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Utah Beach

Utah, commonly known as Utah Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), during World War II. The westernmost of the five code-named landing beaches in Normandy, Utah is on the Cotentin Peninsula, west of the mouths of the Douve and Vire rivers. Amphibious landings at Utah were undertaken by United States Army troops, with sea transport, mine sweeping, and a naval bombardment force provided by the United States Navy and Coast Guard as well as elements from the British, Dutch and other Allied navies.

The objective at Utah was to secure a beachhead on the Cotentin Peninsula, the location of important port facilities at Cherbourg. The amphibious assault, primarily by the US 4th Infantry Division and 70th Tank Battalion, was supported by airborne landings of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division. The intention was to rapidly seal off the Cotentin Peninsula, prevent the Germans from reinforcing Cherbourg, and capture the port as quickly as possible. Utah, along with Sword on the eastern flank, was added to the invasion plan in December 1943. These changes doubled the frontage of the invasion and necessitated a month-long delay so that additional landing craft and personnel could be assembled in England. Allied forces attacking Utah faced two battalions of the 919th Grenadier Regiment, part of the 709th Static Infantry Division. While improvements to fortifications had been undertaken under the leadership of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel beginning in October 1943, the troops assigned to defend the area were mostly poorly equipped non-German conscripts.

D-Day at Utah began at 01:30, when the first of the airborne units arrived, tasked with securing the key crossroads at Sainte-Mère-Église and controlling the causeways through the flooded farmland behind Utah so the infantry could advance inland. While some airborne objectives were quickly met, many paratroopers landed far from their drop zones and were unable to fulfill their objectives on the first day. On the beach itself, infantry and tanks landed in four waves beginning at 06:30 and quickly secured the immediate area with minimal casualties. Meanwhile, engineers set to work clearing the area of obstacles and mines, and additional waves of reinforcements continued to arrive. At the close of D-Day, Allied forces had only captured about half of the planned area and contingents of German defenders remained, but the beachhead was secure.

The 4th Infantry Division landed 21,000 troops on Utah at the cost of only 197 casualties. Airborne troops arriving by parachute and glider numbered an additional 14,000 men, with 2,500 casualties. Around 700 men were lost in engineering units, 70th Tank Battalion, and seaborne vessels sunk by the enemy. German losses are unknown. Cherbourg was captured on June 26, but by this time the Germans had destroyed the port facilities, which were not brought back into full operation until September.

Allied planning
The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion of continental Europe within the next year was taken at the Trident Conference, held in Washington in May 1943. The Allies initially planned to launch the invasion on May 1, 1944, and a draft of the plan was accepted at the Quebec Conference in August 1943. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). General Bernard Montgomery was named as commander of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all of the land forces involved in the invasion.

On December 31, 1943, Eisenhower and Montgomery first saw the plan, which proposed amphibious landings by three divisions and two-thirds of an airborne division. The two generals immediately insisted that the scale of the initial invasion be expanded to five divisions, with airborne descents by three divisions, to allow operations on a wider front. The change doubled the frontage of the invasion from 25 mi to 50 mi. This would allow for quicker offloading of men and materiel, make it more difficult for the Germans to respond, and speed up the capture of the port at Cherbourg. Eisenhower and Lieutenant General Omar Bradley selected for Utah the VII Corps. Major General J. Lawton Collins, who had experience with amphibious operations in the Pacific Theater of Operations (though not in the initial assaults), replaced Major General Roscoe Woodruff as commander of VII Corps.

The coastline of Normandy was divided into seventeen sectors, with codenames using a spelling alphabet—from Able, west of Omaha, to Roger on the east flank of Sword. Utah was originally designated "Yoke" and Omaha was "X-ray", from the phonetic alphabet. The two names were changed on 3 March 1944. "Omaha" and "Utah" were probably suggested by Bradley. Eight further sectors were added when the invasion was extended to include Utah. Sectors were further subdivided into beaches identified by the colors Green, Red, and White.

Utah, the westernmost of the five landing beaches, is on the Cotentin Peninsula, west of the mouths of the Douve and Vire rivers. The terrain between Utah and the neighboring Omaha was swampy and difficult to cross, which meant that the troops landing at Utah would be isolated. The Germans had flooded the farmland behind Utah, restricting travel off the beach to a few narrow causeways. To help secure the terrain inland of the landing zone, rapidly seal off the Cotentin Peninsula, and prevent the Germans from reinforcing the port at Cherbourg, two airborne divisions were assigned to airdrop into German territory in the early hours of the invasion.

The need to acquire or produce extra landing craft and troop carrier aircraft for the expanded operation meant that the invasion had to be delayed to June. Production of landing craft was ramped up in late 1943 and continued into early 1944, and existing craft were relocated from other theaters. More than 600 Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft and their crews took a circuitous route to England in early 1944 from Baer Field, Indiana, bringing the number of available troop carrier planes to over a thousand.

Plan of attack
Amphibious landings at Utah were to be preceded by airborne landings further inland on the Cotentin Peninsula commencing shortly after midnight. Forty minutes of naval bombardment was to begin at 05:50, followed by air bombardment, scheduled for 06:09 to 06:27.

The amphibious landing was planned in four waves, beginning at 06:30. The first consisted of 20 Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVPs) carrying four companies from the 8th Infantry Regiment. The ten craft on the right were to land on Tare Green beach, opposite the strongpoint at Les Dunes de Varreville. The ten craft on the left were intended for Uncle Red beach, 1000 yd south. Eight Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs), each carrying four amphibious DD tanks of 70th Tank Battalion, were scheduled to land a few minutes before the infantry.

The second wave, scheduled for 06:35, consisted of 32 LCVPs carrying four more companies of 8th Infantry, as well as combat engineers and naval demolition teams that were to clear the beach of obstacles. The third wave, scheduled for 06:45, consisted of eight LCTs bringing more DD tanks plus armored bulldozers to assist in clearing paths off the beach. It was to be followed at 06:37 by the fourth wave, which had eight Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) and three LCVPs with detachments of the 237th and 299th Combat Engineer Battalions, assigned to clear the beach between the high and low water marks.

Troops involved in Operation Overlord, including members of the 4th Division scheduled to land at Utah, left their barracks in the second half of May and proceeded to their coastal marshalling points. To preserve secrecy, the invasion troops were as much as possible kept out of contact with the outside world. The men began to embark onto their transports on June 1, and the 865 ships of Force U (the naval group assigned to Utah) left from Plymouth on June 3 and 4.

A 24-hour postponement of the invasion necessitated by bad weather meant that one convoy had to be recalled and then hastily refueled at Portland. Convoy U2A from Salcombe and Dartmouth left on 4 June but did not receive the broadcast recall notices, and was headed for France alone. An all-day search by a Walrus reconnaissance biplane located the convoy and dropped two coded messages in canisters; the second one was acknowledged when the convoy was 36 miles from Normandy. The convoy of about 150 vessels was carrying the 4th Infantry Division of Major-General Raymond O. Barton.

The ships met at a rendezvous point (nicknamed "Piccadilly Circus") southeast of the Isle of Wight to assemble into convoys to cross the Channel. Minesweepers began clearing lanes on the evening of June 5.

German preparations
Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, overall commander on the Western Front, reported to Hitler in October 1943 regarding the weak defenses in France. This led to the appointment of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to oversee the construction of enhanced fortifications along the Atlantic Wall, with special emphasis on the most likely invasion front, which stretched from the Netherlands to Cherbourg. Rommel believed that the Normandy coast could be a possible landing point for the invasion, so he ordered the construction of extensive defensive works along that shore. In addition to concrete gun emplacements at strategic points along the coast, he ordered wooden stakes, metal tripods, mines, and large anti-tank obstacles to be placed on the beach to delay the approach of landing craft and impede the movement of tanks. Expecting the Allies to land at high tide so that the infantry would spend less time exposed on the beach, he ordered many of these obstacles to be placed at the high-tide mark. The terrain at Utah is flat, offering no high ground on which to place fortifications. The shallow beach varies in depth from almost nothing to 800 yd, depending on the tides. The Germans flooded the flat land behind the beach by damming up streams and opening the floodgates at the mouth of the Douve to admit seawater.

Defense of this sector of eastern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula was assigned to Generalleutnant Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben and his 709th Static Infantry Division. The unit was not well equipped, lacking motorized transport and provided with captured French, Soviet, and Czech equipment. Many of the men were Ostlegionen (non-German conscripts recruited from Soviet prisoners of war, Georgians, and Poles), known to be deeply unreliable. The southernmost 6 mi of the sector was manned by about 700 troops stationed in nine strongpoints spaced from 1100 to 4400 yd apart. Tangles of barbed wire, booby traps, and the removal of ground cover made both the beach and the terrain around the strongpoints hazardous for infantry. The German 91st Infantry Division and 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment, who arrived in May, were stationed inland as reserves. Detecting this move, the Allies shifted their intended airborne drop zones to the southeast.

D-Day (June 6, 1944)

Bombing of Normandy began around midnight with over 2,200 British and American bombers attacking targets along the coast and further inland. Some 1,200 aircraft departed England just before midnight to transport the airborne divisions to their drop zones behind enemy lines. Paratroops from 101st Airborne were dropped beginning around 01:30, tasked with controlling the causeways behind Utah and destroying road and rail bridges over the Douve. Gathering together into fighting units was made difficult by a shortage of radios and by the bocage terrain, with its hedgerows, stone walls, and marshes. Troops of the 82nd Airborne began arriving around 02:30, with the primary objective of destroying two additional bridges over the Douve and capturing intact two bridges over the Merderet. They quickly captured the important crossroads at Sainte-Mère-Église (the first town liberated in the invasion) and began working to protect the western flank. Generalleutnant Wilhelm Falley, commander of 91st Infantry Division, was trying to return to his headquarters near Picauville from war games at Rennes when he was killed by a paratrooper patrol. Two hours before the main invasion force landed, a raiding party of 132 members of 4th Cavalry Regiment swam ashore at 04:30 at Îles Saint-Marcouf, thought to be a German observation post. It was unoccupied, but two men were killed and seventeen wounded by mines and German artillery fire.

Once the four troop transports assigned to Force U reached their assigned position 12 mi off the coast, 5,000 soldiers of 4th Division and other units assigned to Utah boarded their landing craft in rough seas for the three-hour journey to their designated landing point. The eighteen ships assigned to bombard Utah included the US Navy battleship USS Nevada (BB-36), the Royal Navy monitor HMS Erebus (I02), the heavy cruisers HMS Hawkins (D86) (Royal Navy) and USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) (US Navy), and the gunboat HNLMS Soemba (1925) (Royal Netherlands Navy). Naval bombardment of areas behind the beach commenced at 05:45, while it was still dark, with the gunners switching to pre-assigned targets on the beach as soon as it was light enough to see, at 05:50. USS Corry (DD-463), a destroyer in the bombardment group, sank after it struck a mine while evading fire from the Marcouf battery under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Walter Ohmsen. Since troops were scheduled to land at Utah and Omaha starting at 06:30 (an hour earlier than the British beaches), these areas received only about 40 minutes of naval bombardment before the assault troops began to land on the shore. Coastal air bombardment was undertaken in the twenty minutes immediately prior to the landing by approximately 300 Martin B-26 Marauders of the IX Bomber Command. Due to cloud cover, the pilots decided to drop to low altitudes of 4000 to 6000 ft. Much of the bombing was highly effective, with the loss of only two aircraft.

Landing

The first troops to reach the shore were four companies from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry, arriving at 06:30 on 20 LCVPs. Companies B and C landed on the segment code-named Tare Green, and Companies E and F to their left on Uncle Red. Leonard T. Schroeder, leading Company F, was the first man to reach the beach. The landing craft were pushed to the south by strong currents, and they found themselves near Exit 2 at Grande Dune, about 2000 yd from their intended landing zones opposite Exit 3 at Les Dunes de Varreville. The first senior officer ashore, Assistant Division Commander Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. of the 4th Infantry Division, personally scouted the nearby terrain. He determined that this landing site was actually better, as there was only one strongpoint in the immediate vicinity rather than two, and it had been badly damaged by bombers of IX Bomber Command. In addition, the strong currents had washed ashore many of the underwater obstacles. Deciding to "start the war from right here", he ordered further landings to be re-routed.

The second wave of assault troops arrived at 06:35 on 32 LCVPs. Companies A and D of 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry landed on Tare Green and G and H on Uncle Red. They were accompanied by engineers and demolition teams tasked with removing beach obstacles and clearing the area directly behind the beach of obstacles and mines.

A contingent of the 70th Tank Battalion, comprising 32 amphibious DD tanks on eight LCTs, were supposed to arrive about 10 minutes before the infantry. However, a strong headwind caused them to be about 20 minutes late, even though they launched the tanks 1500 yd from shore rather than 5000 yd as planned. Four tanks of Company A and their personnel were lost when their LCT hit a mine about 3 mi south of Iles St. Marcouf and was destroyed, but the remaining 28 arrived intact.

The third wave, arriving at 06:45, included 16 conventional M4 Sherman tanks and 8 dozer tanks of the 70th Tank Battalion. They were followed at 06:37 by the fourth wave, which had eight LCMs and three LCVPs with detachments of the 237th and 299th Combat Engineer Battalions, assigned to clear the beach between the high and low water marks.

Company B came under small arms fire from defenders positioned in houses along the road as they headed to the enemy strongpoint WN7 near La Madeleine, northwest of La Grande Dune and 600 yd inland. They met little resistance at WN7, the headquarters of 3rd Battalion, 919th Grenadiers. Company C disabled the enemy strongpoint WN5 at La Grande Dune, which had been heavily damaged in the preliminary bombardment. Companies E and F (about 600 men) proceeded inland about 700 yd to strongpoint WN4 at La Dune, which they captured after a short skirmish. They next traveled south on a farm road parallel to the beach towards Causeway 1. Companies G and H moved south along the beach toward enemy strongpoint WN3 at Beau Guillot. They encountered a minefield and came under enemy machine gun fire, but soon captured the position. 70th Tank Battalion was expecting to have to help neutralize beach fortifications in the immediate area, but since this job was quickly completed by the infantry, they had little to do initially. The landing area was almost totally secure by 08:30, at which point combat teams prepared to push further inland along the causeways. Meanwhile, additional waves of reinforcements continued to arrive on the beach.

Removal of mines and obstacles from the beach, a job that had to be performed quickly before the tide came in at 10:30, was the assignment of 237th and 299th Combat Engineer Battalions and the eight dozer tanks. The teams used explosives to destroy beach obstacles and blow gaps in the sea wall to allow quicker access for troops and vehicles. The dozer tanks pushed the wreckage out of the way to create clear lanes for further landings.

Moving inland

The next move for the 4th Division was to begin movement down the three causeways through the flooded farmland behind the beach to link up with the 101st Airborne, who had dropped behind enemy lines before dawn. 2nd Battalion and several tanks headed down Causeway 1 towards Pouppeville, which they discovered had already been captured by the 3/501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. A dozen German infantrymen, trapped between the two Allied forces, surrendered. Causeway 2, directly behind La Grande Dune, eventually became the main exit road off the beach. Securing this causeway required the capture of Ste. Marie du Mont, about 3 mi inland. The Germans had blown a small bridge over a culvert, and movement was delayed while engineers made a repair and cleared two inoperable tanks from the road. Causeway 2 quickly became congested, so some units opted to walk through the flooded areas beside the road. Several hundred defenders were positioned in and around Ste. Marie du Mont, including 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment of the 91st Infantry Division. Members of the 506th Parachute Infantry successfully attacked batteries at Holdy and Brécourt Manor and took Ste. Marie du Mont in house-to-house and street combat, clearing the way for 8th Infantry, 3rd Battalion to advance up Causeway 2 practically unopposed. 8th Infantry, 1st Battalion headed up Causeway 3 towards Audouville-la-Hubert, which had already been captured by the 502nd Parachute Infantry. As at Pouppeville, enemy soldiers (in this case several dozen) were caught between the two converging forces and had to surrender.

Meanwhile, 22nd Infantry, 3rd Battalion and five tanks moved north along the beach, tasked with eliminating as many German strongpoints as possible. They discovered that tank fire could only destroy the concrete pillboxes via a direct hit on the embrasures, so they called for artillery fire from the naval vessels offshore. By evening they had combined with 12th Infantry, who had traveled directly across the flooded fields to a position far short of their target for the day, to form a defensive perimeter on the northern end of the beachhead. On the southern end of the beachhead, about 3,000 men of the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment moved into position near Saint-Côme-du-Mont, preventing the 501st Parachute Infantry from advancing any further on D-Day.

In the center, the 82nd Airborne were able to consolidate their position at Sainte-Mère-Église in part due to the work of First Lieutenant Turner Turnbull and a squad of 43 men, who held off for more than two hours a far larger enemy force that was attempting to retake the crossroads from the north. A task force led by Colonel Edson Raff that included 16 Sherman tanks of the 746th Tank Battalion, four armored cars, and a squad of infantry worked their way up from the beach, but were stopped from reinforcing Sainte-Mère-Église by a line of German defenders 2 mi south of the town. Reinforcements arrived by glider around 04:00 (Mission Chicago and Mission Detroit), and 21:00 (Mission Keokuk and Mission Elmira), bringing additional troops and heavy equipment. Like the paratroopers, many landed far from their drop zones. Even those that landed on target experienced difficulty, with heavy cargo such as Jeeps shifting during landing, crashing through the wooden fuselage, and in some cases crushing personnel on board. German defenders also took a toll on the glider units, with heavy losses inflicted in the area near Sainte-Mère-Église in particular. Members of the 82nd Airborne who had landed west of the Merderet were widely scattered and surrounded by enemy forces. They quickly realized that they would be unable to achieve their D-day objectives and would have to wait for reinforcements. It took several days for this to happen as the Germans set up defensive positions along the river. For 36 hours, 82nd Airborne were unable to establish radio contact with other units or with Collins aboard his command ship, USS Bayfield (APA-33).

The 82nd Airborne were finally relieved by the 90th Infantry Division, who began disembarking at 16:00 on D-Day and were all ashore by June 8. The original plan for the 90th had been that they should push north toward the port of Cherbourg, but Collins changed their assignment: they were to cut across the Cotentin Peninsula, isolating the German forces therein and preventing reinforcements from entering the area. Their poor performance led to their being replaced by the more experienced 82nd Airborne and 9th Infantry Division, who reached the west coast of the Cotentin on June 17, cutting off Cherbourg. The 9th Division, joined by the 4th and 79th Infantry Divisions, took control of the peninsula in fierce fighting. Cherbourg fell during the Battle of Cherbourg on June 26, but by this time the Germans had destroyed the port facilities, which were not brought back into full operation until September.

Result

The 4th Infantry Division did not meet all their D-Day objectives at Utah, partly because they had arrived too far to the south. They suffered 197 casualties. Airborne troops arriving by parachute and glider numbered an additional 14,000 men, with 2,500 casualties. Around 700 men were lost in engineering units, 70th Tank Battalion, and LCTs and other vessels sunk by the enemy. German losses are unknown.

Forces landing on Utah cleared the immediate area in less than an hour, and penetrated 6 mi inland by the close of D-Day. Within two hours of landing, the 82nd Airborne captured the important crossroads at Sainte-Mère-Église, but they failed to neutralize the line of defenses along the Merderet on D-Day as planned. While many of the airborne forces landed far from their drop zones and were unable to meet all their D-Day objectives, this widespread scattering of forces had the unintended side effect of confusing the German defenders, who were slow to react.

The highly trained 4th Division faced a mediocre German unit composed of conscripts; all the best troops of the 709th Division had been sent to the Eastern Front. The Allies achieved and maintained air superiority, which meant that the Germans were unable to make observations of preparations underway in Britain prior to the invasion and were unable to launch airborne counterassaults on D-Day. Extensive Allied reconnaissance provided the attackers with detailed maps of the defenses and terrain. Unlike neighboring Omaha, the preliminary aerial bombardment was highly effective at Utah. Indecisiveness and an overcomplicated command structure on the part of the German high command was also a factor in the Allied success at Utah and throughout the Normandy campaign.

title: Utah Beach


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Hotel Marshall

The Marshall Grand (Formerly Hotel Marshall) is a high-rise hotel in Marshall, the county seat of Harrison County, Texas.

The building was constructed about 1929 and is noted for its art-deco elements.

In actuality it draws from several styles that were popular at the time. The hotel was originally called "The Marshall" and was one of three (The Kaufman in Kaufman and The Gibraltar in Paris) of the Pethybridge Hotel Co. ventures in East Texas.

History
On March 8, 1929 the property that Hotel Marshall now stands on was sold for $30,461.30 to S.B. (Sam) Perkins.

Sam Perkins, a local merchant, commissioned Wyatt Hedrick to design a hotel next to his Perkins' Brothers Store in Marshall. A fire in 1949 destroyed the store and part of the hotel.

Construction of the building was pushed to be completed by the annual Regional Rotary Club convention. Bobby Manziel, a Tyler, Texas, oil man, bought the Hotel Marshall on July 28, 1956. He renamed the hotel after himself and unexpectedly died a year later. Mrs. Manziel sold the hotel to Earl Hollandsworth for $225,000 in 1957.

Hollandsworth planned a major renovation for the hotel in the 1950s. He put up $125,000 to help finance it. The Chamber of Commerce raised $100,000 and local citizens gave another $100,000. The local businessmen made a deal with Hollandsworth to loan $250,000 to finance the remodeling. The building between the Hotel Marshall and the Capitol Hotel was torn down. A swimming pool and patio were put in its place.

The hotel was one of the major attractions in East Texas in the mid 20th century; complete with an elaborate red carpet, bellhops, valets, and a shoeshine stand in the basement. The building was the center of the city's social scene during the late 1940s. The Rotarians, Kiwanis, and Lions Club met there every week with the day of the meeting on a rotating schedule. Many of the African American performers who entertained them were forced to ride the freight elevator rather than the main elevator to the Roof Garden. The patio was the site of many fashion shows. The Marshall Club is, perhaps, the greatest example of this period of the building’s history. The Marshall Club was a private social club for some of Marshall’s most affluent families. The members of the club had a special part of the hotel designated for them: the mezzanine. A Christmas party was held every year as well as two to three other parties throughout the year. The most common activity, bingo, was played every week. The members financed the club themselves, allowing it to be extremely elegant.

While the 1958 remodeling elevated some of Hotel Marshall's luster it also created problems. In earlier times the hotel had two stoves, one for the Roof Garden and one reserved for room service. Hollandsworth removed one of them and replaced it with a hot plate in the newly created coffee shop. This increased pressure on the kitchen to get food out fast to both guests and shop customers. Two elevators would have been perfectly adequate if one had not been used as a freight elevator. On nights when there were events hosted in the hotel, the lobby could get very congested.

Another problem was that the remodeling placed the thermostats in the halls instead of the rooms. With the opening of motels in Marshall, Hotel Marshall’s dominance began to buckle. Businessmen began to complain about no return on their investments in the hotel. Management was changed almost monthly, hampering the clockwork precision a hotel should have. The social center began to drift away as the rich and middle-class families abandoned the city center for suburbs such as Jasper Heights and Bel Air. The coffee shop's hours were reduced and the Roof Garden was closed. Businessmen began to suggest motels over the Hotel Marshall, due to the chaotic conditions of its management. This final blow forced the hotel to close its doors.

East Texas Baptist University purchased the hotel in 1973. It was to be used as a dormitory for boys, until the completion of a new dormitory. With the new dormitory completed the Hotel Marshall was once again abandoned. Through change in various ownerships and restoration ideas and projects 1980s and 1990s, none materialized. By 2000 the letters of the Hotel Marshall sign were deteriorating and toppling down onto the roof. The north face's seventh floor balcony and second floor balcony’s light posts had been removed, the windows were busted out, and the Roof Garden had been stripped of its mural. Jerry Cargill and Richard and Christina Anderson purchased the building and have begun renovating the hotel with help from local investors and aid from the city commission. The entire building was gutted with the first floor restored converting the lobby into a reception area and restoring the coffee shop area into a restaurant which was leased to Stottford House. A new elevator system was installed and the second floor was converted to a condominium. Floors 3-8 remained construction ready.

In August 2013 Mr. and Mrs. Cargill gifted The Marshall Grand to East Texas Baptist University. On Friday, March 25, 2016 Stottford House closed due to change of building ownership. ETBU has plans of expanding its campus presence to downtown Marshall utilizing The Marshall Grand including adding a popular coffee shop. The first floor continues to be available for lease for social events.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hotel Marshall


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Talk:Shorthand

Dating confusions (Europe and North America)
The section Europe and North America has some confusing mistakes about dating the systems. It dates John Willis' system to 1602, Edmond Willis' system to 1618, and Thomas Shelton's first system to 1626. It also states that Shelton borrowed from Edmond Willis to design his system. However, at List_of_shorthand_systems John Willis' system is dated to 1618, Edmond Willis' system to 1627, and Thomas Shelton's first system to 1626. Not only are the dates different (and with individual citations, unlike on this page) but the dates make it implausible for Shelton to have based his system on Edmond Willis' system. I don't know which page is right, but the discrepancy needs to be corrected somehow. 2601:441:4400:1740:A58F:9116:857A:AB26 (talk) 18:36, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Now I have found a reference to John Willis publishing something about Shorthand (his system?) in 1602: on page xv of "The 'instruction book' ... Pocknell's Legible shorthand". 2601:441:4400:1740:A58F:9116:857A:AB26 (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is another source, supporting the dates in this article over the dates in the List article: https://metilli.com/files/Metilli-Odyssey-2014-05-05.pdf (p. 3). 2601:441:4400:1740:A58F:9116:857A:AB26 (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Shorthand


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National Institutes of Technology (India)

The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are centrally funded technical institutes under the ownership of the Ministry of Education, Government of India. They are governed by the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education, and Research Act, 2007, which declared them institutions of national importance and laid down their powers, duties, and framework for governance. The act lists 31 NITs. Each NIT is autonomous and linked to the others through a common council known as the Council of NITSER, which oversees their administration. All NITs are funded by the Government of India.

In 2020, National Institutional Ranking Framework ranked twenty four NITs in the top 200 in engineering category. The language of instruction is English at all these institutes. As of 2024, the total number of seats for undergraduate programs is 24,229 and the total number of seats for postgraduate programs is 11,428.

History
During the second five-year plan (1956–60) in India, a number of industrial projects were contemplated. The Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) were established by the central government to mimic the IITs at a regional level and act as benchmarks for the other colleges in that state. The admission used to be highly selective. Students topping the respective state's 12th board exam could be admitted at the REC of their state. Thus, 17 RECs were established from 1959 onwards in each of the major states. Each college was a joint and cooperative enterprise of the central government and the concerned state government. The government opened 9 RECs in 1960, 2 on average in each region, as follows: Later on, 6 more were added by 1967. The early 15 institutes were Srinagar, Warangal, Calicut, Durgapur, Kurukshetra, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Nagpur, Rourkela, Surathkal, Surat, Tiruchirappalli, Bhopal, Allahabad, and Silchar. It established 2 more, one in Hamirpur in 1986, and another in Jalandhar in 1987.

These were large-sized institutions judged by the standards then prevailing in the country. The considerations that weighed in this decision were:

A large-sized college would be more efficient than the equivalent small colleges, the proposed colleges have to meet the additional requirements of the country as a whole and for that purpose should have to function on an all-India basis. Therefore, the smaller they are in number and the larger in size, the better, and for the same reason their location is important from an all-India point of view.

The RECs were jointly operated by the central government and the concerned state government. Non-recurring expenditures and expenditures for post-graduate courses during the REC period were borne by the central government while recurring expenditure on undergraduate courses was shared equally by central and state governments. They were considered to be the best government engineering colleges after the IITs in India even before their upgrade to National Institutes of Technology.

The success of the technology-based industry led to high demand for technical and scientific education. Due to the enormous costs and infrastructure involved in creating globally respected Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), in 2002 Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Minister Murli Manohar Joshi decided to upgrade RECs to "National Institutes of Technology" (NITs) instead of creating IITs. The central government controls NITs and provides all funding. In 2002, all RECs became NITs. The upgrade was designed along the lines of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) after it was concluded that RECs had potential as proven by the success of their alumni and their contributions in the field of technical education and that they were on par with the IITs. Subsequently, funding and autonomy for NITs increased, and they award degrees that have raised their graduates' perceived value. These changes implemented recommendations of the "High Powered Review Committee" (HPRC). The HPRC, chaired by R. A. Mashelkar, submitted its report entitled "Strategic Road Map for Academic Excellence of Future RECs" in 1998.

By 2006, MHRD issued NIT status to 3 more colleges, located at Patna (Bihar Engineering College, a 110-year-old college), Raipur (Government Engineering College, Raipur), and Agartala (Tripura Engineering College). Based on the request of state governments and feasibility, future NITs are either converted from existing institutes or can be freshly created. In 2010, the government announced setting up ten more new NITs in the remaining states/territories, leading to a total of 30 NITs. This would lead to every state in India having its own NIT.

With the technology-based industry's continuing growth, the government decided to upgrade twenty National Institutes of Technology to full-fledged technical universities. Parliament passed enabling legislation, the National Institutes of Technology Act in 2007 and took effect on 15 August of that year. The target is to fulfill the need for quality manpower in the field of engineering, science, and technology and to provide consistent governance, fee structure, and rules across the NITs. The law designates each NIT an Institute of National Importance (INI).

The Parliament of India on 1 August 2016 passed a bill to establish the 31st as well as the newest NIT, NIT Andhra Pradesh, on a day members of parliament of the ruling Telugu Desam Party from the state staged a protest to demand special category status. The National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was passed by Rajya Sabha by voice vote. The bill was passed in Lok Sabha on 21 July 2016.

Organisational structure
The President of India is the ex officio visitor of all the NITs. The NIT Council works directly under him/her and it includes the minister-in-charge of technical education in Central Government, the chairmen and the Directors of all the NITs, the Chairman of University Grants Commission (UGC), the Director-General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Directors of other selected central institutions of repute, members of Parliament, Joint Council Secretary of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), nominees of the Central Government, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the Visitor.

Below the NIT Council is each NIT's Board of Governors. The Board of Governors of each NIT consists of the following members:

 * Chairman - an eminent technologist / engineer / educationist to be nominated by the Government of India.
 * Member Secretary - Director of the NIT.
 * Nominee of the MHRD, Government of India.
 * Nominee of the Department of the Higher / Technical Education of the respective state government.
 * Head of another technical institution in the region or an eminent technologist to be nominated by Central Govt.
 * Director, IIT (in the region) or his nominee.
 * Nominee of the UGC not below the rank of a Deputy Secretary.
 * Nominee of the AICTE not below the rank of an Advisor.
 * An alumnus of the institute from amongst alumni in education/industry to be nominated by Board of Governors.
 * Two representatives representing large, medium and small scale industries to be nominated by Central Government.
 * One Professor and one assistant professor of the institute by rotation.

The Director serves under the Board of Governors and is the school's chief academic and executive officer. Academic policies are decided by its Senate, which is composed of some professors and other representatives. The Senate controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations, and results. Senate committees examine specific academic matters. The teaching, training, and research activities of various departments of the institute are periodically reviewed to maintain educational standards. The Director is the ex officio Chairman of the Senate. The deputy director is subordinate to the Director. Together they manage the Deans, Heads of Departments, Registrar, President of the Students' Council, and Chairman of the Hall Management Committee. Deans and Heads of Departments in NITs are administrative postings rather than career paths. Faculty members serve as Deans and Heads of Departments for limited periods, typically 2 to 3 years, then returning to regular faculty duties. The Registrar is the chief administrative officer and overviews day-to-day operations. Below the Head of Department (HOD), are the various faculty members (professors, assistant professors, and lecturers). The Warden serves under the Chairman of the Hall Management Committee.

NITSER Act
The National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (NITSER) Act, 2007 was enacted by the Parliament of India to declare India's National Institutes of Technology as Institutes of National Importance. The Act received the assent of the President of India on 5 June 2007 and became effective on Independence Day, 2007. The Act is the second law for technical education institutions after the Institutes of Technology Act of 1961.

Council of NITSER
The Council of NITSER is the supreme governing body of India's National Institutes of Technology (NIT) system. The Council of NITSER consists of chairmen, directors of all NITs along with the government nominees from various sectors with the Minister of Education as the chairman of the council. The Council of NITSER is the highest decision-making body in the NIT fraternity and is answerable only to the Government of India. The Council of NITSER is expected to meet regularly and take steps conducive for maximum growth of the NITs as whole in the near future.

Education
The NITs along with the IITs receive comparatively higher grants than other engineering colleges in India. Average NIT funding increased to ₹100 crores ($15.4 million) by 2011. On average, each NIT also receives ₹ 20-25 crore ($3-3.8 million) under World Bank funded Technical Education Quality Improvement Program (TEQIP I and TEQIP II). Other sources of funds include student fees and research funding from industry and contributions from the alumni. The faculty-to-student ratio in the NITs is between 1:7 and 1:9. The cost borne by undergraduate students is around ₹ 250,000 (~$3600) per annum. After students from SC and ST categories, physically challenged students will now be the beneficiaries of fee waiver at the NITs in India.

The various NITs function autonomously, and their special status as Institutes of National Importance facilitates the smooth running of NITs, virtually free from both regional as well as a student politics. Such autonomy means that NITs can create their own curricula and adapt rapidly to the changes in educational requirements, free from bureaucratic hurdles. The medium of instruction in all NITs is English. The classes are usually held between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm, though there are some variations within each NIT. All the NITs have public libraries for the use of their students. In addition to a collection of prescribed books, the libraries have sections for fiction and other literary genres. Electronic libraries allow students access to online journals and other periodicals through the AICTE-INDEST consortium, an initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Students also have access to IEEE documents and journals.

The academic policies of each NIT are decided by its Senate. This comprises all professors of the NIT and student representatives. Unlike many western universities that have an elected senate, the NITs have an academic senate. It controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations and results, and appoints committees to look into specific academic matters. The teaching, training and research activities of the institute are periodically reviewed by the senate to maintain educational standards. The Director of NIT is the ex-officio Chairman of the Senate.

Stringent faculty recruitment and industry collaboration also contribute to NIT success. Faculty other than lecturers must have a DTech and relevant teaching and industry experience. Existing faculty who do not meet these criteria enroll under a Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) at IITs and IISc.

All the NITs follow the credits system of performance evaluation, with a proportional weighting of courses based on their importance. The total marks (usually out of 100) form the basis of grades, with a grade value (out of 10) assigned to a range of marks. Sometimes, relative grading is done considering the overall performance of the whole class. For each semester, the students are graded on a scale of 0 to 10 based on their performance, by taking a weighted average of the grade points from all the courses, with their respective credit points. Each semester evaluation is done independently and then the weighted average overall semesters is used to calculate the cumulative grade point average (CGPA).

Undergraduate education
The Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree is the most common undergraduate degree in the NITs in terms of student enrollment. The BTech course is based on a 4-year program with eight semesters, while the Dual Degree and Integrated courses are 5-year programs with ten semesters. In all NITs, the first year of BTech and Dual Degree courses are marked by a common course structure for all the students, though in some NITs, a single department introduction related course is also included. The common courses include the basics from most of the departments like electronics, mechanics, chemistry, electrical, and physics. At the end of the first year, some NITs offer an option to the meritorious students to change departments on the basis of their performance in the first two semesters. Few such changes ultimately take place as the criteria for them are usually strict, limited to the most meritorious students. Few NITs also offer 5-year Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) and 4-year Bachelor of Science (BSc) degrees.

From the second year onwards, the students study subjects exclusively from their respective departments. In addition to these, the students have to take compulsory advanced courses from other departments in order to broaden their education. Separate compulsory courses from humanities and social sciences department, and sometimes management courses are also enforced. In the last year of their studies, most of the students are placed into industries and organizations via the placement process of the respective NIT, though some students opt out of this either when going for higher studies or when they take up jobs by applying to the companies directly.

Master degrees
The NITs offer a number of postgraduate programs including Master of Technology (MTech), Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Science (MSc) and Master of Computer Applications (MCA). Some of the NITs offer an M.S. (by research) program; the MTech and M.S. are similar to the US universities' non-thesis (course-based) and thesis (research-based) masters programs respectively. Admissions to masters programs in engineering are made using scores of the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), while those to masters programs in science are made using scores of the Joint Admission Test to MSc (JAM).

14 NITs, including NIT Allahabad, NIT Bhopal, NIT Calicut, NIT Hamirpur, NIT Jaipur, NIT Jalandhar, NIT Kurukshetra, NIT Rourkela, NIT Silchar, NIT Karnataka, NIT Warangal, NIT Durgapur, NIT Tiruchirappalli, and NIT Agartala have separate departments or schools of management offering master's degrees in management or business administration. Additionally, NIT Arunachal Pradesh also offers an Online MBA program and an M.Tech. in Appropriate Technology and Entrepreneurship, which is perhaps the only one among the NITs.

Bachelors-Masters dual degrees
The NITs also offer an unconventional BTech and MTech integrated educational program called "Dual Degree". It integrates undergraduate and postgraduate studies in selected areas of specialisation. It is completed in five years as against six years in conventional BTech (four years) followed by an MTech (two years). Integrated Master of Science programs is also offered at few NITs which integrates the Undergraduate and Postgraduate studies in Science streams in a single degree program against the conventional university system. These programs were started to allow NITians to complete postgraduate studies from NIT rather than having to go to another institute. NIT Rourkela and NIT Agartala have such systems..

Doctoral degrees
The NITs also offer the Doctor of Technology degree (D.Tech.) as part of their doctoral education program. In it, the candidates are given a topic of academic interest by the professor or have to work on a consultancy project given by the industries. The duration of the program is usually unspecified and depends on the specific discipline. DTech candidates have to submit a dissertation as well as provide an oral defence for their thesis. Teaching Assistantships (TA) and Research Assistantships (RA) are often provided. The NITs, along with IITs and IISc, account for nearly 80% of all engineering PhDs in India.

Campus life
NITs provide on-campus housing to students, research scholars, and faculty members. Students live in hostels, also known as halls, throughout their college life.

Faculties and researchers from IITs, ISM and IISc organize occasional technical seminars and research labs.

Student government
Some NITs individually conduct elections to elect student body a general secretary and vice president. These representatives are generally responsible for communicating with the college management and media, organising festivals, and also for various development programmes in their college. Some NITs (such as NIT Rourkela, NIT Surat, and NIT Nagpur) have recently adopted online voting process. The committee which monitors the flow of funds has a student body representative. This committee also includes the chairman of board, an MHRD representative, and NIT professors. Due to some disturbance in the voting process, student elections were stopped in 2008 in SVNIT, Surat. They were, however, resumed in 2015 and are continuing hence.

Disciplinary committee
The Disciplinary Committee (DISCO) consists of the Director, the student affairs officer, and professors. and reports to MHRD. DISCO regulates student activities and combats student harassment and illegitimate student politics. After a series of harassment incidents, all NITs took strict measures especially to protect first-year students.

Extra-curricular activities
Popular extra curricular activities include National Cadet Corps (NCC), National Service Scheme (NSS), Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), and annual college festivities. Students at NITs run hobby clubs such as Linux User Groups (LUGs), music clubs, debate clubs, literary clubs, and web design teams. Students also publish campus magazines which showcase student creativity and journalism. The first Linux User group in India, Bharat Linux User Group, was formed in early 1997 at NIT Surat (SVNIT). Students conduct regular quizzes and cultural programs. They also present research papers and participate in national level technical festivals at IITs, IISc and NITs. Most NITs promote entrepreneurship by creating on-campus incubation centers under the STEP program.

Technical and cultural festivals
All NITs organise annual technical festivals, typically lasting three or four days. The technical festivals are Avishkar (NIT Allahabad), Technosearch (NIT Bhopal), Tathva (NIT Calicut), Terratechnica (NIT Delhi), Gyanith (NIT Puducherry), Aarohan (NIT Durgapur), Nimbus (NIT Hamirpur), Sphinx (NIT Jaipur), TechNITi (NIT Jalandhar), Ojass (NIT Jamshedpur), Techspardha (NIT Kurukshetra), AXIS (NIT Nagpur), Corona (NIT Patna), Aavartan (NIT Raipur), Innovision (NIT Rourkela), Tecnoesis (NIT Silchar), Techvaganza (NIT Srinagar), MindBend (NIT Surat), Engineer (NIT Karnataka), Pragyan (NIT Tiruchirappalli), Technozion (NIT Warangal), Technival (NIT Goa), Morphosis (NIT Mizoram), Cognitia (NIT Meghalaya), Technovya (NIT Nagaland), Addovedi (NIT Arunachal Pradesh), AAYAM (NIT Agartala), Cliffesto (NIT Uttarakhand) and Abhiyantran (NIT Sikkim). Most of them are organised in the months of January or March. Pragyan (NIT Tiruchirappalli) the first student-run organization in the world and the third overall next only to London 2012 Summer Olympics and Manchester United to get an ISO 20121:2012 Certification for Sustainable Event Management. It is also the largest in terms of Sponsorship amounts and also branded as a techno-management festival due to its emphasis on both technology and management.

Alumni
Many NIT alumni have achieved leading positions in corporations, such as:
 * Natarajan Chandrasekaran (chairman, Tata Sons)
 * Rajesh Gopinathan (CEO, Tata Consultancy Services)
 * T. V. Narendran (CEO, Tata Steel)
 * C. P. Gurnani (CEO, Mahindra Satyam)
 * K. V. Kamath (Chief, BRICS New Development Bank, Shanghai; Former CEO of ICICI Bank; Padma Bhushan Awardee)
 * Srini Raju (chairman, Peepul Capital, iLabs VCF, Former CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions & Satyam)
 * K. R. Sridhar (Founder and CEO, Bloom Energy)
 * Shyam Srinivasan (CEO and MD, Federal Bank)
 * Abid Ali Neemuchwala (Former CEO of Wipro)
 * Sudhir Vasudeva (Former Chairman & MD at ONGC)
 * Dinesh Keskar (Senior VP, Boeing Aircraft Trading and Head Boeing India)
 * Rao Remala (First Indian employee of Microsoft)
 * Rajeev Madhavan (Founder, Magma Design Automation, venture capitalist in USA. on the Dean's advisory board at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering)
 * Pawan Munjal (chairman, MD & CEO, Hero Motocorp)
 * Atul Sobti (Former Chairman and MD of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited)

NIT alumni have also pursued careers in public service; for example:

 * Kavuri Samba Siva Rao (Former Union Minister, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India)
 * Vinod Kumar Yadav (Chairman of Indian Railways Board)
 * Deepak Khandekar (Chief Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs)
 * Thomas Abraham (Chairman of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin, coined the term PIO)
 * Dawood Danesh Jafari (Minister of Finance & Economic Affairs, Iran)
 * Ajit Jogi (First chief minister of Chhattisgarh also a former lecturer at National Institute of Technology Raipur)
 * Sanjiv Chaturvedi (IFS officer who has exposed many corruption cases in Haryana and AIIMS; received the Presidential reference a record four times and the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2015)
 * Deep Joshi (Recipient of Magsaysay award & Padma Shri, Social activist, founder of PRADAN (NGO))
 * Hemant Karkare (Chief, Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), martyred during the November 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks)
 * Nitish Kumar (Chief minister of Bihar)
 * V. V. Lakshminarayana (Former Joint Director for India's Central Bureau of Investigation)
 * Suresh Pachouri (Member of Parliament)
 * Ram Vinay Shahi (Longest-serving power secretary of India)
 * Abhishek Singh (Member of Parliament from Rajnandgaon Region)
 * Prafulla Kumar Das (Engineer-in-chief, Odisha (Retd.))
 * Balram Singh Yadav (Chief Engineer, Irrigation Department, Uttar Pradesh)
 * Malli Mastan Babu (Mountaineer and Motivational speaker, Andhra Pradesh)
 * Sonam Wangchuk (Engineer, Innovator and Education reformist)
 * Mansoor Ali Khan (Member of the 13th Lok Sabha)
 * Budhaditya Mukherjee (Padma Shri recipient and first artist in history to perform in the House of Commons, London)
 * Palanivel Thiagarajan (Minister of Finance and Human Resources, Tamil Nadu)

Notable alumni in academics and research include:
 * Madhavan Swaminathan (Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology)
 * Guruswami Ravichandran (Recipient of 2013 Eringen Medal and Chair of Engineering Division, California Institute of Technology)
 * Nambirajan Seshadri (Recipient of 2018 IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal and Professor of Practice, University of California, San Diego)
 * Anindya Ghose (Professor, New York University Stern School of Business)
 * Rajkumar Chellaraj (CFO and Associate Dean, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University)
 * Avinash Kumar Agarwal (mechanical engineer, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate)
 * Akhilesh K. Gaharwar (Professor, Texas A&M University)
 * Siva S. Banda (Director of the Control Science Center of Excellence and Chief Scientist for the Aerospace Systems Directorate at the United States Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base)
 * Lalit Goel (Professor and Head of Electrical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University)
 * Baldev Raj (Padma Shri awardee, former director of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, currently the Chairman of Board of Governors at National Institute of Technology Puducherry)
 * B. N. Singh (Chairman of ICTACEM, Professor & Dean of Human Resource, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur)
 * Vallabh Sambamurthy (Dean of the Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin, Madison)
 * Onkar Singh (Founder Vice Chancellor of Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology)
 * Dharma Agrawal (Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computing Systems at the University of Cincinnati)


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Wikipedia talk:Historical archive/Logs/Offline reports/This article has a lot of links

Possibly this has been taken in account, but "en_links_table.sql.gz" (and the link table on Wikipedia) includes many duplicates due to a database problem. This is especially true for longer lists. -- User:Docu

 * Yes - I'm recreating the links table from scratch each time I import a database dump. Appreciate the comment, please do point out other foibles I may have missed. - TB 17:39, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

 * It's rather something that came up in a query of mine. BTW I updated Orphaned Articles -- User:Docu


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Gary Morton

Gary Morton (born Morton Goldaper; December 19, 1924 – March 30, 1999) was an American stand-up comedian whose primary venues were hotels and resorts of the Borscht Belt in upstate New York. He was born in New York City, the son of Morris Goldaper and Rose Greenfeder Goldaper, and had a sister, Helen. Later, he was a producer and studio executive, in association with his second wife, Lucille Ball.

Personal life
Morton married actress Susan Morrow on December 17, 1953. They separated in August 1954 and finally on July 11, 1957, the marriage was annulled in Los Angeles.

In 1960, Morton met Lucille Ball in New York City a few months before she opened on Broadway in the musical Wildcat. Morton claimed he was always busy working nights, so had not seen the popular series I Love Lucy. They were married on November 19, 1961, at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. Morton signed a prenuptial agreement to stifle rumors that he was a gold digger. Morton was 13 years younger than Lucille Ball.

Morton became closely involved in the management of his wife's career, from the time of their marriage in 1961 throughout the remainder of her career. During Ball's solo years as the titular head of Desilu Productions, Morton and his brother-in-law, Fred Ball, served on the studio's board of directors in various capacities.

Later, Morton's effectiveness in his duties came under some scrutiny and criticism. Most notable of these denouncements came from Herbert F. Solow and Robert H. Justman, whose dealings with Morton during the production of the original Star Trek television series are documented in their 1996 book Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. Others, including Grant Tinker, came forward with their own recollections of Morton's tenure at Desilu.

Most critics cite Morton's construction of a "European Street" — a ¾-scale replica of a European-styled business district street — as being a wasteful use of studio funds at a time when frugality was a necessity. According to Desilu and Paramount financial records, and as reported by Solow and Justman, not one television or theatrical production was filmed on this set before it was demolished in 1977.

After the sale of Desilu to Gulf+Western in 1967, Morton helped Ball form Lucille Ball Productions to allow her to have more of a free hand in television production. Morton served as executive producer of Ball's third series Here's Lucy (1968–1974), and was a co-executive producer of her ill-fated 1986 series Life with Lucy. Aside from producing tasks, he warmed up Ball's audiences before her entrance. He also played bit parts in Ball's various series and acted occasionally in films. He played fictional Borscht Belt comedian, Sherman Hart, in Lenny (1974). On February 15, 1983, Ball and Morton launched a film-and-television partnership with film studio 20th Century-Fox, where Fox gave Ball access to theatrical films, plays, made-for-television movies, a 20-hour mini-series and a sitcom.

In 1996, Morton married Susie McAllister. On March 30, 1999, he died of lung cancer at the age of 74 in Palm Springs, California.

title: Gary Morton


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Gold Beach

Gold, commonly known as Gold Beach, was the code name for one of the five areas of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during the Second World War. Gold, the central of the five areas, was located between Port-en-Bessin on the west and the Lieu-dit La Rivière in Ver-sur-Mer on the east. High cliffs at the western end of the zone meant that the landings took place on the flat section between Le Hamel and La Rivière, in the sectors code-named Jig and King. Taking Gold was to be the responsibility of the British Army, with sea transport, mine sweeping, and a naval bombardment force provided by the Royal Navy as well as elements from the Dutch, Polish and other Allied navies.

The objectives at Gold were to secure a beachhead, move west to capture Arromanches and establish contact with the American forces at Omaha, capture Bayeux and the small port at Port-en-Bessin, and to link up with the Canadian forces at Juno to the east. Forces attacking Gold faced elements of the German 352nd Infantry Division and German 716th Infantry Division. About 2,000 men were stationed in the immediate area. Improvements to fortifications along the Normandy coast had been undertaken under the leadership of Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel beginning in October 1943.

On D-Day at Gold, naval bombardment got underway at 05:30, and amphibious landings commenced at 07:25. High winds made conditions difficult for the landing craft, and the amphibious DD tanks were released close to shore or directly on the beach instead of further out as planned. Three of the four guns in a large emplacement at the Longues-sur-Mer battery were disabled by direct hits from the cruisers HMS Ajax (22) and HMS Argonaut (61) at 06:20. The fourth gun resumed firing intermittently in the afternoon, and its garrison surrendered on 7 June. Aerial attacks had failed to hit the Le Hamel strongpoint, which had its embrasure facing east to provide enfilade fire along the beach and had a thick concrete wall on the seaward side. Its 75 mm gun continued to do damage until 16:00, when an Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) tank fired a large petard bomb into its rear entrance. A second casemated emplacement at La Rivière containing an 88 mm gun was neutralised by a tank at 07:30.

Meanwhile, infantry began clearing the heavily fortified houses along the shore and advanced on targets further inland. The British Commandos of No. 47 (Royal Marine) Commando advanced on Port-en-Bessin and captured it on 7 June in the Battle of Port-en-Bessin. On the western flank, the 1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment captured Arromanches (future site of one of the artificial Mulberry harbours), and 69th Infantry Brigade on the eastern flank made contact with the Canadian forces at Juno. Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis received the only Victoria Cross awarded on D-Day for his actions while attacking two pillboxes at the Mont Fleury battery. Due to stiff resistance from the German 352nd Infantry Division, Bayeux was not captured until the next day. British casualties at Gold are estimated at 1,000–1,100. German casualties are unknown.

Operation Overlord

After the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin began pressing for the creation of a second front in Western Europe. The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion of continental Europe within the next year was taken at the Trident Conference, held in Washington in May 1943. The Allies initially planned to launch the invasion on 1 May 1944, and a draft of the plan was accepted at the Quebec Conference in August 1943. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). General Bernard Montgomery was named as commander of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all of the land forces involved in the invasion.

On 31 December 1943, Eisenhower and Montgomery first saw the plan, which proposed amphibious landings by three divisions and two-thirds of an airborne division. The two generals immediately insisted that the scale of the initial invasion be expanded to five divisions, with airborne descents by three divisions, to allow operations on a wider front. The change doubled the frontage of the invasion from 25 mi to 50 mi. This would allow for quicker offloading of men and materiel, make it more difficult for the Germans to respond, and speed up the capture of the port at Cherbourg. The need to acquire or produce extra landing craft and troop carrier aircraft for the expanded operation meant that the invasion had to be delayed to June.

The Americans, assigned to land at Utah and Omaha, were to cut off the Cotentin Peninsula and capture the port facilities at Cherbourg. The British at Sword and Gold, and the Canadians at Juno, were to capture Caen and form a front line from Caumont-l'Éventé to the south-east of Caen to protect the American flank, while establishing airfields near Caen. Possession of Caen and its surroundings would provide a suitable staging area for a push south to capture the town of Falaise. A secure lodgement would be established and an attempt made to hold all territory north of the Avranches-Falaise line during the first three weeks. The Allied armies would then swing left to advance towards the River Seine. Montgomery envisaged a ninety-day battle, ending when all the forces reached the Seine.

Allied planning
Originally, seventeen sectors along the Normandy coastline had been selected as possible invasion sites and each were provided with a code name taken from one of the spelling alphabets of the time. The coast was divided between Able, west of Omaha, to Rodger on the eastern flank of the invasion area. Eight further sectors were added when the planned invasion was extended to include Utah. Each sector was further subdivided into beaches identified by the colours Green, Red, and White. Gold did not refer to a particular beach but to a landing area. It was delineated by Port-en-Bessin on the west and La Rivière on the east, and included Arromanches, location of one of the artificial Mulberry harbours that were to be constructed shortly after the invasion. High cliffs at the western end of the zone meant that the landings would be undertaken on the flat beach between Le Hamel and La Rivière, in the sectors code-named Jig and King. The area immediately behind the beach was marshy, with open ground and bocage (small fields surrounded by hedges and embankments) further inland. Roads led to the south via Asnelles and Ver-sur-Mer. The terrain to the south-east rose to a ridge at Meuvaines, where on D-Day were located machine gun nests of the German 726th Regiment.

The Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) undertook over 3,200 photo reconnaissance sorties from April 1944 until the start of the invasion. Photos of the coastline were taken at extremely low altitude to show the invaders the terrain, obstacles on the beach, and defensive structures such as bunkers and gun emplacements. Inland terrain, bridges, troop emplacements, and buildings were also photographed, in many cases from several angles, to give the Allies as much information as possible. Members of Combined Operations Pilotage Parties clandestinely prepared detailed harbour maps, including depth soundings. At Gold, frogmen discovered the shore between Asnelles and La Rivière was soft and could not support the weight of tanks. Twelve Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVREs) were fitted with bobbins to overcome this problem by deploying a roll of matting over the soft surface. The material would then be left in place to create a route for more conventional tanks.

Gold was assigned to Lieutenant General Gerard Bucknall's British XXX Corps, with the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division–commanded by Major General Douglas Graham–allotted as the assault division. The 50th was a highly experienced division that had already seen combat in France, North Africa, and Sicily. The men underwent extensive training in amphibious landings, including Exercise Fabius, a major training exercise at Hayling Island in May 1944. Demolition teams responsible for disabling underwater beach obstacles trained in swimming pools in the United Kingdom. Briefings were undertaken using detailed maps that used fictitious place names, and most of the men did not find out their destination until they were already on their way to Normandy. The amphibious landing was to be preceded by extensive air bombardment as well as naval bombardment by Bombarding Force K, a task force of eighteen ships, primarily cruisers and destroyers. Amphibious tanks of the 8th Armoured Brigade were to arrive at 07:20, followed by infantry at 07:25. The 231st Infantry Brigade was assigned to land at Jig, and the 69th Infantry Brigade at King. The 231st was to head west to capture Arromanches and establish contact with the American forces at Omaha, while the 69th was to move east and link up with the Canadian forces at Juno. The 47th Royal Marine Commando was assigned to land at Gold, infiltrate inland, and capture the small port at Port-en-Bessin from the landward side.

Arriving in the second wave on Jig, the 56th Infantry Brigade was to capture Bayeux and a nearby ridge, thus cutting the N13 highway between Caen and Bayeux to make it difficult for the Germans to move in reinforcements. The second wave on King, the 151st Infantry Brigade, was tasked with capturing the Caen road and railway, along with setting up positions on high ground between the Aure and Seulles rivers. Other forces involved in the landing included artillery regiments, signals corps, and engineering units.

German defenses

In late 1943, Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in charge of improving the coastal defences along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an Allied invasion, expected to take place sometime in 1944. Rommel believed that the Normandy coast could be a possible landing point for the invasion, so he ordered the construction of extensive defensive works along that shore. In the immediate area of Gold, between Le Hamel and La Rivière, seven defensive strongpoints designed to hold 50 men apiece were constructed. Two major concrete-reinforced coastal artillery emplacements (a battery of four 122 mm guns at Mont Fleury and the Longues-sur-Mer battery, with four 150 mm guns) were only partially completed by D-Day. Rommel ordered wooden stakes, metal tripods, mines, and large anti-tank obstacles to be placed on the beach to delay the approach of landing craft and impede the movement of tanks. Expecting the Allies to land at high tide so that the infantry would spend less time exposed on the beach, he ordered many of these obstacles to be placed at the high tide mark. Tangles of barbed wire, booby traps, and the removal of ground cover made the approach hazardous for infantry.

Hitler gave Rommel command of the newly re-formed Army Group B, which included the 7th Army, the 15th Army, and the forces guarding the Netherlands. Reserves for this group included the 2nd, 21st, and 116th Panzer divisions. Recognizing that Allied air superiority would make it difficult if not impossible to move reserves into position once the invasion was underway, Rommel decided to concentrate the defences along the coast. The 716th Infantry Division, which had been stationed in the area since March 1942, was significantly understrength, with only 6,000 men. This unit received reinforcements, and some of the older men were replaced by younger soldiers. It was also supplemented by several battalions of Osttruppen (eastern soldiers), conscripted Soviet prisoners of war. The 352nd Infantry Division, a full-strength unit of around 12,000, was brought into the area by Rommel on 15 March and reinforced by two additional regiments. About 2,000 men, a mixture from the two infantry divisions, were stationed in the coastal area between Arromanches and Asnelles.

British forces

 * 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, commanded by Major-General Douglas Graham
 * 69th Infantry Brigade, commanded by Brigadier F.Y.C. Knox
 * 5th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
 * 6th Battalion, Green Howards
 * 7th Battalion, Green Howards
 * 151st Infantry Brigade, commanded by Brigadier R.H. Senior
 * 6th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
 * 8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
 * 9th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
 * 231st Infantry Brigade, commanded by Brigadier A.G.B. Stanier
 * 1st Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment
 * 1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment
 * 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment
 * Divisional troops
 * 61st Reconnaissance Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) (2 Squadrons)
 * 2nd Battalion, Cheshire Regiment (machine guns and heavy mortars)
 * 357th, 358th & 465th Batteries, 90th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery (RA) (Self-propelled)
 * 99th & 288th Batteries, 102nd (Northumberland Hussars) Anti-Tank Regiment, RA
 * 82nd Battery, 25th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA
 * 233rd (Northumbrian) Field Company, Royal Engineers (RE)
 * 295th Field Company, RE
 * 505th Field Company, RE
 * 235th (Northumbrian) Field Park Company, RE (bulldozers)
 * 50th Divisional Signals, Royal Corps of Signals
 * 149th, 186th & 200th Field Ambulances, Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC)
 * 22nd Field Hygiene Section, RAMC
 * 50th Divisional Provost Company, Royal Military Police (RMP)

 * Formations attached for assault phase
 * Elements of 79th Armoured Division
 * Westminster Dragoons (Flail tanks)
 * 141st Royal Tank Regiment (The Buffs) (Churchill Crocodiles) (2 Troops)
 * 81st & 82nd Assault Squadrons, 6th Assault Regiment, RE (AVREs)
 * 56th Infantry Brigade, commanded by Brigadier E.C. Pepper
 * 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment
 * 2nd Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment
 * 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers
 * 8th Armoured Brigade, commanded by Brigadier H.J.B. Carcroft
 * 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards (DD Tanks)
 * Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (DD Tanks)
 * 76th Anti-Aircraft Brigade, commanded by Brigadier E.R. Benson
 * 113th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA (HQ only)
 * 320th Battery, 93rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA
 * 394th & 395th Batteries, 120th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA
 * 152nd Anti-Aircraft Operations Room, RA
 * A Troop, 356th (Independent) Searchlight Battery, RA

 * Additional units attached for assault phase
 * GHQ Liaison Regiment, RAC ('Phantom')
 * 341st, 342nd, & 462nd Batteries, 86th (East Anglian) (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Field Regiment, RA (Self-propelled)
 * 413th, 431st & 511th Batteries, 147th (Essex Yeomanry) Field Regiment, RA (Self-propelled)
 * 198th & 234th Batteries, 73rd Anti-Tank Regiment, RA
 * 662nd Air Observation Post Squadron, RA (Ground crew of one flight only)
 * 73rd Field Company, RE
 * 280th Field Company, RE
 * 203rd Field Ambulance, RAMC
 * 168th Light Field Ambulance, RAMC
 * 1st Royal Marine Armoured Support Regiment
 * No. 47 (Royal Marine) Commando

 * 104 Beach Sub-Area HQ
 * 8 GHQ Troops RE (sub units distributed between the Beach Groups)
 * 1043 Port Operating Group RE (other sub units distributed between the Beach Groups)
 * 953rd Inland Water Transport Company
 * 4 RAF Beach Squadron (sub units distributed between the Beach Groups)
 * 980 RAF Beach Balloon Squadron (sub units distributed between the Beach Groups)
 * No. 9 Beach Group (King beach)
 * Beach signal section B10
 * Beach Commandos 'J', 'G', and 'T'
 * 2nd Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment
 * 69th, 89th & 183rd Field Companies, RE
 * 74th Mechanical Equipment Section, RE
 * 1043rd Port Operating Company, RE
 * 961st Inland Water Transport Company, RE
 * 21st Stores Sections, RE
 * 305th General Transport Company, Royal Army Service Corps (RASC)
 * 2nd Detail Issue Depot, RASC
 * 247th Petrol Company, RASC
 * 3rd & 10th Casualty Clearing Stations, RAMC
 * 3rd, 32nd & 35th Field Dressing Stations, RAMC
 * Nos 24 & 30 Field Transfusion Unit, RAMC
 * 7th & 36th Ordnance Beach Detachments, Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC)
 * 24th Beach Recovery Section, Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers (REME)
 * 243rd Provost Company, RMP
 * 75th, 208th & 209th (Pioneer) Companies, Pioneer Corps
 * 107th Beach Flight RAF
 * 54th Beach Balloon Flight RAF
 * No. 10 Beach Group (Jig beach)
 * Beach signal section B7
 * Beach Commando 'Q'
 * 6th Battalion, Border Regiment
 * 90th Field Company, RE
 * 23rd Stores Section, RE
 * 51st Mechanical Equipment Section, RE
 * 23rd Port Operating Company, RE
 * 536th & 705th General Transport Companies, RASC
 * 5th Detail Issue Depot, RASC
 * 244th Petrol Company, RASC
 * 25th & 31st Field Dressing Stations, RAMC
 * Nos 24 & 30 Field Transfusion Unit, RAMC
 * 23rd & 1035th Port Operating Companies, RAMC
 * 12th Ordnance Beach Detachment, RAOC
 * 25th Beach Recovery Section, REME
 * 243rd Provost Company, RMP
 * 75th, 112th, 120th, 173rd & 243rd (Pioneer) Companies, Pioneer Corps
 * 108th beach Flight RAF
 * 55th Beach Balloon Flight RAF
 * 36 Beach Brick (in reserve)
 * 18th Battalion Durham Light Infantry
 * 503rd Field Company RE
 * HQ 100th HAA Regiment RA
 * 305th HAA Battery RA
 * 328th LAA Battery RA
 * Detachments from RE, REME, RAMC, RMP, RAMC and RAF
 * Nos 41, 42, 47 & 48 Field Surgical Units, RAMC
 * 22nd & 23rd Port Details, RAMC
 * XXX Corps Workshop, REME (2 Composite Workshops & 1 Light Recovery Section)

German forces
From June 1942, 716th Infantry Division covered the Grandcamps Sector, which stretched from the base of the Cotentin Peninsula to the Orne River near Caen, a distance of 77 km. When 352nd Infantry Division arrived on 15 March, the Grandcamps Sector was split into the Bayeux Sector (from Carentan to Asnelles) and the Caen Sector (from Asnelles to the Orne). Most of the 716th Infantry Division remained where they were, and thus the defenses in Caen Sector (site of the Gold landings) were not substantially strengthened.

 * 352nd Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Dietrich Kraiss
 * 915th Grenadier Regiment: south-east of Bayeux, as reserves
 * 916th Grenadier Regiment: covered Omaha and the westernmost part of Gold
 * 352nd Artillery Regiment: covered Omaha and the westernmost part of Gold
 * 716th Static Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter
 * 726th Infantry Regiment: two battalions in and around Le Hamel. Members of the 441st Ost Battalion garrisoned the coastal defenses. One battalion was stationed near Crépon as reserves.
 * 736th Infantry Regiment: covered Juno, Sword, and the easternmost part of Gold
 * 1716th Artillery Regiment: mobile and casemated batteries east and west of Crépon

Landings

Bombing of Normandy began around midnight with over 2,200 British and American bombers attacking targets along the coast and further inland. At Gold, naval bombardment by Bombarding Force K got underway at 05:30, at which time the first waves of infantry were loading into their Landing Craft Assault (LCAs) for the run in to the beach. German defensive positions were attacked by medium and heavy bombers and by self-propelled guns on board the landing craft. Results were good at Mont Fleury Battery and at Longues, where at 07:00 Ajax and Argonaut took out of commission three of the four guns. The fourth gun resumed firing sporadically in the afternoon, and the garrison surrendered the following day. Two heavily casemated gun emplacements (an 88 mm gun at La Rivière overlooking King and a 75 mm gun at Le Hamel overlooking Jig) were only lightly damaged, as they were heavily reinforced with concrete, especially on the seaward side. These positions had embrasures that permitted a wide range of enfilade fire on the beach. Four other German strong points in the immediate area were also only lightly damaged, and had to be individually assaulted as the day progressed.

King Sector
H-Hour for the landing at Gold was set at 07:25 on King sector (50 minutes later than in the American landings, because of differences in the tide). The first wave on King was the 5th East Yorkshires and 6th Green Howards of 69th Brigade, assisted by amphibious DD tanks of the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards. The 7th Green Howards landed at 08:20. The original plan called for the 38 DD tanks to be launched from their landing craft tank (LCTs) about 5000 yd out. Due to extremely choppy seas, they decided to run the tanks directly onto the beach. Infantry, engineers, and DD tanks arrived almost simultaneously. Units disembarking onto the beach immediately came under fire from the casemated 88 mm gun at La Rivière, and the infantry were forced to take cover behind the sea wall. The gun was taken out when a flail tank of the Westminster Dragoons fired a charge directly into its aperture. The 5th East Yorkshires, supported by several tanks, spent the rest of the morning clearing out the heavily fortified houses of La Rivière, at the loss of 90 men, including six officers.

Specialised armour arriving in the first wave included AVREs, mine flails, and armoured bulldozers. Clearing paths off the beach proved difficult, as the tanks got stuck in the mud or were taken out by mines. A lone mine flail tank finally cleared a path from the beach up toward the Mont Fleury Battery and Ver-Sur-Mer. This route was used by the Green Howards and tanks of the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards, who cleared the remaining resistance at the Mont Fleury Battery. B Company moved on to attack trench positions and machine gun emplacements at Meuvaines Ridge, while C Company moved to the west of Ver-Sur-Mer to help cover the assault on Crépon, where roads led to the important targets of Bayeux and Caen. The 7th Green Howards attacked the gun battery at Ver-Sur-Mer, where they took 50 prisoners. Colour Sergeant-Major Stanley Hollis earned the only Victoria Cross to be bestowed for actions on D-Day. On the way to the Mont Fleury Battery, Hollis came under machine gun fire while investigating a pillbox, so he shot into the entrance with his Sten gun and dropped a grenade through the roof, killing most of the occupants. He cleared a nearby trench of enemy soldiers, whereupon the occupants of a second pillbox surrendered. Later in the day, he saved the lives of three men during an attempt to take out a field artillery installation at a farm near Crépon.

Scheduled to land at 11:00 on Jig, the 56th Infantry Brigade was re-routed to King, because the gun battery at Le Hamel was still operational. They proceeded towards their objective of Bayeux. 151st Brigade arrived at the same time and after meeting fierce resistance, they achieved their objective of controlling the road and railway between Bayeux and Caen. 56th Brigade made slow progress and had to dig in for the night some distance from Bayeux. 69th Brigade secured the eastern flank and by nightfall made contact with the Canadian forces on Juno.

Jig Sector

At Jig, the first wave of infantry (the 1st Dorsetshires and 1st Hampshires of the 231st Infantry Brigade) arrived at 07:25, and immediately came under fire from the casemated 75 mm gun at Le Hamel. Due to navigation errors and the strong current, both groups came ashore well to the east of their intended landing points. The DD tank and Royal Marine Centaur tanks that were supposed to arrive in advance of the landing were delayed by rough seas and did not arrive until 08:00. Many of the tanks got bogged down on the beach or were taken out by enemy fire. The tide came in quicker than expected, before many of the beach obstacles and mines were cleared, and some of the landing craft were damaged as a result. Two companies of the 1st Hampshires landed very close to the strong point at Le Hamel, and had to fight inland through enemy garrisons to get off the beach. Attempts to flank Le Hamel were made difficult by the surrounding machine gun placements, mines, and barbed wire. Elements of the 1st Hampshires captured the German strongpoint WN-36 at the eastern edge of the village of Asnelles. When they turned west to move along the beach towards their primary objective at Le Hamel, they came under heavy fire and had to break off the attack. Major Warren, in charge after the commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Nelson Smith was wounded, decided that the troops would have to circle around and attack the emplacement from the rear, a process that took several hours. The troops began to have some success around 15:00 with the arrival of an AVRE tank of 82nd Assault Squadron. The tank fired two petards into the sanatorium, where most of the defenders were located. The German soldiers fled into fortified houses in Le Hamel and Asnelles, and were taken out in house-to-house combat. Few surrendered. The 75 mm gun was finally silenced at 16:00, when the AVRE tank fired a large petard charge into the rear entrance of the casemate. C/A Company, 1st Hampshires and the AVRE tank proceeded west along the beach and took out strongpoint WN-38 at La Fontaine St Côme, taking 20 prisoners. Still further west, D Company captured strong point WN-39 at the Arromanches radar station, capturing 30 more defenders.

The 2nd Devons arrived at 08:15, while the beach was still under heavy fire. One company stayed to help with the assault on Le Hamel, while the rest moved to capture the village of Ryes astride the road to Bayeux. Ryes was captured at around 16:30. The 1st Dorsets attacked a German position on the beach at La Cabane des Douanes and headed inland to arc westward toward the high ground south of Arromanches. They cleared enemy positions at Le Bulot and Puits d'Hérode, and arrived at their destination late in the morning. Joined by elements of the 1st Hampshires and covered by indirect fire from the naval forces offshore, they took Arromanches late in the afternoon.

47th Commando
The 47 Royal Marine Commando was assigned to capture the small harbour at Port-en-Bessin, on the boundary with Omaha, about 7 mi west of Arromanches and 8 mi from their landing point at Jig. The commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel C. F. Phillips, opted to attack from the south, as the site was well protected on the seaward side. The force of 420 men consisted of five troops of 63 men, a mortar and machine gun troop, a transport group with four tracked vehicles, and a headquarters group. The plan was to land at Gold at 09:25, assemble at La Rosière, and move cross-country to a ridge (designated as Point 72) south of Port-en-Bessin, arriving at around 13:00. Here they would call for indirect fire from the supporting vessels at sea and then move in to capture the town.

In rough seas and under enemy fire, the commandos began disembarking at Jig, some distance east of their intended position, at 09:50. Five of their LCAs were sunk by beach obstacles or enemy fire, at the cost of 76 casualties. Major P. M. Donnell temporarily took charge until Phillips and some others who had got separated from the unit rejoined the group at 14:00 along the Meuvaines–Le Carrefour road. The commandos took additional casualties in several skirmishes, including at La Rosière, on the way to Point 72. They did not arrive there until 22:30, too late to launch an attack, so they dug in for the night. The town and port were captured in the battle of Port-en-Bessin on 7–8 June 1944.

German response

As the Luftwaffe meteorological centre in Paris had predicted two weeks of stormy weather, some Wehrmacht commanders were away from the front attending war games in Rennes, and many soldiers had been given leave. On D-Day, Rommel was in Germany for his wife's birthday and a meeting with Hitler to try to get more Panzers. The 352nd and 716th Divisions were placed on high alert after the Allied airborne landings, which had taken place just after midnight behind Utah and Sword. The 2,700-strong Kampfgruppe Meyer, near Bayeux as the divisional reserve, was sent to investigate the parachute drops behind Utah. Marcks recalled them when dawn broke and the scope of the invasion became apparent. One battalion was ordered to reinforce the German efforts at Omaha. The remainder were ordered to rendezvous with reinforcements at Villiers le Sec, 7.5 mi east of Bayeux, to launch a counter-attack. Fired upon by Allied air forces, the column finally arrived in the late afternoon, at which time they were met by elements of the 69th Brigade. The British lost four tanks in the ensuing engagement but the Kampfgruppe was almost completely wiped out. Marcks was killed, and his detailed maps of German coastal emplacements fell into British hands.

Because Allied air superiority meant it would be difficult for the Germans to move up their reserves, Rommel believed that their best chance was to stop the invasion at the shore. The scope of the invasion meant that once these coastal defences were defeated and the troops scattered, it was difficult to defend territory inland or launch counter-attacks. At 22:33, Kraiss ordered the 352nd Division to create a defensive line north of Bayeux but this proved impossible, as most of the territory involved was already in British hands and all the defending units had taken serious losses. The Luftwaffe played only a minor role on D-Day. At Gold, several small groups of bombers that arrived at sunset caused Allied casualties at Le Hamel and damaged a road near Ver-sur-Mer. At 06:00 on 7 June, the operations room of HMS Bulolo, offshore near Gold, was damaged by a bomber attack, but the ship was able to remain on station. The unit responsible was likely II./Kampfgeschwader 40 (KG 40 – Bomber Wing 40). Under the command of Fliegerführer Atlantik (Flyer Command Atlantic), it was based at Bordeaux–Merignac. On the evening of the 6/7 June 1944, 26 Heinkel He 177 heavy bombers equipped with Henschel Hs 293 anti-ship guided missiles attacked shipping over Normandy, included the Gold area. II./KG 40 lost 13 aircraft to all causes during the attack.

The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler were released before midnight from the OKW reserve and ordered to counter-attack between Bayeux and the Orne, supplemented by 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend and Panzer Lehr Division; the armoured divisions began arriving on 8 June.

Analysis
Pockets of German resistance remained throughout the beachhead area and the British were stopped about 3.7 mi short of their D-Day objectives. Bayeux, a primary D-Day objective for 50th Division, was captured on 7 June. By the end of D-Day, the 50th Division had lost around 700 men. Total casualties, from all units involved in operations at Gold, were in the region of 1,000–1,100 casualties, of which 350 were killed. German losses are unknown; at least 1,000 were captured.

Gold after 6 June

By the end of D-Day, 24,970 men had been landed at Gold, along with 2,100 vehicles and 1000 LT of supplies. The follow-up landings were slowed by the loss of 34 LCTs and the bad weather. The 24th Lancers and 61st Reconnaissance Regiment, due to land on D-Day to help spearhead the drive towards Villers-Bocage, were unable to put ashore until 7 June. In 2004 Trew wrote that the delay

"effectively ruled out any chance of a thrust south ... [and] ... represented a major blow to Second Army's intentions and Montgomery's plan."

The 7th Armoured Division and the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division were the follow-up divisions of XXX Corps. The 22nd Armoured Brigade (the armoured component of the 7th Armoured Division) was scheduled to land during the evening of 6 June, but it was unable to land until the next day. The bulk of the division landed from 9 to 10 June, with some elements landing later. The 49th Division came ashore on 12 June.

The first components of the Mulberry harbours were brought across the Channel on D+1 and the structures were in use for unloading by mid-June. One was constructed at Arromanches by British forces, the other at Omaha by American forces. A severe storm on 19 June destroyed the Omaha harbour. The Arromanches harbour was repaired and remained in use for the next ten months, with a maximum capacity of 7000 LT of stores per day. Of the British supplies landed in Normandy by the end of August, 35% arrived via the Mulberry harbour and 15% came in via the small harbours at Port-en-Bessin and Courseulles-sur-Mer. Most shipments were brought in over the beaches until the port of Cherbourg was cleared of mines and obstructions on 16 July. The most important use of the Mulberry harbour was the unloading of heavy machinery that could not be brought across the beaches. Artificial breakwaters (Gooseberries) sheltered hundreds of ships during the storm of 17–23 June, and provided shelter for craft unloading stores at Juno and Sword. A joint Anglo-American oil depot was constructed at Port-en-Bessin, fed via buoyed pipes known as "Tombola" from oil tankers moored offshore. Using this method, 175000 LT of petrol (half for the Second Army) was delivered by the end of August, by which time the underwater pipelines constructed in Operation Pluto were ready.

Subsequent operations

Fighting in the Caen area versus the 21st Panzer, the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, and other units soon reached a stalemate. Operation Perch (7–14 June) failed to take Caen, and the British were forced to withdraw to Tilly-sur-Seulles. After a delay because of storms during 17–23 June, Operation Epsom was launched on 26 June, an attempt by VIII Corps to swing around and attack Caen from the south-west and establish a bridgehead south of the Odon. Although the operation failed to take Caen, the Germans suffered heavy tank losses and had committed every available Panzer unit to the operation. Caen was severely bombed on the night of 7 July and then occupied north of the River Orne in Operation Charnwood on 8–9 July. Two offensives during 18–21 July, Operation Atlantic and Operation Goodwood, captured the rest of Caen and the high ground to the south, but by then the city was nearly destroyed.

Tourism
The site of the Normandy landings is a popular tourist destination. The battery at Longues-sur-Mer is well preserved, and its observation bunker houses a visitor centre. The gun emplacements at Le Hamel and La Rivière still exist, but many other batteries and defensive positions have been allowed to decay. Bayeux is home to the Musée Mémorial de la Bataille de Normandie and the Bayeux Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery. La Cambe German war cemetery is also near Bayeux. At Arromanches, many elements of the Mulberry Harbour are extant and a museum examines its construction and use. The radar station is the site of a visitor centre and theatre.

title: Gold Beach