SETF - An Introduction

On June 6, 1944, 20-year-old Private First Class Elisha C. Mullens (“Claude” later in life, but his Army friends knew him as “Moon” because of the comic strip) of Silo, Oklahoma was a member of A Company, 146th Engineer Combat Battalion (ECB), one US soldier among 34,000 to storm Omaha Beach that day. But what does “storm” really mean, exactly? What was he even doing there? Back home, most families had only vague notions what their sons, brothers, and fathers were trained for or where they were (plus or minus a hemisphere), or what they were going through. The ones we never saw again couldn’t tell us. The ones who came back mostly didn’t know how. Newsreels, Life Magazine, and Hollywood, all playing their respective parts in an information war where loose lips really did sink ships, couldn’t tell us anything very accurately so instead appealed to our sense of faith, resolve, and patriotism using broad strokes. What a blessing that such a sense existed, and that it was strong enough to carry us through to victory.

The passing of time and the dedication of researchers has clarified things in many respects, while certain misconceptions are proving formidable. The Special Engineer Task Force on Omaha Beach is one of the lesser-known stories, shared with its counterparts on the four other Allied beaches. In America, decades of students received very different versions of history depending on whether they consulted the Army or the Navy, for much of the tale came from published reports by those services to assess the effectiveness of their own planning and performance and offer recommendations for future training. By definition they had little to say about the other’s actions, and each service’s official histories were written from those reports. What follows is the beginning of the complete picture of this group on this beach. It’s not new information; it’s just hard to stitch it all together. The mistakes revealed in all sources by cross-referencing and compiling them, and the number of records that were never kept, lost in the 1973 archives fire, or are yet unfound, keeps this a work in progress as of 2023.

For most soldiers that day, the objective was to cross the beach, secure the high ground, and move inland as quickly as possible. But Pfc. Mullens’s job at 6:33 a.m. was the beach, and if he and his teams didn’t stay out in the open in its blizzard of flying steel and get it done, the thousands already on their way behind him might not ever have a chance.

Six months before the dropping ramps of landing craft raised the curtain on that terrifying vista, Allied intelligence had discovered bands of obstacles tipped with mines being placed along the Normandy landing zones. They would spell disaster for ships full of men, equipment, and supplies critical to the attack, so the initial invasion plan called for 6-man Naval Combat Demolitions Units (NCDUs) to land first and clear the approaches like they were learning to do in the Pacific. However, in the spring of 1944, the proliferation of traps rapidly outpaced the abilities of these small units (Figure 1).

The first reorganization - but not the last - expanded each of the 21 NCDUs to include five army engineers from the 146th or 299th ECBs and then again with two or three more untrained seamen straight out of Navy boot camp. They would remain tasked this way even after the final reorganization, in which the two ECBs were now fully committed (reinforced by 150 infantry, engineers, and medics from commands of the 2nd Infantry Division) and the NCDUs at least on paper now reported to the Army. Total strength surpassed 1000 men, not including the crews of sixteen tanks fitted with bulldozer blades from the 741st and 743rd Armor Battalions and the 610th Engineer Light Equipment Company. Altogether they were designated the Special Engineer Task Force (SETF). After the mission, the units would disperse back to other command structures for the push through France.

The 146th ECB headquarters reported to England in October 1943, coincidentally with and separately from the first NCDU. At the Assault Training Center (ATC, indicated in yellow), where the Allies spent months rehearsing the invasion, Pfc. Mullens and his partners continually rebuilt the “German” defenses repeatedly destroyed by the trainees. In mid-April, the last of the scheduled assault units had cycled through the ATC and the 146th relocated to Newquay (in red). The 299th ECB, meanwhile, spent the spring of 1944 practicing obstacle demolition at the Ft. Pierce, Florida, NCDU school. It arrived in England only eight weeks ahead of D-Day, unaware of its newly-assigned place at the tip of the spear. Around the same time, the NCDUs were finally looped in on the operation with enough detail to create a plan of attack. Up until then, this had still been a Navy mission but although the men had been told what types of traps they might encounter, they lacked officers senior enough to see the intelligence reports for themselves. None of them knew the scope of the challenge they were being asked to meet.

Fortunately, in those final 6-8 weeks the authority holes were plugged, enabling the ballooning SETF to develop workable tactics, train together, and gather ammunition, equipment, rafts, explosives… and socks. Lots of socks. Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) Carl Hagensen, in charge of one of the Utah Beach NCDUs, had devised a method for quickly razing a Belgian Gate (Figure 2), hundreds of which had been seen along both beaches. By packing sticks of clay-like C-2 into narrow canvas tubes about a foot long and bending them around key structural points, he could tie them together with Primacord (an explosive rope resembling backyard clothesline) and detonate the entire web at once. The gate would simply fall apart with minimal danger from flying shards. A hasty production order of 10,000 canvas sheaths from local sailmakers was answered quickly but it wasn’t enough for two beaches. Requisitions of socks from military stores filled the bill, and Pfc. Mullens and company stuffed them all.

18 “Hagensen packs” per gate; 15 displayed in this photo.

Commander’s Intent

The SETF’s purpose was simple; accomplishing it would be anything but. A line of infantry platoons and their armor support – including the tank dozers – were to land by 6:30 a.m., spread evenly along the entire stretch (Figure 3). The SETF’s sixteen (numbered) “Gap Assault Teams” were to land three minutes later, clear one lane each through the traps in their landing zones, 50 yards wide and up to 500 yards long, and mark it for guiding the incoming vessels at high tide. After that, they were to widen the gaps until no obstacles remained. Eight (lettered) “Gap Support Teams” were to accompany the Assault Teams, carrying enough additional explosives and gear (buoys, lane marking flags, etc.) to bolster two Assault Teams if need be. Assisting them would be one M4 Sherman tank dozer per Gap Assault Team and one D-8 bulldozer per two. Half the force (termed O-1) was scheduled for the eastern end of Omaha; half for the western (O-2). To deliver the men to the beach, the Navy selected Landing Craft, Mechanized (Mark III)s, or LCM(3)s – for now, we’ll just call them LCMs. One was assigned to each Gap Team and one each to the three command groups: 27 LCMs in all. Getting them across the channel was a different problem, and nine more were provided in case any were lost en route.

The basic idea as conceived by the top brass in each service called for the NCDUs to flatten obstacles below the waterline while the Army set to work “dry shod.” In hindsight it seems a rather trivial thing to argue about, given the rate of the rising tide and most obstacles being submerged at the high-water mark, but that’s what generals and admirals did. At the team level they strove instead for mutual support and cooperation. In the moment, however, they were quite certain that 30 minutes was enough time for one 40-man group to clear one gap; they had done it often enough in training. They would exit the LCMs and spread out, the Army running ahead a bit toward shore. One or two men would begin unspooling a “ring main” of doubled Primacord taped to a thin rope, encircling as many obstacles as the situation allowed, tying the ends together. Meanwhile, others would rig individual obstacles and connect them with Primacord to the ring main. Attaching and lighting a fuse would level the whole area. …That was the plan, anyway…

Commander’s Intent: SETF Landing Plan

Crossing the Channel

Remarkably, with less than eight weeks to go, the Navy shuffled its ship assignments and scrounged a few from Britain to arrange transport for 1050 men, 16 tank dozers (not a big shift, as it merely required outfitting tanks already scheduled), 8 D-8 bulldozers, 3 M-29 Weasels with trailers for the command groups, and up to 80 rafts laden with explosives. It did the same for the Utah force, but not without a significant hiccup. To do this, it needed several kinds of ships (Figure 4).

In a scene mirrored sixteen times over on June 4, Pfc. Mullens and Team 1 squeezed aboard their transport – in his case, Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) 2124 – among their assigned tank dozer and other tanks headed to the same zone. The LCT departed Weymouth with LCM 1 rigged for towing to France, preloaded with her two rafts. At the appointed hour, LCM 1’s crew would cast off the tow line and come alongside to receive the men descending by cargo net. The eight Gap Support Teams and three command teams climbed a gangplank in England, packing themselves like sardines on top of other units’ sardines into passenger-ferry-turned-troopship Princess Maud (II) for the journey, while their LCMs hitched rides behind other LCTs, such as the LCT(R)s.

The thing of it is, flat-bottomed LCTs and LCMs loaded for combat and riding low in the water weren’t well suited for the open sea in a heavy storm. Not every skipper found the conditions unmanageable, but two SETF LCT(A)s foundered. One sank with no hands lost; every soul made it aboard her LCM. Some tow lines snapped. Utah and Omaha LCTs en route to their convoys misread the traffic flags and intermingled, requiring hours to correct. Most made it to the rendevous on time despite it all, with LCMs and Gap Teams away by the planned 2:00 a.m; now it was time to head in and unload the tanks.

Fateful Hours

Almost none of the Omaha LCT skippers and crews had ever heard of an LCT(A) more than a few weeks prior; most had never beached one anywhere, for any reason, before June 6; only a few knew that by necessity a good LCT skipper followed his common sense even more faithfully than he did his orders. Too many were too green this day. On the eastern half of the assault, all but one executed his orders to the letter, unloading their waterproofed tanks early for a long wade ashore. (The exception was forced by ramp problems to come to ground.) Of the 29 first tanks launched according to plan, including all eight tank dozers for the O-1 group, 27 flooded and sank to the bottom. On the western half, one skipper knew the sea wouldn’t obey orders and others followed his lead. They brought their tank dozers close in before sending them away. For this reason, Pfc. Mullens would have more fire support than many others elsewhere.

LCMs fared little better. Several were destroyed or incapacitated while still on approach; in some cases, some of the men were able to escape over the sides. Others were hit as they unloaded, artillery or mortars touching off the explosives in the rubber rafts. The troops realized quickly that all the bombers and all the Navy’s thundering shells and rockets had done almost nothing to silence the enemy guns bristling the hills above the sand.

With more infantry landing in the east because of tidal currents, more riflemen took cover among the eastward obstacles. Some would not be persuaded to move through after what they themselves had endured just getting that far. Some teams disembarked directly in front of clusters of strongpoints and stood no chance. The map in Figure 3 shows the initial gaps were mostly successful between these concentrations where small-arms fire was presumably less intense, although snipers and heavier weapons exacted a high price.

The coxswain of LCM 1 was off course and schedule like so many others, but not as drastically as some. Pfc. Mullens’s team, exhausted and seasick as everyone else, took fire when the ramp came down one sector east of its target yet managed to leave the landing craft quickly enough to spread out and render it less deadly. The Army and Navy leaders assessed the situation in seconds and coordinated their crews efficiently; ring mains were laid and the men wired explosives to each of the hazards. In very short order the first swath was scythed and the team started preparing the next bite while suffering more casualties. T/5 Andrew Jackson “AJ” Shamblin went down. Someone forgetting his training in the shock of the moment stopped to aid him while calling for help, but when medic Daniel Emmett took a bad one, several others gathered near him and created a target. They never heard 1st Lieutenant Bill Kehaly’s too-distant shouts to disperse and move out of the blast zone ready to be lit.

Still others would either not notice their injuries or ignore them. Ricochets were much less severe than direct hits; many of the SETF were never evacuated and carried imbedded shrapnel for years after the war. Stories abound of men refusing medical aid. Pfc. Mindon Ivey of Gap Team 8, for example, waived off approaching medic Sgt. Max Norris that day, but did accept help reloading his rifle because he’d been shot through the wrist. It hadn’t stopped him from completing his demolition tasks earlier, or from continuing to lay suppressive fire with the assistance. Sgt. Norris, doubling as a message runner, exchanged the briefest of reports and moved on.

The Non-commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) of Team 1, Sgt. Rod Lewis, was returning from the rubber raft after cutting it loose from one of the men. Unaware that its drag rope had caught in his belt gear, the soldier had been pulling it behind him in the surf. Rod had needed purple smoke flares from the raft to provide a two-minute warning of imminent detonation to the crew. With that done, Pfc. Mullens and Team 1 cut a path through the next shoreward clusters and gathered the injured in the scant shelter of the band of small rocks at the high waterline, detonating the final ring main only 20 minutes after jumping off the ramp.

Under those conditions, it is astonishing that any gaps at all were cleared,
but the SETF created six before high tide (only one of which was completely marked) and nine more later in the day despite very high casualty rates. Even so, with tank dozers and D-8 bulldozers to push unmined stakes and hedgehogs out of the way and with the help of other engineer units, it was three days before the last of Rommel’s beach traps were permanently swept from the Omaha zone.

The NCDUs withdrew, having many more amphibious landings needing their hard-won experience. The 299th and 146th ECBs, and Pfc. Mullens with them, would fight in parallel past Paris to Belgium and then south through western Germany, accumulating honors every step of the way. The 299th would end the war north of Munich in the town of Zolling, while the 146th ended up 100 miles northeast, rebuilding and repairing the area around Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, and teaching its civilians how to do the same. In an age when major league baseball players swore by their lucky bats or gloves, and soldiers swore by their lucky helmets or crosses, one wonders if Pfc. Mullens or Gap Team 1 ever learned or attached any significance to the name of the French town nestled in the draw where he’d helped clear two lanes of approach on that day of days: Les Moulins.

Further Reading

In no particular order, these sources are invaluable for anyone trying to understand the experience of the SETF:

1. Bass, Richard T. Clear The Way! The History of the U.S. Army 146th Engineer Combat Battalion, 1996. (Contains unit history, documents, and narrative compiled from veteran accounts from unit inception to mustering out.)
2. Berger, Sid. Breaching Fortress Europe: The Story of U.S. Engineers in Normandy on D-Day, 1994. (Contains team-by-team summary of action and analysis of LCT crossings and first-wave tank landings.)
3. Gawne, Jonathan. Spearheading D-Day: American Special Units in Normandy, 2001. (The best D-Day photographic reference work of its kind, in my humble opinion, focusing on unsung heroes more than the famous ones.)
4. Ross, Wesley. 146th Engineer Combat Battalion: A Journey Essayons, 2009. “Wesley Ross Memoir of World War II, 2009” In the collection of Oregon State University. Wesley Ross Memoir of World War II, 2009, accessed 7/22/23. (Contains personal memoirs as well as an extensive collection of unit documents [transcriptions] and correspondence. Especially interesting because the number of veterans attending reunions helped correct errors of fact and memory gaps. Still not without errors but invaluable.)
5. Dunford, Sue Ann, and O’Dell, James Douglas. More Than Scuttlebutt: The U.S. Navy Demolition Men in WWII, 2009. (Contains a thorough tracing of Underwater Demolitions Teams, Naval Combat Demolitions Units, and their precursors with experiences in all theaters of war.)
6. Thayer, Dale. The Famous 299th, 1950. In the collection of “World War Regimental Histories” at Bangor Community: Digital Commons. "The Famous 299th" by Dale R. Thayer and United States Army, accessed 7/22/23. (A records-based memoir produced by the battalion personnel staff and fresh memory.)
7. Hess, Frank. LCT(A) 2273: In Trouble at Omaha Beach, 2002. The account by the OIC of this landing craft is posted on three separate pages at Flotilla, vol. 3, p. 4, p. 5, and p. 13, accessed 7/22/23.
8. Crumpton, Mike (Royal Navy Signalman) and Worth, George (Platoon Leader, 238th ECB). UK Combined Operations (Navy) & USA Army Forces Bound Together for Utah Beach, date unknown, accessed 7/22/23. (Contains two accounts of the crossing to Utah Beach in LCT(5) 2331 on June 5-6, 1944.)
9. http://299thcombatengineers.com/MainHome.htm, accessed 7/22/23. (Contains unit histories beyond WWII, but also several WWII accounts and partial rosters.)
10. U.S. Army Center of Military History. Omaha Beachhead, American Forces in Action, 1945, accessed 7/22/23.
11. U.S. Army Center of Military History. The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany, 1945, accessed 7/22/23. (Pages 304-308 talk about the SETF. Not a lot of detail but still a good source.)
12. Historical Reports of the 146th Engineer Combat Battalion, April 1943-June 1944 (inclusive) plus once-monthly from June 1944 through August 1945. The records are held at an unknown location at the National Archives and sets of photocopies exist in private collections. Email john_antkowiak@yahoo.com to inquire.

Photo Credits

1. Pfc. Elisha C. Mullens. Family portrait, shared via personal correspondence.
2. Aerial photo reconnaissance of Normandy defenses. In the collection of Britain’s National Army Museum, NAM. 2006-12-103-9.
3. Omaha Beach – Typical Cross Section (not to scale). Omaha Beach Typical Cross Section and Obstacles - Normandy Invasion, accessed 7/22/23.
4. Map of Great Britain as depicted on Google Earth Pro, v. 7.3.6.9345, with locations annotated in Microsoft Word 365 for this document.
5. Belgian gates c. 1940. Porte Belge or Barriere Cointet Normandie :Maquetland.com: The world of the model, accessed 7/22/23.
6. Belgian gate hauled by horses. Obstacles (strijdbewijs.nl), accessed 7/22/23.
7. Belgian gate with Hagensen packs. U.S. Army in World War II, European Theater of Operations: Cross-Channel Attack. Accessed from HyperWar: US Army in WWII: Cross Channel Invasion [Chapter 7] on 7/22/23. Color and text box added by John Antkowiak for this document.
8. LCM(3) US 81. U.S. Coast Guard Collection, U.S. National Archives, 26-G-2386.
9. Map No. V, First Wave Landings. Omaha Beachhead, American Forces in Action Series, CMH Pub. 100, accessed 7/22/23. Annotated for this document by John Antkowiak with the addition of images 10-12 and original artwork.
10. D-8 Caterpillar Bulldozer. Caterpillar D8 number - Research Centre - HMVF - Historic Military Vehicles Forum. Vehicle isolated and mirrored by John Antkowiak for this document.
11. M4 Sherman Tank Dozer with Deep-Wading Gear. Robert Sargent (strijdbewijs.nl), accessed 7/22/23.
12. Landing Craft Mechanized (Mark III) LCM(3). Original source unknown, downloaded c. 2005.
13. 80-G-K-2112 Invasion of Southern France, August 1944. 80-G-K-2112 Invasion of Southern France, August 1944, accessed 7/22/23.
14. LCT(A) 2273. Robert Sargent (strijdbewijs.nl), accessed 7/22/23.
15. Rocket Craft. 27 March 1945, Solent. The Navy's Rocket Craft, LCT (R). Imperial War Museum, ROCKET CRAFT. 27 MARCH 1945, SOLENT. THE NAVY'S ROCKET CRAFT, LCT (R). Imperial War Museums, accessed 7/22/23.
16. LCT(R) Firing Rockets. DESTROYERS (strijdbewijs.nl), accessed 7/22/23.
17. Princess Maud (II). TS Princess Maud (II) – Past and Present – Dover Ferry Photos, accessed 7/22/23.
18. NCDU Survivors at Omaha Beach, 7 or 8 June. Pinterest.com, accessed 7/22/23.
19. Les Moulins beach and thumbtack of inset photo location as depicted on Google Earth Pro, v. 7.3.6.9345, annotated in Microsoft Word 365 for this document.
20. Omaha Beach, uploaded to Google by Christine Pence as depicted on Google Earth Pro, v. 7.3.6.9345.

Important Note: The Historian’s Dilemma

This introduction to the SETF places Pfc. Mullens in Gap Assault Team 1 based on veteran recollections in Essayons. He was a member of A Company, which, according to the OPERATION NEPTUNE order dated 24 May 1944, was divided among Assault Teams 1, 2, 3, and 4, and Support Teams A and B. Human memory is susceptible to error and influence, as we all know firsthand, but it’s far better than no memory at all. Wes Ross is highly commended for using available works and documents (including Gawne’s Spearheading D-Day and a small treasure of official records the battalion officers retained personally) to corroborate the memories of the surviving veterans who remained in close contact once reunions began, which helped him write Essayons. However, comparing all sources reveals discrepancies and errors in all of them, including Gawne, and even the orders don’t tell us what actually happened. What is universally agreed is that on D-Day, Support Team A was led by 2LT Bernard E. Meier and Assault Team 1 by 1Lt. William Kehaly, and that in November 1943 a battalion organization document placed both officers in A Company, meaning they were both well known to Pfc. Mullens.

Now let’s “follow the money” as the expression goes, or at least examine it. A wonderful SETF example of a not-uncommon soldiers’ practice is found in the 299th ECB: D-Day Two-Dollar Bill. Pfc. Mullens acquired a 100-franc note after arriving in France and displayed it proudly with his collection of wartime keepsakes. At some point later, he began writing on it the names he remembered from his D-Day experience. It may never be known when he started thinking about it or whether he had any help.

Ross collaborated with a few dozen veterans to reconstruct in Essayons exactly who was in every team. They thought Mullens, Landis, and Ward were in Team 1. They placed Staton and Welsh in Team 3, and Keowen and a phonetically-guessed “Corporal Edwin Maire” in Team 2. Most of the names on Mr. Mullens’s bill don’t appear in Essayons at all, so it seems they weren’t working together. Ross is the first to admit their product was only the best they could do. Mr. Mullens apparently struggled too, writing five times and conflating what seems to be two names: Bernard E. Meier, the officer in charge of Support Team A, and Corporal Edwin Mhire of A Company. He also offered Proo, Poyma, and Prader, who didn’t appear in any list I’d seen prior to July 2023 (all of which were known to be incomplete). However, a record dated May 1945 has surfaced, produced by the 146th ECB, to list all organic and attached personnel authorized to wear the bronze arrowhead for their participation with the unit in the June 6 amphibious assault. That record names John Poyma, Bert Proo, and Luther Prater of the 38th Infantry Regiment among others of the 2nd Infantry Division as members of the SETF alongside the 146th. The veterans had certainly not discovered this record before the publication of Essayons.

It cannot be known now if Mr. Mullens was trying to record the men on his LCM as opposed to men with whom he was particularly close, or as opposed to something else. If he were trying to record the men on his Gap Team, then I’d have to say he sure did seem to want to write Bernard E. Meier of Gap Support Team A.

And if Pfc. Mullens was assigned to Gap Support Team A, the preceding Introduction to the SETF would have to be rewritten in terms of his perspective on it. As it is, we’re left with conflicting imperfect memories and an abiding desire to express profound gratitude to these men for the sacrifices they made for us and for the effort they expended helping us understand what those sacrifices entailed.