This Channel’s definition of a Warrior of War is any man who in the face of extreme adversity and
risk, still chooses to put a cause, belief or the lives of others over his own self-interest. These
are the men who put their gifts of intelligence, perseverance and strength to honourable use and
this weeks D-day special, Brigadier General Norman “Dutch” Cota displays all the traits
and more in the treacherous first hours of the D-Day landings at Omaha beach.
As you’re all most probably aware of now through the previous weeks videos on this
channel or through movies like Saving Private Ryan, Omaha beach was an absolute nightmare
to take for the allies. It was extremely well defended by many motivated German troops and as
a result the surviving Americans were forced into a stalemate that no one dared to try
and break. That was until, Brigadier General Norman “Dutch” Cota stepped onto the scene.
Cota, to give this story a bit more context, was a gritty West-point single-star general
in his fifties, who spent most of his time with his troops on the field rather than in
a safe office shuffling papers. Although he had every option, and in my opinion, every right,
to essentially retire and live an easy life at headquarters for the remainder of the war,
Cota was imbued with a toughness that would last until his dying breath.
One time, a well-meaning officer even approached him questioning why he took so many risks at
such an old age, to which Cota responded, “Now look, I was a poor country boy from
the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. I heard about West Point, and that it was free,
and I went. I made a contract with the Government; if they paid for my education,
I would serve them. Part of my contract was to die for my country if necessary.
I intend to stick to it. If I get killed, then so be it, but I don’t expect to be.”
In addition to his tough as nails perspective on war and life in general, Cota was no meat-head
either. He was well-versed in battle strategy and trained all his men in a way that aimed
to indoctrinate them in the sights and crashing sounds as well as the confusion of it all. Quoting
Cota again, “The air and naval bombardment and the artillery support are reassuring,
but you’re going to find confusion. The landing craft aren’t going to be on schedule and people
are going to be landed in the wrong place. Some won’t be landed at all. The enemy will try,
and will have some success in preventing our gaining a lodgement. But we must improvise,
carry on and not lose our heads. Nor must we add to the confusion.”
Proving his aptitude for war and strategy, when on June 6th 1944, the allies finally
started landing on the beaches around Normandy, everything he had said, had come true. Omaha was
in absolute chaos. There was noise, confusion, whole units landed in the wrong places, others
still far from shore and just about everybody was pinned down by murderous German Machine-gun fire.
The men of the 29th Infantry division who were still able to walk all sprinted to the base of
a low sea wall 150 yards beyond the water’s edge. As you would expect, they were stunned.
Not one of them expected the ferocity of the German resistance that day and because of this,
the invasion had essentially stopped and the Americans were locked in a stalemate.
Cota was one of the men who had survived the initial landings,
even when the man standing just to right of him, Major John Sours was hit by machine gun
fire and killed on the spot. He didn’t have time to mourn anything or anyone and Cota
tunnel visioned on getting his paralysed men moving and off the blood-stained beach. There
are many different accounts of what Cota did next, but they all follow a similar pattern,
with 51 year old Brigadier General Cota being the common factor in all of them.
When Cota got to the wall next to the men of Fifth US rangers,
who were mixed in because of bad landings, he shouted, “If you’re Rangers, get up and lead
the way!”. Another account says he said “Lead the way rangers!” and a third one says he said “Well,
it looks like the rangers are going to have to get us off this beach.” It was one of the 3,
and who can really blame the mixed accounts on such a day as D-day anyway.
Rallying the men, specialists armed with Bangalore torpedoes
eventually blew vital gaps in the thick barbed wire just beyond the sea wall,
and American soldiers began a slow crawl upward as they advanced the
steep hillside on their way to completely neutralise the German defensive positions.
Cota, now alongside both the 5th US ranger division as well as the 29th infantry division,
helped to forge the path upwards to the German positions. After he got
another specialist to blow a gap in the wire closer to the Germans,
disaster struck and the first brave man who ran through the gap was cut down by machine
gun fire and was sobbing for a “Medic” and his “Mama”. This had a profound effect on the
men and they were once again paralysed. Cota, realising this, decided to show them it could
be done. He then leaped up and dashed across the road and through the gap that was made.
He found cover and shouted for others to follow. A few other brave souls did exactly that and when
they weren’t hurt a snowball effect happened and it convinced dozens more to try it. Soon,
Cota had a sizeable group of men that were the first to break out of the deadly beach
head. The traversed through a mine-ridden field, losing several men in the process,
but they eventually made it to the French village of Vierville, and took it by themselves.
As more and more men streamed through the initial gaps made by Cota and his men,
they saw Cota in the towns main street “twirling his pistol on his index finger like an old west
cowboy.” He looked at all the new-comers, saying “where the hell you been boys?”.
Cota however, wasn’t through with his heroics for the day,
and he proceeded to take a German position with only 6 other men,
who took it from the rear and on June 7th was still embroiled in heavy fighting, at one point,
showing an inexperienced captain how to take house with Germans in it.
Cota led his troops toward a hedge and then screaming like wild men they
unbuckled two grenades and through them in the windows of the house,
then waited for the explosions to go off and kicked the door in and went inside. The
surviving Germans ran out the back doors and back windows to friendly lines. General Cota
then went back to the captain and asked whether he knew how to take a house now.
The stunned captain said yes and Cota said, “I won’t be around to do it for you again. I
can’t do it for everybody!” Nonetheless, Cota did indeed continue kicking doors
down and screaming whilst throwing grenades and typically, he entered a war zone close
behind the head of a column, which was not something often seen by a man of his rank.
Eventually, Cota took a piece of shrapnel to the arm, and was annoyed to be taken out of the fight
for a week. By the end of the month however, due to his heroic acts on the battlefield,
he was given command of his own infantry division, that division being the 28th,
and on August 29th 1944 he marched tall in the Champ Elyees of Paris,
having helped liberate the iconic city from Nazi subjugation.