THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion
CAMPAIGNS & BATTLES
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Books on D-Day & Overlord
Theresa wrote: "Both of my grandfathers served in WW2. I became fascinated by the war and Holocaust history at an early age. My kids are 13, 11, and 8. I have been trying to get them all three interest in this his..."Introduce them to my book, The Star of Africa, how a rebellious, juvenile delinquent became one of Germany;s greatest (if just tolerated) heroes. he also became a legend to his enemies before his death at age 22. We are working on the TV series project now.
Dimitri wrote: "D-Day in Normandy isn't possible this year for the unvaccinated, so instead me & the boys made ourselves useful flowering a dozen adopted graves on 2 American cemeteries in Belgium (Henri Chapelle ..."That's great that you could place flowers on some WW2 graves Dimitri, very nice of you.
"Invasion - They're Coming!" by Paul Carell is another classic read.
'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Dimitri wrote: "D-Day in Normandy isn't possible this year for the unvaccinated, so instead me & the boys made ourselves useful flowering a dozen adopted graves on 2 American cemeteries in Belgium ..."Funny you should mention Carell's book as I purchased that at the same time as the one I'm currently reading:
Night Drop: The American Airborne Invasion of Normandy
Must be karma Marc :)
This afternoon I am starting --
Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings by Craig symonds.
Manray9 wrote: "This afternoon I am starting -- Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings by ..."I hope you enjoy it as much as I did MR9, keep us all posted.
Manray9 wrote: "This afternoon I am starting -- Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings by ..."Hope you enjoy it. Let us know your thoughts when you are done.
I have read Symonds' bios of Patrick Cleburne, Joseph E. Johnston and Franklin Buchanan. They were all good. I have his Lincoln and His Admirals on my shelf yet to read.
From Craig Symonds' Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings.Ike was a constant smoker. According to Symonds he went through four packs of Camels per day. I used to smoke a pack of Marlboros per day, that was bad enough, but four packs! Ol' Ike was rarely seen without a cigarette between his fingers. No wonder he started having heart attacks in the fifties.
I quit the nasty habit in 1987.
Never smoked myself MR9, except once when I was in the army and freezing my arse off, it did make me feel warm for a little while :)
'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Never smoked myself MR9, except once when I was in the army and freezing my arse off, it did make me feel warm for a little while :)"There used to be a lot of smoking in the navy.
Manray9 wrote: "'There used to be a lot of smoking in the navy...."And in the Air Force. I remember flight debriefings in a small room with a blue haze (I contributed too). I can't imagine four packs/day of unfiltered cigs.
Mike wrote: "Manray9 wrote: "'There used to be a lot of smoking in the navy...."And in the Air Force. I remember flight debriefings in a small room with a blue haze (I contributed too). I can't imagine four p..."
I was at sea and ran out of cigarettes. Had to buy a carton of unfiltered Luckies from a CPO. Rough at first, but when you're an addict. . .
You know WWII brought huge profits to Philip Morris, etc.
January 1980, Fort Jackson, SC. Guy named Jim and me were guarding an empty warehouse. It was about 33 degrees and raining like a cow pissin' on a flat rock. Jim pulls out of a pack of Kools.'Gimme one of them, Jim. I need somethin' over here,' I sez. Took me 40 years to kick that monkey.
Here are some tidbits from Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings by Craig Symonds.-- Everything the Allies could do from the Atlantic coast of the U.S. through the eastern Mediterranean was subject to the number of available ships. The success of shipbuilding on a colossal scale was essential to winning the war. In 1942, in all but two months, the number of ships sunk exceeded the number built. From November '42 through January '43 that figure reversed significantly -- going from a net loss of about 190 ships in Nov. to a net gain of about 450 in Jan. After November '42, the Allies never experienced another month of net ship losses. In fact, in Dec. '43 they launched over 1,600 vessels and lost just 200. This info comes from a chart derived Frederic Lane's Ships for Victory.
-- According to Symonds, Operation Torch resulted in the loss of half of all the landing craft then available to the Allies.
-- Some American troops accompanied the British in their landings in Vichyite Algeria. Aboard the British ships the meals consisted mostly of boiled mutton. The Americans found this revolting.
-- The U.S. convoy and escorts steamed to French Morocco from the east coast and conducted the landings without tangling with the German navy -- neither surface craft nor U-boats. They made the mistake, however, of lingering off the invasion beaches without adequate ASW support or air patrols. U-173 and U-130 found them and torpedoed four transports, a tanker, and the USS HAMBLETON (DD-455). Fortunately the transports were empty and the HAMBLETON didn't sink. After repairs she served at Normandy and Okinawa. An important lesson was learned.
Very interesting post MR9. I can't say that I've tried boiled mutton but it doesn't sound all that appetising!
I just read Mark Zuehlke’s Juno Beach — enjoyed it a lot and learned a lot! — and just got the follow up Holding Juno from Amazon. While I am not Canadian, I decided it was time to really learn about Canada’s accomplishments in WW2. I plan to read all of Zuehlke’s books this year!
Bob wrote: "I just read Mark Zuehlke’s Juno Beach — enjoyed it a lot and learned a lot! — and just got the follow up Holding Juno from Amazon. While I am not Canadian, I decided it was time to really learn abo..."I have read his book on Sicily and his trilogy on the Canadians during the Italian campaign (great books). I plan to read the rest of his books covering the Canadians during the European theatre when I can.
Really enjoying Sand & Steel: A New History of D-Day; I've finished his extensive section on the build up of forces (and attendant culture clashes). His analysis of the air war before the start of the Transport Plan was spot on, I particularly agreed with this analysis:The machinery of the air war was all very well, but the quality of the manpower was often the measure between success and failure in 1943–4. As the conflict ground on, Luftwaffe pilots received less training because of fuel shortages and the need to generate numbers. From an average of 240 hours of flying training before combat in 1942, a Luftwaffe pilot was receiving only 170 hours in 1943 and this had often shrunk to around 110 hours by 1944. Conversely, US pilots received on average 320 hours in 1943 before becoming operational, and in 1944 this had risen to 360. The comparable RAF figures were two hundred hours in 1942, and 340 by 1944. Choosing quantity over quality meant that the attrition of young German pilots actually rose, while even the most experienced fell prey to the onslaught of American numbers. Ten Knight’s Cross aces with combined tallies of over one thousand Allied aircraft were killed in the 1943 air war over Germany. The inexperience the Luftwaffe brought to the air battle was reflected in its ground crew also, where more personnel took longer to service, maintain and repair their Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs than ever before.and the evolution of the RAF's excellent close support system is another new one for me:
Group Captain Desmond Scott, who on being appointed to command the brand-new No. 123 Wing of three Typhoon squadrons initiated ‘mobile air warfare’ exercises. He taught his entire wing, including all the ground support elements, to divide into two equal elements, ‘each capable of catering for and servicing the squadrons, and be independent of the other’. They moved frequently under canvas, at the same time being ‘attacked’ by the wing’s own aircraft, providing ‘excellent training for both pilot and ground staff’. Scott was ‘agreeably surprised at how quickly the personnel left their vehicles and dispersed’ when he swooped down on them one morning near Shoreham. He had ‘a large semi-collapsible three-roomed caravan built on a six-wheeled Austin truck’, which was always parked adjacent to his ‘mobile briefing complex, staffed by both Army and Air Force intelligence officers’.
Jonny wrote: "Really enjoying Sand & Steel: A New History of D-Day;...From an average of 240 hours of flying training before combat in 1942, a Luftwaffe pilot was receiving only 170 hours in 1943 and this had often shrunk to around 110 hours by 1944."During Operation Bodenplatte in early 1945 RAF aircrew on the ground were supposedly heard shouting, 'Weave, you fools, weave!' as half-trained Luftwaffepilots attacked their airfields.
Excellent illustration Derek. I recall Martin Middlebrook noting that one of the immediate results of the implementation of the Wilde Sau nightfighting tactic was not a massive upswing in Bomber Command losses but a massive downturn in Luftwaffe day fighter availability, as the nocturnal operations were disrupting the maintenance cycles. Then there's the malign influence of the Eastern Front - easy to get starry eyed over multiple hundred kill 'aces' but these are scored against the Soviets - its telling that these 'experts' don't last long once USAAF fighters (exercising initiative and tactical skill) appear on the scene. (Sorry, might have drifted a bit off topic there).
Excellent and informative post Jonny. I found "Sand & Steel" a pretty engaging account and I really appreciated the research and detail provided in the book.
Getting close to the dawn of June 6 now, with the invasion fleet on it's way, and watched over by what seems to amou t to the RAF's own 'foreign legion', scoring a significant achievement:Other B-24s protected Ramsay’s armada from the air, covering the south-western approaches and determined to destroy U-boats. These maritime Liberators, equipped with extra fuel tanks, depth charges and long-range radar, flew with No. 19 Group of RAF Coastal Command, the formation a microcosm of the nations assembled for Overlord. Along with Czech, Polish and New Zealander squadrons, there were two from Australia and three from Canada. The Czech squadron, No. 311, included many who had fled their homeland in 1938, others who had fought alongside the French in 1940. František Pospíchal recalled their motto, ‘Na množství nehled’te’ (Disregard their numbers). He reminisced, ‘I was in the air on D-Day, flying a Costal Command Liberator hunting for U-boats near Brest. It’s hard to say now what you felt: fear, excitement?’ A fellow airman from the 311th, Charles Marlich, summed up what they all felt: ‘I don’t think there was nervousness. It was more an elated feeling that something was happening – finally.’ A further unit in the group, No. 224 Squadron, based at St Eval in north Cornwall, comprised 137 Britons, forty-four Canadians, thirty-three Anzacs, two Americans, a Swiss, a Chilean, a South African and a Brazilian. It was eventually credited with sinking ten U-boats, including U-626 and U-373 on 8 June, with the result that not a single U-boat penetrated the English Channel.Sand & Steel: A New History of D-Day
Great post Jonny, very much a RAF foreign legion!
The iconic look for Allied aircraft in June '44; it's rather nice to hear that it was as inexact at 1:1 as it is in 'braille scale':In the preceding days, recognition symbols of five alternating back and white stripes had been applied to the wings and fuselage of Allied aeroplanes– eighteen inches wide on single- engine aircraft, twenty- four for twin- engined planes and gliders; apart from glider tugs, four- engined machines (the heavy bomber fleets) were exempt. This was to avoid the fratricide that had downed many friendly aircraft during the invasion of Sicily a year earlier. The plan was approved by Leigh- Mallory on 17 May, but for fear of the Luftwaffe getting wind of the scheme and imitating the markings, the stripes remained a closely guarded secret until 3 June, when troop carrier units started applying them, with the fighters and bombers waiting for their war paint until the fourth.life
Flying Officer Douglas Gordon and his fellow Typhoon pilots with No. 440 Squadron, RCAF, knew something was up after a mission against a French radar station on 30 May. They had flown almost daily for the entire month, usually returning home with battle damage. ‘Then, inexplicably the whole squadron was stood down. We were not told what was going on, but we knew something was about to be screwed up when we saw the ‘erks’ [ground crew] paint black- and- white stripes on our kites [aircraft]. They looked like prison stripes. We thought we were in jail.’ The effort virtually robbed Britain of its stock of black and white paint to find the hundreds of thousands of gallons of each required (two and a half gallons of black with three and a half gallons of white were recommended for single- engined craft; three and a half of black and five of white for multi- engined aeroplanes). Personnel struggled through the night with brushes and brooms, as a No. 438 Squadron Typhoon pilot noted: ‘Arrived at dispersal this morning to find all aircraft with their invasion markings painted on them. The ground crew completed the job between 1800 hours and 0300 hours.’ It was an inexact science: the stripes on the wings of the 357th Fighter Group’s P- 51s at RAF Leiston, Suffolk, ‘were trim’, thought Captain Willie Williams, their operations officer, but those on the fuselage ‘spoiled the profile, making them look like pregnant turtles’. Allied aircraft would remain so marked until an order to remove them was issued on 6 December.
Jonny wrote: "The iconic look for Allied aircraft in June '44; it's rather nice to hear that it was as inexact at 1:1 as it is in 'braille scale':In the preceding days, recognition symbols of five alternating ba..."Excellent post Jonny. What a brilliant and simple idea it was. I am surprised that the stripes remained on so long though.
Great post Jonny - I liked the description of their planes - like "pregnant turtles".
Yeah, P-51B's don't look so good in vertical stripes - not very slimming! I've now got three Para divisions with boots on Normandy. Mr C-A has been discussing the actions of the Screaming Eagles at La Fiere, including the MoH son by PFC Charles DeGlopper, and the attacks on the bridge by the 'armour' of 100th Panzer-Ersatz- und Ausbildungs-Abteilung (Tank Replacement and Training Battalion). Private Ryan would be a lot more honest (but not nearly as impressive) if they ended up fighting FT-17s and R-35s rather than stealing Tigers from the British sector.
Private DeGlopper: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/char...
Engagements at La Fiere: https://www.forces.net/d-day/la-fiere...
Two great links, thanks for posting those details Jonny.
Reading about the landing schedule on Omaha, I couldn't help the niggling feeling that heard it all before. Then Lieutenant Green, RN, spelled it out so I didn't have to:However, on the run-in, Jimmy Green had been watching ‘a particularly menacing-looking pillbox at the mouth of the Vierville draw through my binoculars and thought if it was manned we were going to be in trouble’. Green remembered, ‘It was dull, grey and overcast; we went flat-out and crunched to a halt some twenty or thirty yards from the shore. Fellers was gone as soon as the ramp was lowered, before I could wish him luck, his men following in single file, up to their waists in water. In my briefing I was told that the beach would be heavily bombed and there would be craters where the advancing troops could shelter – but the sand was as flat as a pancake with not a crater in sight.’ This was a moment Jimmy Green would never forget. ‘I can still see them now,’ he told me sixty-four years later. ‘They were forming an assault line parallel to the shore. That was the last time I saw the men of Company ‘A’, 116th Infantry Regiment. It reminded me of a scene from the Somme.’
I decided to start this one yesterday for my annual D-Day read:The Longest Day: June 6, 1944
Just over a third of the way through it and loving it. Not the book you want to read if you want a detailed account of the events leading up to and occurring on D-Day, but definitely the book for you if you're interested in what various members of the Allied and German forces experienced.
Another great post Jonny, poor buggers from Company ‘A’, 116th Infantry Regiment!
Marc wrote: "I decided to start this one yesterday for my annual D-Day read:The Longest Day: June 6, 1944
Just over a third of the way through..."
A classic book indeed and still one of the great accounts of D-Day.
Marc wrote: "I decided to start this one yesterday for my annual D-Day read:The Longest Day: June 6, 1944
Just over a third of the way through..."
I'm reading the same - again :-) but this year decided to read the special edition with the facsimile documents and notes.
André wrote: "
Nothing Less Than Victory: The Oral History of D-Day Russell Miller"Read this one a few years ago--good stuff!
'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Marc wrote: "I decided to start this one yesterday for my annual D-Day read:The Longest Day: June 6, 1944
Just over a third of th..."
The movie isn't half bad either. And it has almost everyone who was anyone at the time in it.
Dj wrote: "'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Marc wrote: "I decided to start this one yesterday for my annual D-Day read:The Longest Day: June 6, 1944
J..."
I agree about the movie--pretty much a "who's who" of Hollywood at the time.
I watched the movie - again - on Memorial Day - it was on TCM. I still love it.
Its a good 'un all right... can't beat a bit of Richy Burton, or John Mills celluloid self getting relieved buy his real self! Ryan was of course briefly there:Another reporter assigned to accompany B- 26s over the invasion zone worked for the Daily Telegraph. The rookie– whose twenty- fourth birthday was on 5 June– was given the honour of a place in the base commander’s personal Marauder. To the young man’s intense frustration, the aircraft developed a technical fault and had to turn back just miles from its target. Repairs were soon made and in the early afternoon he was again over France– and gained a far better impression of the whole operation than he would have done on the earlier mission. ‘Away to the west I saw a sight I shall never forget. Hundreds of ships of every kind were moving towards France. From our height they were only distinguishable by the white wash which churned out from their sterns. They looked as if they were strung together by some invisible chain.’ His story was more up to date than most and made the newspaper’s front page on 7 June. The young man’s name was Cornelius Ryan; the sights he witnessed that morning left such an indelible impression that they caused him to begin researching The Longest Day ten years later. If anyone was responsible for beginning the whole D- Day commemorative business, it was Ryan.Although in hindsight it appears he may well have filled in gaps from his own head, like the assault on Pointe du Hoc:
Cornelius Ryan massively overplayed the ‘wild, frenzied scene. Again and again the rockets roared, shooting the ropes and rope ladders with grapnels attached. Shells and 40mm machine- guns [sic] raked the cliff top, shaking down great chunks of earth on the Rangers. Men spurted across the narrow, cratered beach, trailing scaling ladders, ropes and hand rockets. Here and there at the cliff top Germans bobbed up, throwing down “potato masher” hand grenades or firing Schmeissers.’and took some people a bit too much at their word - I love the snarky challenge at the end of this!
Ryan found Rudder to be a very uncooperative eyewitness– he had answered only four of twenty- one enquiries on Ryan’s questionnaire with one- or two- word answers. Consequently, the author eschewed any mention of Rudder in The Longest Day or his screenplay for the film, which was shot on location. Thus, as S. L. A. Marshall was wont to do, Ryan injected his own storytelling into the history and concluded, in the manner of a Greek tragedy, that the mission ‘had been a heroic and futile effort– to silence guns which were not there. The battered bunkers atop the Pointe du Hoc were empty– the guns had never been mounted.’ This latter statement, as we have seen, is nonsense– Rudder knew the guns, temporarily relocated, might not be there.
Although someone certainly saw the maritime threat around then, it may not have been the CO of the First Battalion of the 352nd Artillerie- Regiment. This is why the story of D- Day has become a fascinating, never- ending saga. New evidence suggests that Pluskat may have misled Ryan and had actually been absent from his command post at this crucial time. It is now thought that he was succumbing to the same temptations as Generalleutnant Feuchtinger of the 21st Panzer Division and Major Hans Schmidt, commanding the troops at Bénouville– and no doubt many other Wehrmacht officers– on this most inclement of June nights. Gefreiter Heinrich ‘Hein’ Severloh would later recount that his boss, Oberleutnant Frerking ‘hadn’t been able to reach the Major at his quarters at Étréham, at battalion HQ or his command post: Pluskat was simply not there’, whereupon Severloh joked that ‘he’s probably taking the girls of the Front- Theatre back to Paris right now’. The role of German officers’ French girlfriends in winning D- Day needs further examination.
Another great post Jonny - I found the author's commentary on Cornelius Ryan and his famous book on D-Day very interesting.
Jonny wrote: "Its a good 'un all right... can't beat a bit of Richy Burton, or John Mills celluloid self getting relieved buy his real self! Ryan was of course briefly there:Another reporter assigned to accompan..."Cornelius Ryan was a magazine reporter, not a trained historian. He was after a good story more than anything else.
Brits ashore on Omaha? Surely not! And yet...At around 1730 hours arrived – far too early, but still adhering to The Timetable – the first non-American unit to land on Omaha. These were the 180 men of the Royal Air Force’s No. 15082 Ground-Controlled Interception (GCI) radar unit who were to set up their equipment on the heights between Vierville and Les Moulins. They were to work in conjunction with the Fighter Direction Tender FDT-216 off Omaha. Pushed by the current and lack of lanes through the obstacles, they appeared east of D-3, and although the draw was open, emerged from their five LCTs under fire. Totally unprepared for landing on an unsecured beach under fire, Leading Aircraftman John Cubitt recorded discussing the situation with a US liaison officer ‘kneeling by a lorry wheel for shelter. Shortly afterward I saw him slide slowly to the ground, his head bleeding on the wheel rim. He was dead. Further down the line a squadron leader was lying with his foot blown off. A flight lieutenant assisting him heard another shell, shielded him by throwing himself on top of the wounded man, and was killed by shrapnel.’and even at Pointe du Hoc:
Rapidly losing much of their towed radar array and twenty-six of their thirty-four vehicles, over the next few days they would suffer eleven men killed and thirty-seven wounded, along the way exciting much curiosity, if not hostility, on account of their RAF blue uniforms, not dissimilar to German field grey. Flight Lieutenant Efinberger reported being fired on a number of times – once losing his helmet – by US troops mistaking his unfortunate colour of clothing. This prompted many of the Brits to carry on in olive drabs, eating K-rations and bearing American weapons salvaged from the beaches. It took the RAF hierarchy many days to locate them and haul them back into the British chain of command. ‘That was a shame when it happened, I far preferred my unofficial time in the US Army,’ remembered one of the squad. In wider terms, their story was typical of the many service organisations whose arrival was not halted, and who contributed to the congestion and clutter of the beachhead for the first forty-eight hours.
Rudder had also gained three Brits. Two were the drivers of the ladder-DUKWs, members of the Royal Army Service Corps. Having tried their best with their craft – top-heavy with an extra 6,200 pounds of weight, and hard to control in the choppy waters – unbidden they abandoned their useless vehicles, picked up discarded weapons, scaled the cliffs and joined the Rangers. When ammunition was running low they went back down the cliffs under fire to recover machine-guns from their vehicles. British Private Colin E. Blackmore was wounded in the foot, but after receiving first aid returned to the fight and later rescued a badly wounded Ranger under fire. His colleague, Corporal Joseph J. Wood, similarly fought, salvaged ammunition from the beach, repaired weapons and, as Colonel Rudder’s report detailed, ‘contributed greatly to the success of the mission and reflected credit to himself and his country’. Both would receive the British Military Medal, the paperwork endorsed in person by Montgomery. The third Brit was Lieutenant Colonel Thomas ‘Big Tom’ Hoult Trevor, a commando officer of private fortune who had mentored and advised Rudder during training and had come along as an observer. ‘Six foot three with a physique to match’, the moustachioed, swashbuckling Trevor had already served with US forces in Tunisia before becoming liaison officer to the Rangers. Adopting the American habit of a steel helmet, rather than his commando green beret which would have attracted unnecessary attention, he was nevertheless shot on the beach, squarely in the forehead. American steel saved his life, for although wounded, the injury was from the metal of the helmet pushed into his skin, rather than the bullet.
‘Right here’, Rudder later remembered during a return visit to the shingle ten years later, ‘was where Trevor, who volunteered to give us a hand, was hit in his helmet and drove him to his knees. I helped him up; the blood was starting to trickle down his forehead, but he was a great big, black-haired son of a gun – one of those staunch Britishers – and he just looked up at the top of the cliffs, “The dirty *****s.”’ He would stay with Rudder for the entire Ranger mission, shepherding the command group and spotting targets, and found an underground bunker in which to set up the aid station.
Sweetwilliam wrote: "I already knew that on Omaha Beach that most of the Sherman's with their flotation devices were swamped prior to making it to shore."And to return to this one,
Armour accompanied the first-wave GIs. We have seen how the 743rd Tank Battalion decided to go all the way by LCT instead of swimming, to support the 29th Division on the western sands of Omaha. At 0530 hours, the same decision had to be made by their sister 741st Battalion, waiting 6,000 yards offshore, and preparing to swim ashore in support of the Big Red One. Knowing the scheduled launch could be overridden at the discretion of the tankers or the naval commander, the sight of four-foot-high waves – with the occasional six-foot breaker whipped up by eighteen-knot winds – caused Captain James Thornton, Jr, commanding Company ‘B’, to discuss the matter earnestly with his counterpart from Company ‘C’, Captain Charles Young, by radio. They knew the rubberised canvas of their DD rigging only provided three feet of freeboard above the sea. The pair concluded that although the waters were much rougher than any they had known during training, the need for armour on the beach justified the risk, and they decided to go.
It was a tragic error: within minutes the air-filled rubber struts were snapping and canvas screens buckling, as the waves overwhelmed tank after tank. The fully-laden Shermans plunged straight to the seabed. Company ‘B’ lost all but five – two somehow managing to swim ashore. Later, Ensign R. L. Harkey, skipper of LCT-602, would record, ‘I am not proud of the fact nor will I ever cease regretting that I did not take the tanks all the way to the beach.’ Ironically, Staff Sergeant Turner G. Sheppard, commanding one of the surviving pair which arrived on Fox Green, thought it ‘was the smoothest landing the crew had ever managed’. To his left, he could see the other surviving DD Sherman commanded by Sergeant George R. Geddes on the sand; both reckoned they survived because they had sailed small boats in peacetime. The two intrepid Company ‘B’ sergeants would receive battlefield commissions as a result of their actions on D-Day. However, every single one of Company ‘C’s sixteen tanks sank like stones between 5,000 and 1,000 yards from the surf, losing on average one crew member per tank.
All the swimming tanks had been told to aim for the prominent steeple of Colleville church. Recent analysis by divers of the sunken tanks suggests they did exactly that. However, they had set out in line abreast and converged on their landmark like the spread of a fan: this caused them to broach – meeting the full fury of the waves sideways on, parallel to the shore. Those of Company ‘C’ were also head-to-wind and battling against the current – conditions challenging enough for a sailboat, never mind ‘thirty tons of metal in a canvas bucket’. The two Company ‘B’ survivors, using their seamanship, had managed to steer direct for the surf and remain at right angles to the coast.
Accusations of stupidity or ignorance levelled at the two company commanders thus appear to be misplaced, for it was the orders handed to them – to head for the spire – that directly caused the sinkings. Having rehearsed underwater escapes, the majority of the crews bobbed up to the surface, or waited in the small orange dinghies issued to each DD tank, to be scooped up by rescue launches and taken back to southern England. The other lucky survivors were three Company ‘B’ tanks which failed to launch: a wave had sunk Second Lieutenant Patrick J. O’Shaughnessy’s DD shortly after it exited, and lashed the landing craft so severely that the remaining three collided on deck, tearing their screens.
Two excellent posts Jonny, thanks for taking the time to share those accounts. The tragedy of the DD tanks at Omaha is always sad to read about.
I agree with AR, Jonny. Very informative on the British radar unit and the story of the tanks is just tragic.
Hi, I've just read about this book Villers-Bocage Through the Lens, it seems like it's regarded as the best book about the events of 11-14 June 1944. Has anyone here read it? Is it worth buying it? thanks
Andrea wrote: "Hi, I've just read about this book Villers-Bocage Through the Lens, it seems like it's regarded as the best book about the events of 11-14 June 1944. Has anyone here read it? Is it w..."I haven't read that title but the publishers' books on Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge were excellent books!
THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP
Books mentioned in this topic
Villers-Bocage Through the Lens (other topics)Villers-Bocage Through the Lens (other topics)
Villers-Bocage Through the Lens (other topics)
Sand & Steel: A New History of D-Day (other topics)
Sand & Steel: A New History of D-Day (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Russell Miller (other topics)Russell Miller (other topics)
Paul Carell (other topics)
Craig L. Symonds (other topics)
Peter Caddick-Adams (other topics)
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Totally in the mood but in hot weather, my seasonal reading is light.
So far I wish i'd read it 10 years earlier:
Invasion - They're Coming! by Paul Carell