4th Infantry Division landed on Utah Beach shortly after dawn with few casualties, and began staging for a move against the fortified port of Cherbourg, a port critical to future Allied operations. VII Corps would advance from Utah Beach, the right (west) flank of the Allied forces separated from the landings at Omaha and the other beachheads by the Douve River. Although the landings were scattered, they nevertheless secured most of the routes by which the U.S. 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne divisions landed at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula.
In the early hours of June 6, 1944, the U.S.
