With Draghi having already disappointed markets by failing to deliver a “big bang” announcement, and instead extending the lower for longer period until the first half of 2020 as was already priced in by the market, and unveiling less generous TLTRO III terms that left much to be desired, during today’s press conference Draghi also unveiled the ECB’s latest economic forecasts, which also confirmed that Europe is nowhere near ending its long-running economic malaise.
To wit, while the ECB revised up forecasts for 2019 euro-area growth and inflation by 0.1 percentage points in its new projections, it trimmed its 2020 and 2021 GDP forecasts from the March forecast, by 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively:
GDP growth:
Sees 2019 at 1.2% vs 1.1% in March
Sees 2020 at 1.4% vs 1.6%
Sees 2021 at 1.4% vs 1.5%
A similar adjustment was seen in the inflation forecasts, which while seen increasing by 0.1% in 2019, was trimmed in 2020 from 1.5% to 1.4%, and 2021 was left unchanged:
Sees 2019 at 1.3% vs 1.2% in March
Sees 2020 at 1.4% vs 1.5%
Sees 2021 at 1.6% vs 1.6%
This, combined with the ongoing disappointment from the overall announcement, has pushed the Euro to session highs, hit Bunds and sent European stocks in the red, with the STOXX sliding 0.2% as Draghi continues to speak.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/31eyOm0 Tyler Durden
Nasdaq futures have tumbled back into the red following remarks from President Trump that he is considering extending tariffs to China on the remaining $300 billion of goods.
“Our talks with China, a lot of interesting things are happening. We’ll see what happens… I could go up another at least $300 billion and I’ll do that at the right time,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One at the Irish airport of Shannon on his way to France for D-Day commemorations. He added that he thinks “China wants to make a deal and I think Mexico wants to make a deal badly.”
And now he has confirmed he would make the decision on further China tariffs in the next two weeks as G20 meetings loom.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Kxoqjl Tyler Durden
Time is running out before Washington is set to impose new levies of 5% on all Mexican goods entering the US, and with talks set to resume on Thursday, both sides are on tenterhooks.
Trump, who is in Europe on Thursday commemorating the lives lost during D-Day, said that “not nearly enough” progress has been made during talks between Marcelo Ebrada and a top US trade official. In fact, it’s unclear how much progress can be made on any deal before Trump returns from his trip abroad.
Immigration discussions at the White House with representatives of Mexico have ended for the day. Progress is being made, but not nearly enough! Border arrests for May are at 133,000 because of Mexico & the Democrats in Congress refusing to budge on immigration reform. Further…
….talks with Mexico will resume tomorrow with the understanding that, if no agreement is reached, Tariffs at the 5% level will begin on Monday, with monthly increases as per schedule. The higher the Tariffs go, the higher the number of companies that will move back to the USA!
The peso weakened further as Moody’s Investors Service on Wednesday cut Mexico’s outlook to negative from stable, and then Fitch lowered the nation’s sovereign rating to BBB from BBB+.
Still, Ebrard, said he was confident the two sides could reach a deal before the June 10 tariff deadline. Ebrard said he had a productive meeting with other US officials, including Mike Pompeo and Mike.
“We are optimistic because we had a good meeting with respectful positions from both parts,” Ebrard said during a press conference at the Mexican Embassy in Washington. “We had an opportunity to explain our point of view.”
Ultimately, Trump has said he also believes Mexico wants to make a deal, but what they have proposed so far hasn’t been sufficient.
The biggest assurance that the US is seeking, according to Peter Navarro, a White House advisor on trade, is an assurance that Mexico will hold asylum seekers on its side of the border while they await heir asylum hearings. This ‘remain in Mexico.’
The most important thing is for Mexico to take the asylum seekers. The number of apprehensions and people denied entry along the U.S.-Mexico border has been rising steadily. More than 144,000 people were apprehended after illegally crossing the southern border in May – the most in a single month this year.
There’s another risk to the new trade war with Mexico: It risks upending the ‘Nafta 2.0’ free trade agreement that was one of the administration’s biggest plicy victories.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has maintained a consistently conciliatory tone, refusing to speculate about what Mexico might do to respond to the tariffs if Trump follows through next week – something Trump described as a virtual certainty during a press conference with Theresa May.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xw8xgC Tyler Durden
The US trade deficit shrank very modestly in April (up from a revised -$51.9bn to -$50.8bn), practically in line with expectations.
Under the hood, exports of goods and services decreased $4.6 billion, or 2.2 percent, in April to $206.8 billion.
Exports of goods decreased $4.4 billion
Exports of services decreased $0.2 billion.
The decrease in exports of goods mostly reflected decreases in capital goods ($2.7 billion), in automotive vehicles, parts, and engines ($0.8 billion), and in consumer goods ($0.6 billion).
The decrease in exports of services mostly reflected decreases in travel (for all purposes including education) ($0.1 billion) and in maintenance and repair services ($0.1 billion).
Imports of goods and services decreased $5.7 billion, or 2.2 percent, in April to $257.6 billion.
Imports of goods decreased $5.4 billion
Imports of services decreased $0.3 billion.
The decrease in imports of goods mostly reflected decreases in capital goods ($1.7 billion), in consumer goods ($1.1 billion), in automotive vehicles, parts, and engines ($1.0 billion), in other goods ($0.8 billion), and in industrial supplies and materials ($0.6 billion).
The decrease in imports of services mostly reflected a decrease in transport ($0.3 billion).
Disappointingly for Trump, the deficit with China increased $2.1 billion to $29.4 billion in April.
As US exports to China plunge back near 9 year lows.
However, the deficit with the European Union decreased $1.0 billion to $15.1 billion in April, and the deficit with Canada decreased $0.9 billion to $1.8 billion in April.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2IlLK0T Tyler Durden
In the escalating war of words between the US and China, overnight President Trump threatened to hit China with tariffs on “at least” another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, although he thought both China and Mexico wanted to make deals in their trade disputes with the United States.
“Our talks with China, a lot of interesting things are happening. We’ll see what happens… I could go up another at least $300 billion and I’ll do that at the right time,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One at the Irish airport of Shannon on his way to France for D-Day commemorations. He added that he thinks “China wants to make a deal and I think Mexico wants to make a deal badly.”
In Beijing, China’s Commerce Ministry struck a defiant tone. “If the United States wilfully decides to escalate tensions, we’ll fight to the end,” ministry spokesman Gao Feng told a regular news briefing. “China does not want to fight a trade war, but also is not afraid of one. If the United States wilfully decides to escalate trade tensions, we’ll adopt necessary countermeasures and resolutely safeguard the interests of China and its people.”
As Reuters reported, China’s Commerce Ministry also issued a report on how the United States has benefited from years of economic and trade cooperation with China, saying U.S. claims that China has taken advantage in bilateral trade were groundless.
“Since the new U.S. administration took office, it has disregarded the mutually beneficial and win-win nature of China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation, and has advocated the theory that the United States has ‘lost out’ to China on trade,” the ministry said in a research report.
“It has also taken the trade deficit issue as an excuse to provoke economic and trade frictions.”
Just as ominous for those who still hope a prompt resolution to trade tensions is coming, while Trump said on Thursday that talks with China were ongoing, no face-to-face meetings have been held since May 10, the day the US increased tariffs on a $200 billion list of Chinese goods to 25%, prompting Beijing to retaliate.
Adding to concerns China may target U.S. companies in the trade war, the ministry last week said it was drafting a list of “unreliable entities” that have harmed Chinese firms’ interests. While Gao said the list did not target specific industries, companies or individuals, and details would be disclosed soon, he noted that companies that abide by Chinese laws and market rules had nothing to worry about.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is scheduled to meet People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang this weekend at a gathering of G20 finance leaders in Japan, the first face-to-face discussion between key negotiators in nearly a month.
Meanwhile, Mexican and U.S. officials are also set to resume their talks in Washington on Thursday aimed at averting an imposition of tariffs on Mexican goods before June 10.
Somewhat contradicting himself, after first saying that “not enough” progress on ways to curb migration was made when the two sides met on Wednesday, Trump then told reporters on Thursday that Mexico had made progress in the talks but needed to do more. The president also reiterated that 5% tariffs on all Mexico’s exports to the United States due to start on Monday would go ahead if progress was not made. The tariffs can rise to as much as 25% later in the year.
“Mexico was in yesterday. They’re coming back this morning… I think a lot of progress was made yesterday, but we need to make a lot of progress,” Trump said. “They have to step up and they have to step up to the plate — and perhaps they will.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xpb7Ff Tyler Durden
The Euro is up and so are Bund yields but European stocks have tumbled after the ECB extended its promise of lower for longer-er and offered more free-er money to its banking system – can Mario rescue stocks with re-QE-ing promises?
ECB Press Conference starts at 0830ET:
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Ij56Ug Tyler Durden
One day after US and Mexican negotiators failed to reach a deal to prevent punitive US tariffs from going into effect over border security, Mexican soldiers, armed police and migration officials blocked hundreds of migrants after they crossed into Mexico from Guatemala in a caravan on Wednesday.
A migrant argues with a federal police officer during a joint operation by the Mexican government to stop a caravan of Central American migrants on their way to the U.S., at Metapa de Dominguez, in Chiapas state, Mexico June 5, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Torres
According to Reuters, the response from Mexico marks a major step in compliance with President Trump’s demands that the country halt the flow of illegal immigration, primarily from Central America, in order to avoid 5% tariffs which are set to begin on Monday. According to the report, and INM officials told Reuters that migrants were being asked to show papers to show their status in Mexico.
The operation in Chiapas coincided with a meeting of Mexican and U.S. officials at the White House on Wednesday to thrash out a deal that would avoid blanket tariffs on Mexico threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump last week. –Reuters
….talks with Mexico will resume tomorrow with the understanding that, if no agreement is reached, Tariffs at the 5% level will begin on Monday, with monthly increases as per schedule. The higher the Tariffs go, the higher the number of companies that will move back to the USA!
“That many sailors and military police, yes, it’s new” – said Salva Cruz, a coordinator with Fray Matias de Cordova located in the southern border town of Metapa in the state of Chiapas, where most of the Central Americans have been crossing into Mexico.
Migration officials detained 350 to 400 people, the official said, noting that federal police and agents from the National Guard were present. Mexico’s government recently created a militarized police force called the National Guard made up of soldiers and federal police.
…
Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) said in a statement that a group of about 300 people entered Mexico by a border bridge Wednesday morning, and another 120 people joined the group as they walked to the city of Tapachula.
The migrants later agreed to be taken by bus to a migration office to be processed, the INM said. –Reuters
In May, US border patrol officers arrested over 132,000 people crossing into the country from Mexico, which is 1/3 more than in April, and the highest monthly figure since 2006 in what US officials have repeatedly said are “crisis” levels.
Meanwhile, Mexico is also cracking down on groups which help to facilitate illegal migration.
On Wednesday afternoon in Mexico City, police detained Irineo Mujica, director of the U.S.-Mexico migrant aid group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, and Cristobal Sanchez, a migrant rights activist, according to Alex Mensing, a coordinator with the group.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras has for several years guided annual caravans through Mexico, seeking to protect migrants and to advocate for their rights along a 2,000-mile trail ridden with criminals and corrupt officials who prey on lone travelers through kidnapping, extortion and other forms of assault. –Reuters
After Wednesday’s talks failed to result in headway, Fitch downgraded Mexico’s credit from BBB+ to BBB, while Moody’s lowered Mexico’s outlook from stable to negative.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2K1NTSG Tyler Durden
Traders were looking with much hope to today’s ECB announcement which, despite the highly anticipated extension of forward guidance from late 2019 to “at least the first half of 2020”, proved to be a dud, and “not the big bang” many had expected, according to Commerzbank (which itself is struggling to find a buyer these days).
According to Commerzbank strategist Christoph Rieger, the TLTRO 3 had a hawkish aftertaste, and “being less generous than the prior wave of cheap loans” means that some in the market will have been left disappointed by the ECB’s lack of dovishness.”
“This is not the big bang some were speculating about,” he said, adding that “The extension to forward guidance is no more than a footnote given what the market is pricing.”
Perhaps watching the Euro spike in response to the announcement, Rieger noted that “If anything, it could even resonate hawkishly with the focus still on when the first hike could come.”
In short, “the bar remains high for Draghi to beat market expectations; bunds should regain traction though, with risk assets disappointed and euro stronger, and no relief for breakevens.”
Meanwhile, “Contrary to assumptions Draghi has sought to bind his successor by extending forward guidance to H1 2020 — the flip-side being that it also implies no cuts until then” according to CIBC FX strategist Jeremy Stretch. Echoing Rieger, he said that early details of the TLTRO III level being not as generous as the previous incarnation may have also provided EUR some support.
Elsewhere, CLSA’s Valentin Marinov, the extended forward guidance and the TLTRO III modalities “sound like a botched compromise between the Governing Council hawks and doves, but nothing dramatic.” Additionally, there was no mention of tiering so “lack of genuine dovish surprises could help EUR as EUR-funded carry trades get unwound.”
And with no “big bang” delivered by Draghi, the market reacted appropriately, with the EURUSD first sliding, then spiking once the terms of the announcement were digested…
… which in turn hit European Stoxx, which wiped out much of the session’s gains.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2MGYfto Tyler Durden
(a) Except as provided under subsection (b) of this section, a public entity shall not:
(1) Enter into a contract with a company to acquire or dispose of services, supplies, information technology, or construction unless the contract includes a written certification that the person or company is not currently engaged in, and agrees for the duration of the contract not to engage in, a boycott of Israel; or
(2) Engage in boycotts of Israel.
(b) This section does not apply to:
(1) A company that fails to meet the requirements under subdivision (a)(1) of this section but offers to provide the goods or services for at least twenty percent (20%) less than the lowest certifying business; or
(2) Contracts with a total potential value of less than one thousand dollars ($1,000).
Decisions not to buy or sell goods or services are generally not protected by the First Amendment. That is the necessary implication of Rumsfeld v. FAIR, 547 U.S. 47 (2006), and it is the foundation of the wide range of antidiscrimination laws, public accommodation laws, and common carrier laws throughout the nation.
Thus, for instance:
A limousine driver cannot refuse to serve a same-sex wedding party, even if he describes this as a boycott of same-sex weddings (or part of a nationwide boycott of such weddings by like-minded citizens).
A store cannot refuse to sell to Catholics, even if it describes this as a boycott of people who provide support for the Catholic Church.
An employer in a jurisdiction that bans political affiliation discrimination cannot refuse to hire Democrats, even if it describes such discrimination as a boycott.
An employer that is required to hire employees regardless of union membership cannot refuse to hire union members on the grounds that it is boycotting the union.
A cab driver who is required to serve all passengers cannot refuse to take people who are visibly carrying Israeli merchandise.
Of course all these people would have every right to speak out against same-sex weddings, Catholicism, the Democratic Party, unions, and Israel. That would be speech, which is indeed protected by the First Amendment.
But as a general matter, a decision not to do business with someone, even when it is politically motivated (and even when it is part of a broader political movement), is not protected by the First Amendment. And though people might have the First Amendment right to discriminate (or boycott) in some unusual circumstances—for instance when they refuse to participate in distributing or creating speech they disapprove of—that is a basis for a narrow as-applied challenge, not a facial one. For this reason, Ark. Code Ann. § 25-1-503 is constitutional.
I. Refusals to deal are generally not protected by the First Amendment
In Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that a law school had a First Amendment right to refuse to allow military recruiters on its property—which is to say, the Court rejected the argument that law schools could engage in a limited boycott of such recruiters.
Such a refusal to allow military recruiters, the Court held, “is not inherently expressive.” 547 U.S. at 64. Law schools’ “treating military recruiters differently from other recruiters” was “expressive only because the law schools accompanied their conduct with speech explaining it.” Id. at 66. “The expressive component of a law school’s actions is not created by the conduct itself but by the speech that accompanies it.” Id. Because of that, Congress could restrict such discrimination against military recruiters without violating the First Amendment. Id.
On this 75th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy landings, the venerable UBS’ Art Cashin remembers:
Editor’s Note: The following historical note was originally presented by an old friend on the floor who is a military history buff. We didn’t have time to research it ourselves but he swears it’s true and, on the floor at least, your word is still your bond…so here goes a remarkable story.
On this day in 1944, Winston Churchill called Dwight Eisenhower. The conversation went something like this:
“Ike, I want you to put me on one of the ships to observe the invasion. We’ve waited so long for this moment. It will be a turning point in the history of all mankind. And, I can not send so many brave boys to meet danger or death without showing them I share some risk.”
Ike replied something like:
“Mr. Prime Minister, I understand your feelings completely. But you are such a symbol of the Allied cause that I cannot allow you to take the risk. If something happened to you, it would be a setback to the war effort no matter what fate we met on the beach.”
Churchill threatened to call FDR but Ike said he would resign before letting Churchill board the invasion fleet. Churchill then reminded Ike that he (Churchill) had once been First Lord of the Admiralty. Therefore, he said “I think I still have enough friends in the British Navy to get aboard some vessel whether you like it or not.”
The reply – “Perhaps, Mr. Prime Minister…but I assure you I shall do everything I can to prevent it.”
Later that day, Ike took the unusual step of calling Windsor Castle. He asked to speak to George VI, the King of England. After excusing his own impertinence, Ike told the King that Churchill was being foolish and stubborn and that if anything happened to Churchill the war effort would suffer regardless of other events. The King listened sympathetically. He agreed with every point Ike made. Then he said that after working with the Prime Minister for months, Ike must know that Churchill was clearly a very stubborn Englishman, who might well ignore an order even from his king on this matter.
Late that night the King called Churchill. “Winston, what’s all this tomfoolery about you being on board the invasion fleet?”
A stunned Churchill replied – “It’s no tomfoolery, Your Majesty! We’ve worked so hard…suffered so much…historic moment in the history of mankind…brave boys at risk…etc, etc. It is no tomfoolery, Your Majesty; it is my solemn duty as Prime Minister!!”
The King paused a moment then replied – “You’re right Winston! But if it is the solemn duty of the Prime Minister to be aboard, it is 10 times that duty for the King to be there…what ship do you suggest we sail on, Winston?”
It probably took Churchill a second or two to realize he had been outfoxed. Then he said, “You’ve made your point very well Your Majesty. We’ll both await the news at home.”
* * *
However, if Churchill and the King had taken that trip, this horrifying first-person account of the “epic human tragedy” that unfolded when Allied troops landed on the shores of Normandy on D-Day (first published in The Atlantic in 1960) should make us all remember (and reflect on the 18,19, and 20 year-olds of today)…
Unlike what happens to other great battles, the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.
This fluke of history is doubly ironic since no other decisive battle has ever been so thoroughly reported for the official record. While the troops were still fighting in Normandy, what had happened to each unit in the landing had become known through the eyewitness testimony of all survivors. It was this research by the field historians which first determined where each company had hit the beach and by what route it had moved inland. Owing to the fact that every unit save one had been mislanded, it took this work to show the troops where they had fought.
How they fought and what they suffered were also determined in detail during the field research. As published today, the map data showing where the troops came ashore check exactly with the work done in the field; but the accompanying narrative describing their ordeal is a sanitized version of the original field notes.
This happened because the Army historians who wrote the first official book about Omaha Beach, basing it on the field notes, did a calculated job of sifting and weighting the material. So saying does not imply that their judgment was wrong. Normandy was an American victory; it was their duty to trace the twists and turns of fortune by which success was won. But to follow that rule slights the story of Omaha as an epic human tragedy which in the early hours bordered on total disaster. On this two-division front landing, only six rifle companies were relatively effective as units. They did better than others mainly because they had the luck to touch down on a less deadly section of the beach. Three times that number were shattered or foundered before they could start to fight. Several contributed not a man or bullet to the battle for the high ground. But their ordeal has gone unmarked because its detail was largely ignored by history in the first place. The worst-fated companies were overlooked, the more wretched personal experiences were toned down, and disproportionate attention was paid to the little element of courageous success in a situation which was largely characterized by tragic failure.
The official accounts which came later took their cue from this secondary source instead of searching the original documents. Even such an otherwise splendid and popular book on the great adventure as Cornelius Ryan’s The Longest Day misses the essence of the Omaha story.
In everything that has been written about Omaha until now, there is less blood and iron than in the original field notes covering any battalion landing in the first wave. Doubt it?
Then let’s follow along with Able and Baker companies, 116th Infantry, 29th Division. Their story is lifted from my fading Normandy notebook, which covers the landing of every Omaha company.
Able Company riding the tide in seven Higgins boats is still five thousand yards from the beach when first taken under artillery fire. The shells fall short. At one thousand yards, Boat No. 5 is hit dead on and foundered. Six men drown before help arrives. Second Lieutenant Edward Gearing and twenty others paddle around until picked up by naval craft, thereby missing the fight at the shore line. It’s their lucky day. The other six boats ride unscathed to within one hundred yards of the shore, where a shell into Boat No. 3 kills two men. Another dozen drown, taking to the water as the boat sinks. That leaves five boats.
Lieutenant Edward Tidrick in Boat No. 2 cries out: “My God, we’re coming in at the right spot, but look at it! No shingle, no wall, no shell holes, no cover. Nothing!”
His men are at the sides of the boat, straining for a view of the target. They stare but say nothing. At exactly 6:36 A.M. ramps are dropped along the boat line and the men jump off in water anywhere from waist deep to higher than a man’s head. This is the signal awaited by the Germans atop the bluff. Already pounded by mortars, the floundering line is instantly swept by crossing machine-gun fires from both ends of the beach.
Able Company has planned to wade ashore in three files from each boat, center file going first, then flank files peeling off to right and left. The first men out try to do it but are ripped apart before they can make five yards. Even the lightly wounded die by drowning, doomed by the waterlogging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jump off in water over their heads. Most of them are carried down. Ten or so survivors get around the boat and clutch at its sides in an attempt to stay afloat. The same thing happens to the section in Boat No. 4. Half of its people are lost to the fire or tide before anyone gets ashore. All order has vanished from Able Company before it has fired a shot.
Already the sea runs red. Even among some of the lightly wounded who jumped into shallow water the hits prove fatal. Knocked down by a bullet in the arm or weakened by fear and shock, they are unable to rise again and are drowned by the onrushing tide. Other wounded men drag themselves ashore and, on finding the sands, lie quiet from total exhaustion, only to be overtaken and killed by the water. A few move safely through the bullet swarm to the beach, then find that they cannot hold there. They return to the water to use it for body cover. Faces turned upward, so that their nostrils are out of water, they creep toward the land at the same rate as the tide. That is how most of the survivors make it. The less rugged or less clever seek the cover of enemy obstacles moored along the upper half of the beach and are knocked off by machine-gun fire.
Within seven minutes after the ramps drop, Able Company is inert and leaderless. At Boat No. 2, Lieutenant Tidrick takes a bullet through the throat as he jumps from the ramp into the water. He staggers onto the sand and flops down ten feet from Private First Class Leo J. Nash. Nash sees the blood spurting and hears the strangled words gasped by Tidrick: “Advance with the wire cutters!” It’s futile; Nash has no cutters. To give the order, Tidrick has raised himself up on his hands and made himself a target for an instant. Nash, burrowing into the sand, sees machine gun bullets rip Tidrick from crown to pelvis. From the cliff above, the German gunners are shooting into the survivors as from a roof top.
Captain Taylor N. Fellers and Lieutenant Benjamin R. Kearfoot never make it. They had loaded with a section of thirty men in Boat No. 6 (Landing Craft, Assault, No. 1015). But exactly what happened to this boat and its human cargo was never to be known. No one saw the craft go down. How each man aboard it met death remains unreported. Half of the drowned bodies were later found along the beach. It is supposed that the others were claimed by the sea.
Along the beach, only one Able Company officer still lives—Lieutenant Elijah Nance, who is hit in the heel as he quits the boat and hit in the belly by a second bullet as he makes the sand. By the end of ten minutes, every sergeant is either dead or wounded. To the eyes of such men as Private Howard I. Grosser and Private First Class Gilbert G. Murdock, this clean sweep suggests that the Germans on the high ground have spotted all leaders and concentrated fire their way. Among the men who are still moving in with the tide, rifles, packs, and helmets have already been cast away in the interests of survival.
To the right of where Tidrick’s boat is drifting with the tide, its coxswain lying dead next to the shell-shattered wheel, the seventh craft, carrying a medical section with one officer and sixteen men, noses toward the beach. The ramp drops. In that instant, two machine guns concentrate their fire on the opening. Not a man is given time to jump. All aboard are cut down where they stand.
By the end of fifteen minutes, Able Company has still not fired a weapon. No orders are being given by anyone. No words are spoken. The few able-bodied survivors move or not as they see fit. Merely to stay alive is a full-time job. The fight has become a rescue operation in which nothing counts but the force of a strong example.
Above all others stands out the first-aid man, Thomas Breedin. Reaching the sands, he strips off pack, blouse, helmet, and boots. For a moment he stands there so that others on the strand will see him and get the same idea. Then he crawls into the water to pull in wounded men about to be overlapped by the tide. The deeper water is still spotted with tide walkers advancing at the same pace as the rising water. But now, owing to Breedin’s example, the strongest among them become more conspicuous targets. Coming along, they pick up wounded comrades and float them to the shore raftwise. Machine-gun fire still rakes the water. Burst after burst spoils the rescue act, shooting the floating man from the hands of the walker or killing both together. But Breedin for this hour leads a charmed life and stays with his work indomitably.
By the end of one half hour, approximately two thirds of the company is forever gone. There is no precise casualty figure for that moment. There is for the Normandy landing as a whole no accurate figure for the first hour or first day. The circumstances precluded it. Whether more Able Company riflemen died from water than from fire is known only to heaven. All earthly evidence so indicates, but cannot prove it.
By the end of one hour, the survivors from the main body have crawled across the sand to the foot of the bluff, where there is a narrow sanctuary of defiladed space. There they lie all day, clean spent, unarmed, too shocked to feel hunger, incapable even of talking to one another. No one happens by to succor them, ask what has happened, provide water, or offer unwanted pity. D Day at Omaha afforded no time or space for such missions. Every landing company was overloaded by its own assault problems.
By the end of one hour and forty-five minutes, six survivors from the boat section on the extreme right shake loose and work their way to a shelf a few rods up the cliff. Four fall exhausted from the short climb and advance no farther. They stay there through the day, seeing no one else from the company. The other two, Privates Jake Shefer and Thomas Lovejoy, join a group from the Second Ranger Battalion, which is assaulting Pointe du Hoc to the right of the company sector, and fight on with the Rangers through the day. Two men. Two rifles. Except for these, Able Company’s contribution to the D Day fire fight is a cipher.
Baker Company which is scheduled to land twenty-six minutes after Able and right on top of it, supporting and reinforcing, has had its full load of trouble on the way in. So rough is the sea during the journey that the men have to bail furiously with their helmets to keep the six boats from swamping. Thus preoccupied, they do not see the disaster which is overtaking Able until they are almost atop it. Then, what their eyes behold is either so limited or so staggering to the senses that control withers, the assault wave begins to dissolve, and disunity induced by fear virtually cancels the mission. A great cloud of smoke and dust raised by the mortar and machine-gun fire has almost closed a curtain around Able Company’s ordeal. Outside the pall, nothing is to be seen but a line of corpses adrift, a few heads bobbing in the water and the crimson-running tide. But this is enough for the British coxswains. They raise the cry: “We can’t go in there. We can’t see the landmarks. We must pull off.”
In the command boat, Captain Ettore V. Zappacosta pulls a Colt .45 and says: “By God, you’ll take this boat straight in.” His display of courage wins obedience, but it’s still a fool’s order. Such of Baker’s boats as try to go straight in suffer Able’s fate without helping the other company whatever. Thrice during the approach mortar shells break right next to Zappacosta’s boat but by an irony leave it unscathed, thereby sparing the riders a few more moments of life. At seventy-five yards from the sand Zappacosta yells: “Drop the ramp !” The end goes down, and a storm of bullet fire comes in.
Zappacosta jumps first from the boat, reels ten yards through the elbow-high tide, and yells back: “I’m hit.” He staggers on a few more steps. The aid man, Thomas Kenser, sees him bleeding from hip and shoulder. Kenser yells: “Try to make it in; I’m coming.” But the captain falls face forward into the wave, and the weight of his equipment and soaked pack pin him to the bottom. Kenser jumps toward him and is shot dead while in the air. Lieutenant Tom Dallas of Charley Company, who has come along to make a reconnaissance, is the third man. He makes it to the edge of the sand. There a machine-gun burst blows his head apart before he can flatten.
Private First Class Robert L. Sales, who is lugging Zappacosta’s radio (an SCR 300), is the fourth man to leave the boat, having waited long enough to see the others die. His boot heel catches on the edge of the ramp and he falls sprawling into the tide, losing the radio but saving his life. Every man who tries to follow him is either killed or wounded before reaching dry land. Sales alone gets to the beach unhit. To travel those few yards takes him two hours. First he crouches in the water, and waddling forward on his haunches just a few paces, collides with a floating log—driftwood. In that moment, a mortar shell explodes just above his head, knocking him groggy. He hugs the log to keep from going down, and somehow the effort seems to clear his head a little. Next thing he knows, one of Able Company’s tide walkers hoists him aboard the log and, using his sheath knife, cuts away Sales’s pack, boots, and assault jacket.
Feeling stronger, Sales returns to the water, and from behind the log, using it as cover, pushes toward the sand. Private Mack L. Smith of Baker Company, hit three times through the face, joins him there. An Able Company rifleman named Kemper, hit thrice in the right leg, also comes alongside. Together they follow the log until at last they roll it to the farthest reach of high tide. Then they flatten themselves behind it, staying there for hours after the flow has turned to ebb. The dead of both companies wash up to where they lie, and then wash back out to sea again. As a body drifts in close to them, Sales and companions, disregarding the fire, crawl from behind the log to take a look. If any one of them recognizes the face of a comrade, they join in dragging the body up onto the dry sand beyond the water’s reach. The unfamiliar dead are left to the sea. So long as the tide is full, they stay with this unique task. Later, an unidentified first-aid man who comes wiggling along the beach dresses the wounds of Smith. Sales, as he finds strength, bandages Kemper. The three remain behind the log until night falls. There is nothing else to be reported of any member of Zappacosta’s boat team.
Only one other Baker Company boat tries to come straight in to the beach. Somehow the boat founders. Somehow all of its people are killed—one British coxswain and about thirty American infantrymen. Where they fall, there is no one to take note of and report.
Frightened coxswains in the other four craft take one quick look, instinctively draw back, and then veer right and left away from the Able Company shambles. So doing, they dodge their duty while giving a break to their passengers. Such is the shock to the boat team leaders, and such their feeling of relief at the turning movement, that not one utters a protest. Lieutenant Leo A. Pingenot’s coxswain swings the boat far rightward toward Pointe du Hoc; then, spying a small and deceptively peaceful-looking cove, heads directly for the land. Fifty yards out, Pingenot yells: “Drop the ramp!” The coxswain freezes on the rope, refusing to lower. Staff Sergeant Odell L. Padgett jumps him, throttles him, and bears him to the floor. Padgett’s men lower the rope and jump for the water. In two minutes, they are all in up to their necks and struggling to avoid drowning. That quickly, Pingenot is already far out ahead of them. Padgett comes even with him, and together they cross onto dry land. The beach of the cove is heavily strewn with giant boulders. Bullets seem to be pinging off every rock.
Pingenot and Padgett dive behind the same rock. Then they glance back, but to their horror see not one person. Quite suddenly smoke has half blanked out the scene beyond the water’s edge. Pingenot moans: “My God, the whole boat team is dead.” Padgett sings out: “Hey, are you hit?” Back come many voices from beyond the smoke. “What’s the rush?” “Take it easy!” “We’ll get there.” “Where’s the fire?” “Who wants to know?” The men are still moving along, using the water as cover. Padgett’s yell is their first information that anyone else has moved up front. They all make it to the shore, and they are twenty-eight strong at first. Pingenot and Padgett manage to stay ahead of them, coaxing and encouraging. Padgett keeps yelling: “Come on, goddam it, things are better up here!” But still they lose two men killed and three wounded in crossing the beach.
In the cove, the platoon latches on to a company of Rangers, fights all day as part of that company, and helps destroy the enemy entrenchments atop Pointe du Hoc. By sundown that mop-up is completed. The platoon bivouacs at the first hedgerow beyond the cliff.
The other Baker Company boat, which turns to the right, has far less luck. Staff Sergeant Robert M. Campbell, who leads the section, is the first man to jump out when the ramp goes down. He drops in drowning water, and his load of two bangalore torpedoes takes him straight to the bottom. So he jettisons the bangalores and then, surfacing, cuts away all equipment for good measure. Machine-gun fire brackets him, and he submerges again briefly. Never a strong swimmer, he heads back out to sea. For two hours he paddles around, two hundred or so yards from the shore. Though he hears and sees nothing of the battle, he somehow gets the impression that the invasion has failed and that all other Americans are dead, wounded, or have been taken prisoner. Strength fast going, in despair he moves ashore rather than drown. Beyond the smoke he quickly finds the fire. So he grabs a helmet from a dead man’s head, crawls on hands and knees to the sea wall, and there finds five of his men, two of them unwounded.
Like Campbell, Private First Class Jan J. Budziszewski is carried to the bottom by his load of two bangalores. He hugs them half a minute before realizing that he will either let loose or drown. Next, he shucks off his helmet and pack and drops his rifle. Then he surfaces. After swimming two hundred yards, he sees that he is moving in exactly the wrong direction. So he turns about and heads for the beach, where he crawls ashore “under a rain of bullets.” In his path lies a dead Ranger. Budziszewski takes the dead man’s helmet, rifle, and canteen and crawls on to the sea wall. The only survivor from Campbell’s boat section to get off the beach, he spends his day walking to and fro along the foot of the bluff, looking for a friendly face. But he meets only strangers, and none shows any interest in him.
In Lieutenant William B. Williams’ boat, the coxswain steers sharp left and away from Zappacosta’s sector. Not seeing the captain die, Williams doesn’t know that command has now passed to him. Guiding on his own instinct, the coxswain moves along the coast six hundred yards, then puts the boat straight in. It’s a good guess; he has found a little vacuum in the battle. The ramp drops on dry sand and the boat team jumps ashore. Yet it’s a close thing. Mortar fire has dogged them all the way; and as the last rifleman clears the ramp, one shell lands dead center of the boat, blows it apart, and kills the coxswain. Momentarily, the beach is free of fire, but the men cannot cross it at a bound. Weak from seasickness and fear, they move at a crawl, dragging their equipment. By the end of twenty minutes, Williams and ten men are over the sand and resting in the lee of the sea wall. Five others are hit by machine-gun fire crossing the beach; six men, last seen while taking cover in a tidal pocket, are never heard from again. More mortar fire lands around the party as Williams leads it across the road beyond the sea wall. The men scatter. When the shelling lifts, three of them do not return. Williams leads the seven survivors up a trail toward the fortified village of Les Moulins atop the bluff. He recognizes the ground and knows that he is taking on a tough target. Les Moulins is perched above a draw, up which winds a dirt road from the beach, designated on the invasion maps as Exit No. 3.
Williams and his crew of seven are the first Americans to approach it D Day morning. Machine-gun fire from a concrete pillbox sweeps over them as they near the brow of the hill, moving now at a crawl through thick grass. Williams says to the others: “Stay here; we’re too big a target!” They hug earth, and he crawls forward alone, moving via a shallow gully. Without being detected, he gets to within twenty yards of the gun, obliquely downslope from it. He heaves a grenade; but he has held it just a bit too long and it explodes in air, just outside the embrasure. His second grenade hits the concrete wall and bounces right back on him. Three of its slugs hit him in the shoulders. Then, from out of the pillbox, a German potato masher sails down on him and explodes just a few feet away; five more fragments cut into him. He starts crawling back to his men; en route, three bullets from the machine gun rip his rump and right leg.
The seven are still there. Williams hands his map and compass to Staff Sergeant Frank M. Price, saying: “It’s your job now. But go the other way—toward Vierville.” Price starts to look at Williams’ wounds, but Williams shakes him off, saying: “No, get moving.” He then settles himself in a hole in the embankment, stays there all day, and at last gets medical attention just before midnight.
On leaving Williams, Price’s first act is to hand map and compass (the symbols of leadership) to Technical Sergeant William Pearce, whose seniority the lieutenant has overlooked. They cross the draw, one man at a time, and some distance beyond come to a ravine; on the far side, they bump their first hedgerow, and as they look for an entrance, fire comes against them. Behind a second hedgerow, not more than thirty yards away, are seven Germans, five rides and two burp guns. On exactly even terms, these two forces engage for the better part of an hour, apparently with no one’s getting hit. Then Pearce settles the fight by crawling along a drainage ditch to the enemy flank. He kills the seven Germans with a Browning Automatic Rifle.
For Pearce and his friends, it is a first taste of battle; its success is giddying. Heads up, they walk along the road straight into Vierville, disregarding all precautions. They get away with it only because that village is already firmly in the hands of Lieutenant Walter Taylor of Baker Company and twenty men from his boat team.
Taylor is a luminous figure in the story of D Day, one of the forty-seven immortals of Omaha who, by their dauntless initiative at widely separated points along the beach, saved the landing from total stagnation and disaster. Courage and luck are his in extraordinary measure.
When Baker Company’s assault wave breaks up just short of the surf where Able Company is in ordeal, Taylor’s coxswain swings his boat sharp left, then heads toward the shore about halfway between Zappacosta’s boat and Williams’. Until a few seconds after the ramp drops, this bit of beach next to the village called Hamel-au-Prêtre is blessedly clear of fire. No mortar shells crown the start. Taylor leads his section crawling across the beach and over the sea wall, losing four men killed and two wounded (machine-gun fire) in this brief movement. Some yards off to his right, Taylor has seen Lieutenants Harold Donaldson and Emil Winkler shot dead. But there is no halt for reflection; Taylor leads the section by trail straight up the bluff and into Vierville, where his luck continues. In a two-hour fight he whips a German platoon without losing a man.
The village is quiet when Pearce joins him. Pearce says: “Williams is shot up back there and can’t move.”
Says Taylor: “I guess that makes me company commander.”
Answers Pearce: “This is probably all of Baker Company.” Pearce takes a head count; they number twenty-eight, including Taylor.
Says Taylor: “That ought to be enough. Follow me!”
Inland from Vierville about five hundred yards lies the Château de Vaumicel, imposing in its rock-walled massiveness, its hedgerow-bordered fields all entrenched and interconnected with artilleryproof tunnels. To every man but Taylor the target looks prohibitive. Still, they follow him. Fire stops them one hundred yards short of the château. The Germans are behind a hedgerow at mid-distance. Still feeling their way, Taylor’s men flatten, open fire with rifles, and toss a few grenades, though the distance seems too great. By sheer chance, one grenade glances off the helmet of a German squatting in a foxhole. He jumps up, shouting: “Kamerad! Kamerad!” Thereupon twenty-four of the enemy walk from behind the hedgerow with their hands in the air. Taylor pares off one of his riflemen to march the prisoners back to the beach. The brief fight costs him three wounded. Within the château, he takes two more prisoners, a German doctor and his first-aid man. Taylor puts them on a “kind of a parole,” leaving his three wounded in their keeping while moving his platoon to the first crossroads beyond the château.
Here he is stopped by the sudden arrival of three truckloads of German infantry, who deploy into the fields on both flanks of his position and start an envelopment. The manpower odds, about three to one against him, are too heavy. In the first trade of fire, lasting not more than two minutes, a rifleman lying beside Taylor is killed, three others are wounded, and the B.A.R. is shot from Pearce’s hands. That leaves but twenty men and no automatic weapons.
Taylor yells: “Back to the château!” They go out, crawling as far as the first hedgerow; then they rise and trot along, supporting their wounded. Taylor is the last man out, having stayed behind to cover the withdrawal with his carbine until the hedgerows interdict fire against the others. So far, this small group has had no contact with any other part of the expedition, and for all its members know, the invasion may have failed.
They make it to the château. The enemy comes on and moves in close. The attacking fire builds up. But the stone walls are fire-slotted, and through the midday and early afternoon these ports well serve the American riflemen. The question is whether the ammunition will outlast the Germans. It is answered at sundown, just as the supply runs out, by the arrival of fifteen Rangers who join their fire with Taylor’s, and the Germans fade back.
Already Taylor and his force are farther south than any element of the right flank in the Omaha expedition. But Taylor isn’t satisfied. The battalion objective, as specified for the close of D Day, is still more than one half mile to the westward. He says to the others: “We’ve got to make it.”
So he leads them forth, once again serving as first scout, eighteen of his own riflemen and fifteen Rangers following in column. One man is killed by a bullet getting away from Vaumicel. Dark closes over them. They prepare to bivouac. Having got almost to the village of Louvieres, they are by this time almost one half mile in front of anything else in the United States Army. There a runner reaches them with the message that the remnants of the battalion are assembling seven hundred yards closer to the sea; Taylor and party are directed to fall back on them. It is done.
Later, still under the spell, Price paid the perfect tribute to Taylor. He said: “We saw no sign of fear in him. Watching him made men of us. Marching or fighting, he was leading. We followed him because there was nothing else to do.”
Thousands of Americans were spilled onto Omaha Beach. The high ground was won by a handful of men like Taylor who on that day burned with a flame bright beyond common understanding.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2MwUQgn Tyler Durden
