 The only artillery support for the troops making these tentative advances was from the navy . Finding targets difficult to spot , and in fear of hitting their own troops , the big guns of the battleships and cruisers concentrated fire on the flanks of the beaches . The destroyers were able to get in closer , and from 08 : 00 began engaging their own targets . At 09 : 50 , two minutes after the McCook destroyed a 75 mm gun position in WN @-@ 74 , the destroyers were ordered to get as close in as possible . Some approached within 1 @,@ 000 yards ( 900 m ) several times , scraping bottom and risking running aground . An engineer who had landed in the first wave at Fox Red , watching the Frankford steaming in towards shore , thought she had been badly hit and was being beached . Instead , she turned parallel to the beach and cruised westwards , guns blazing at targets of opportunity . Thinking she would turn back out to sea , the engineer soon saw that she had instead begun backing up , guns still firing . At one point , gunners aboard the Frankford saw an immobilized tank at the water 's edge , still firing . Watching the fall of its shot , they followed up with a salvo of their own . In this manner , the tank acted as the ship 's fire control party for several minutes . 
