Although neither Eisenhower nor Bradley could admit it, the most difficult of the five landing beaches was going to be Omaha. This objective for the American 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions had been closely reconnoitred by a British team from COPP, the Combined Operations Beach Reconnaissance and Assault Pilotage Parties. In the second half of January, the midget submarine X-20 had been towed close to the Normandy coast by an armed trawler. General Bradley had requested that, having checked the beaches selected for the British and Canadian forces, COPP should also examine Omaha to make sure that it was firm enough for tanks. Captain Scott-Bowden, a sapper, and Sergeant Bruce Ogden-Smith of the Special Boat Section swam ashore, each armed only with a commando knife and a Colt .45 automatic. They also carried an eighteen-inch earth auger and a bandolier with containers into which they put their samples. The sea was unusually flat and they only just escaped discovery by German sentries.

The day after his return, Scott-Bowden was summoned to London by a rear admiral. He arrived at Norfolk House in St James’s Square just after lunch. There, in a long dining room, with maps covered by curtains along the walls, he found himself facing six admirals and five generals, including General Bradley. Bradley interrogated him carefully on the beach-bearing capacity. ‘Sir, I hope you don’t mind my saying it,’ Scott-Bowden said to him just before leaving, ‘but this beach is a very formidable proposition indeed and there are bound to be tremendous casualties.’ Bradley put a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘I know, my boy, I know.’ Omaha was simply the only possible beach between the British sector on the left and Utah beach on the right.

As soon as the invasion troops moved off for embarkation, the civilian population rushed out to wave goodbye. ‘When we left,’ wrote a young American engineer who had been billeted on an English family, ‘[they] cried just as if they were our parents. It was quite a touching thing for us. It seemed like the general public seemed to know pretty much what was going on.’