger whole” (p. xii).  The pieces of this puzzle are contemporary (World War II) letters, newspapers, and unit war diaries, coupled with later interviews, reminiscences, and correspondence.  Many of these puzzle pieces had associated faces, notably of LTC John P. Cooper, Jr., who commanded the 110th Field Artillery Battalion, 29th Infantry Division, 1942-1945, and whose anecdotes appear throughout the study.  A number of other officers are frequently quoted, with non-commissioned officers also providing first-hand information.  There is, however, an unnecessarily (and annoyingly) large number of quotations attributed to anonymous “29ers.”

Chapter 5, “Men and Guns,” for example, is quite interesting.  It compares the force structure, manning, individual and crew-served weapons, communications and other equipment, and tactics at all echelons of the 29th Infantry Division with those of the German 352d Division — which defended against the Americans at Omaha Beach.  There are, however, a number of disconcerting inaccuracies, one of the foremost being the author’s notion that rifle squads frequently operated independently and when necessary called directly upon other rifle squads for assistance (pp. 88, 105).

The following chapters on “D-Day” and “The Beachhead” are vividly written and mesmerizing, lucidly detailing the thoughts, fears, trials, and tribulations of some of the soldiers who assaulted Omaha Beach.  The demanding and frequently chaotic operations beyond the beachhead through the capture of St. Lo are chronicled in subsequent chapters.

Balkoski continually emphasizes the distinct character of the 29th Infantry Division as a National Guard unit, with resultant philosophical differences after mobilization between Regular Army (especially West Point graduate) officers and National Guard officers.  By mid-1944, however, it is arguable how many of the division soldiers had been pre-war National Guardsman.  In about April 1941, only two months after mobilization, the author states: “The newcomers, in fact, usually outnumbered the old hands in each outfit.  In the 175th Infantry, which had an authorized strength of about 3,500 men, 2,000 of the troops were draftees” (p. 20).  It is, therefore, debatable how distinct the division’s character had remained by D-Day.

While the reminiscences and anecdotes of division combat veterans that are woven into the text may be considered a strength of the book, it may actually be more of a weakness to historical veracity, since forty- or fifty-year-old recollections may be selective and untrustworthy, the victims of embellishment, wishful thinking, or just a bad memory.  There are no endnotes, only a short paragraph relating in general terms to the sources used in each chapter, and quotations are not directly referenced.  More than three dozen photographs ably illustrate the text.  The thirty maps in this book are generally satisfactory, although they do not include conventional military symbols.  An interesting ten-page appendix, “US and German tables of Organization and Equipment, June 1944,” is included.  In this second edition of the book, the author does not seem to have updated his research and included information from studies published since his own book was first published in 1989.

Soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division stared death in the face in the swirling surf and murderous maelstrom of Omaha Beach on D-Day.  The division remained in combat for 242 days and sustained 28,776 casualties — a rate of 204%.  Balkoski’s Beyond the Beachhead is an interesting and fitting memorial to the unmitigated gallantry and selfless sacrifices of those “Blue and Gray” Division and other equally-valiant American soldiers who helped ensure ultimate victory in World War II.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harold E. Raugh, Jr., retired from the U.S. Army in 1998 as a Lieutenant Colonel after twenty years’ service as an Infantry officer after having served in the United States and abroad. He also served with the United Nations in Egypt and Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, and as a NATO detachment commander in the former Yugoslavia.  He then became an Assistant Professor of History at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York (having received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Los Angeles); as an Operations Officer in the Pentagon; and as a senior Middle East military analyst in a tenant unit of the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade, Maryland.  In addition to having completed the U.S. Army Airborne and Ranger courses and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Col Raugh attended the German Army Ranger Course, Swedish United Nations Staff Officers Course, and Israeli Defence Forces International Military Liaison Officer Course.  He currently serves as an adjunct Professor of Military History at the American Military University, Manassas, Virginia.  He is the author of Wavell in the Middle East, 1939-1941: A Study in Generalship (London: Brassey’s, 1993), and over 200 articles and book reviews, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (F.R.Hist.S.) in 2001.